wkcs66
01-15-2004, 04:11 PM
Problems, in Public School education, are myriad. For this reason I’ll not make a long list. Any attempt to do so is fraught with danger. I’d be bound to leave out a few.
Here I will list only a few, most of us can agree on.
Lack of student respect for their teachers.
Lack of student’s willingness to learn.
Lack of parent Support, for the teachers and the school.
Lack of a good teacher education.
Before we go any further on, ( lack ofs ), let me give you a poignant illustration, in the lack of a good teacher education.
Some years ago I was involved in a reading link program, whose purpose was, to teach adults how to read. I was assigned a young guy in his late twenties.
His regular instructor was a certified school teacher, who was on vacation at the time. We met at the local library every Tuesday night for an hour or so, where he would read children’s books, to get him started. On my last visit with him, his regular instructor, who was back from her vacation, showed up also.
Because she was his regular instructor, I turned the reading session over to her. In the course of his reading, the city of Cairo came up and he wanted to know where it was.
She answered him and told him what country it was in, and for the life of me I can’t remember what country she named , but it certainly wasn’t Egypt.
I was stunned!!!
Here was this elderly teacher, who obviously had been teaching our children for many years, and she didn’t know the location, of Cairo.
I just couldn’t let this pass, so I said Cairo was in Egypt. She looked questionable at me and said “are you sure”. She seemed to accept my answer as true, and whether she looked it up later I’ll never know.
The point here is, what kind of teacher’s college education did she receive and why did it leave out geography.
There are two very important questions, that arise here.
If her teacher’ education left out geography, what other important elements were also left out?
Second, and most importantly, how could she be an effective classroom teacher, of our kids, without these important elements?
Perhaps this is why, so many, of our children don’t know, if the state of Utah is located in the western or eastern United States, let alone know where the country of Iraq might be.
I want to state here, that I’m in no way degrading this teacher. She was a nice lady, trying to do good things.
What I am degrading is her education.
You might call this an evil cycle.
Poorly educated teachers turn out poorly educated children, some of whom become teachers, who turn out more poorly educated children.
Seems like a hopeless situation.
Don’t despair, there is a simple solution.
The problem is three little words, but the solution is only one of those three little words
Before we get onto the three little words, and the one little word solution, let me offer a quote from a book written by Peter Witonski titled “What went Wrong With American Education”.
In his book Pages 182 & 183 Witonski quotes from a New York Times Magazine, Nov. 19, 1972 article titled “My Dear Students” written by Anthony Burgress.
“Inflation is at work everywhere, he concludes and it is to be noted that the Ph.D. degree has become the minimal qualification for the full-fledged university teacher. Perhaps doctoral qualifications will have to be eased, following the democratic process. We are perhaps already in danger of seeing our existing universities turn into glorified high schools and superuniversities, specializing in real further education, emerging for the benefit of an elite. In the technical field this is happening already. And, when inflation overtakes the new superuniversities, supersuperuniversities will have to be built. This can go on forever. Ultimately, the gods of learning are not mocked. The term “university” may be rich in noble connotations, but it means only what we want it to mean.”
By the way, the Witioski book was written In 1973, so you see the problem has been with us for some little time now, and still no solution.
What do you think Burgress Means by Inflation?
Of course one meaning of inflation is price increases. Burgress uses the word inflation to say you must create Superuniversities to superseed lower standard universities.
Looking at it another way, you create the superuniversities to compete with the lower standard universities. Notice the word Compete.
Now let me pose a question to you.
What kind of car would you be driving today, if there had been only one automobile company, in the world since the inception of the auto industry?
Think about it, for a few minuets.
There is not, nor has there ever been, a GM, Ford, Chrysler, BMW, Tiotia, or all the rest. There is only the mythical giant big huge enormous “AUTORON Automobile CO. Lets suppose AUTORON is the only Autombile CO. that has ever produced a car.
Again, what kind of car would you be driving today?
Would it have air conditioning?
Would it have automatic transmission?
       
Would it have electric windows and locks?
Would it have all the other modern conveniences we now take for granted, on our new cars?
The answer is a resounding no.
Ask any Russian, during the Cold War, how the car he was driving compared with what was being driven, in the West.
There was no comparison.
All it did was get you from point A to point B and sometimes it didn’t even do that. The average Russian couldn’t afford one and the few who could, had to be on a waiting list, for over a year, to buy one.
When he got his new car, many times, its windows didn’t work, its windshield wipers didn’t work, its heater didn’t work, or its motor simply would not start.
All of these, ( didn’t works ), could be directly linked to poor quality control.
You may ask, why didn’t the Russian Auto Maker improve his quality, to get rid of all these problems?
The simple answer was, he didn’t have to.
Why bother.
No one else was selling cars in the Russian Market.
To sum it all up he had no competition.
Why do we have all these modern conveniences, on our new cars?
Again, a simple answer.
We have huge, (cut throat), world wide automobile competition.
The car companies are always trying to out do one another. They know that if they can come up with a new useful gizmo their cars will, most likely, out sell all the rest, that is until their competition adopts that same gizmo.
You see competition has made the automobile the thing, of beauty, we drive today.
Because we are all very well acquainted with it, I have used the Auto Industry as an example here, but I could have used any modern industry to illustrate my point.
Can we parallel Our present Public School System, with the Russian Cold War auto industry?
You bet we can.
Does our Public School System have serious problems?
You bet.
Has our Public School System done much, of anything, in the past 30 or 40 years, to solve these serious problems?
NO. If anything, things are getting worse.
Why have these serious problems persisted for so long, without solution?
No competition.
Here come the three little words.
The three little words, lack of competition, is why the Public School System is in such bad shape.
Can we make it a thing of beauty like our present day cars?
You bet we can.
All that is needed is a good healthy dose of competition.
How about this scenario.
You have a choice of two schools to send your kids to, and you know which one is doing a better teaching job.
Which school are you going to send the kids to?
The better one, of course.
You’d be surprised how a poor school would get its act together, if it saw its very survival threatened. If it couldn’t, it would simply go out of business, to every bodies benefit, I might add.
There is an old saying, “the devil is in the details”.
You can pick one and think it through, but for this report I’ll pick a whopper.
Lets say there are two schools in your town, one public and one private. As you might expect, the private school turns out a better educated child.
Lets further assume, a light bulb goes off in Washington, and they pass laws to let you have the money to send your child to the private school, if you wish.
At the beginning of the school year, the public school quickly notices more than half its former students are now attending the private school.
Light bulbs go off at the public school.
Something has to be done, and done quickly, or the money will not be there for the next school year. The superintendent, all his bureaucracy, the principle, and all the teachers will be out of a job, come next fall.
Since it doesn’t require a brain surgeon to figure out the problem, the public school determines the private school has more educated and motivated teachers, many of whom have never set foot in a collage of education school.
It also determines, to it’s dismay, that the bureaucracy at the private school is less than half that of its own public school bureaucracy.
Tenure raisers its ugly head.
The public school superintendent knows he can’t fire any of his present teachers, unless one is cough murdering a fellow teacher, no matter how bad they are, and even if he could he would still have the teachers union, to deal with.
We all should know how this is going to end.
The public school system has become so ingrained ( set in its ways ) that it can’t change over night.
The public school superintendent throws up his hands in frustration, and the public school closes its doors.
It simply can’t compete with out changing its system, and it can’t change its system.
Many would be upset over the closing of the public school.
Maybe even you.
As a child, you went there, and its been there, for at least 50 years. Over the years, its become part, of the town, and now its gone.
Yes, it’s a sad thing, but is it a good thing.
We have to think clearly.
Logic tells us its better to have our kids attend the private school, than it is to keep open the old town fixture, of the public school.
You might think our little story ends here.
You would be wrong.
A couple of years later, a bright new bunch, of educators, comes to your town, and opens up an other private school. It turns out their new idea of teaching does make for a better educated child, and now the first private school has to change.
Since the first private school is not waited down with moribund bureaucracy, it is able to change and compete with the new private school.
Now you have the best of both worlds, two private schools in your town, each competing with the other, to produce the best educated child possible.
Boy how lucky are the kids in your town?!!!
Boy how lucky you are to be living in your town?!!!
Ladies and gentlemen there are those in Washington DC who are diametrically apposed to any type of competition, in our Public Schools.
I told you I would name names and pont fingers.
In the Senate, Ted Kennedy, Tom Daschle
If you checked, you would find that all their children have gone to, or are now attending private schools, and now all their grand children are attending private schools.
Some would call this a paradox.
I call it plain old underhanded politics.
Find out, for yourself, who these Politicians are, and let them know, in no uncertain terms, how you fell about competition, in our Public Schools.
In your research, you might find out some interesting facts. A hint, just follow the money.
Here I will list only a few, most of us can agree on.
Lack of student respect for their teachers.
Lack of student’s willingness to learn.
Lack of parent Support, for the teachers and the school.
Lack of a good teacher education.
Before we go any further on, ( lack ofs ), let me give you a poignant illustration, in the lack of a good teacher education.
Some years ago I was involved in a reading link program, whose purpose was, to teach adults how to read. I was assigned a young guy in his late twenties.
His regular instructor was a certified school teacher, who was on vacation at the time. We met at the local library every Tuesday night for an hour or so, where he would read children’s books, to get him started. On my last visit with him, his regular instructor, who was back from her vacation, showed up also.
Because she was his regular instructor, I turned the reading session over to her. In the course of his reading, the city of Cairo came up and he wanted to know where it was.
She answered him and told him what country it was in, and for the life of me I can’t remember what country she named , but it certainly wasn’t Egypt.
I was stunned!!!
Here was this elderly teacher, who obviously had been teaching our children for many years, and she didn’t know the location, of Cairo.
I just couldn’t let this pass, so I said Cairo was in Egypt. She looked questionable at me and said “are you sure”. She seemed to accept my answer as true, and whether she looked it up later I’ll never know.
The point here is, what kind of teacher’s college education did she receive and why did it leave out geography.
There are two very important questions, that arise here.
If her teacher’ education left out geography, what other important elements were also left out?
Second, and most importantly, how could she be an effective classroom teacher, of our kids, without these important elements?
Perhaps this is why, so many, of our children don’t know, if the state of Utah is located in the western or eastern United States, let alone know where the country of Iraq might be.
I want to state here, that I’m in no way degrading this teacher. She was a nice lady, trying to do good things.
What I am degrading is her education.
You might call this an evil cycle.
Poorly educated teachers turn out poorly educated children, some of whom become teachers, who turn out more poorly educated children.
Seems like a hopeless situation.
Don’t despair, there is a simple solution.
The problem is three little words, but the solution is only one of those three little words
Before we get onto the three little words, and the one little word solution, let me offer a quote from a book written by Peter Witonski titled “What went Wrong With American Education”.
In his book Pages 182 & 183 Witonski quotes from a New York Times Magazine, Nov. 19, 1972 article titled “My Dear Students” written by Anthony Burgress.
“Inflation is at work everywhere, he concludes and it is to be noted that the Ph.D. degree has become the minimal qualification for the full-fledged university teacher. Perhaps doctoral qualifications will have to be eased, following the democratic process. We are perhaps already in danger of seeing our existing universities turn into glorified high schools and superuniversities, specializing in real further education, emerging for the benefit of an elite. In the technical field this is happening already. And, when inflation overtakes the new superuniversities, supersuperuniversities will have to be built. This can go on forever. Ultimately, the gods of learning are not mocked. The term “university” may be rich in noble connotations, but it means only what we want it to mean.”
By the way, the Witioski book was written In 1973, so you see the problem has been with us for some little time now, and still no solution.
What do you think Burgress Means by Inflation?
Of course one meaning of inflation is price increases. Burgress uses the word inflation to say you must create Superuniversities to superseed lower standard universities.
Looking at it another way, you create the superuniversities to compete with the lower standard universities. Notice the word Compete.
Now let me pose a question to you.
What kind of car would you be driving today, if there had been only one automobile company, in the world since the inception of the auto industry?
Think about it, for a few minuets.
There is not, nor has there ever been, a GM, Ford, Chrysler, BMW, Tiotia, or all the rest. There is only the mythical giant big huge enormous “AUTORON Automobile CO. Lets suppose AUTORON is the only Autombile CO. that has ever produced a car.
Again, what kind of car would you be driving today?
Would it have air conditioning?
Would it have automatic transmission?
       
Would it have electric windows and locks?
Would it have all the other modern conveniences we now take for granted, on our new cars?
The answer is a resounding no.
Ask any Russian, during the Cold War, how the car he was driving compared with what was being driven, in the West.
There was no comparison.
All it did was get you from point A to point B and sometimes it didn’t even do that. The average Russian couldn’t afford one and the few who could, had to be on a waiting list, for over a year, to buy one.
When he got his new car, many times, its windows didn’t work, its windshield wipers didn’t work, its heater didn’t work, or its motor simply would not start.
All of these, ( didn’t works ), could be directly linked to poor quality control.
You may ask, why didn’t the Russian Auto Maker improve his quality, to get rid of all these problems?
The simple answer was, he didn’t have to.
Why bother.
No one else was selling cars in the Russian Market.
To sum it all up he had no competition.
Why do we have all these modern conveniences, on our new cars?
Again, a simple answer.
We have huge, (cut throat), world wide automobile competition.
The car companies are always trying to out do one another. They know that if they can come up with a new useful gizmo their cars will, most likely, out sell all the rest, that is until their competition adopts that same gizmo.
You see competition has made the automobile the thing, of beauty, we drive today.
Because we are all very well acquainted with it, I have used the Auto Industry as an example here, but I could have used any modern industry to illustrate my point.
Can we parallel Our present Public School System, with the Russian Cold War auto industry?
You bet we can.
Does our Public School System have serious problems?
You bet.
Has our Public School System done much, of anything, in the past 30 or 40 years, to solve these serious problems?
NO. If anything, things are getting worse.
Why have these serious problems persisted for so long, without solution?
No competition.
Here come the three little words.
The three little words, lack of competition, is why the Public School System is in such bad shape.
Can we make it a thing of beauty like our present day cars?
You bet we can.
All that is needed is a good healthy dose of competition.
How about this scenario.
You have a choice of two schools to send your kids to, and you know which one is doing a better teaching job.
Which school are you going to send the kids to?
The better one, of course.
You’d be surprised how a poor school would get its act together, if it saw its very survival threatened. If it couldn’t, it would simply go out of business, to every bodies benefit, I might add.
There is an old saying, “the devil is in the details”.
You can pick one and think it through, but for this report I’ll pick a whopper.
Lets say there are two schools in your town, one public and one private. As you might expect, the private school turns out a better educated child.
Lets further assume, a light bulb goes off in Washington, and they pass laws to let you have the money to send your child to the private school, if you wish.
At the beginning of the school year, the public school quickly notices more than half its former students are now attending the private school.
Light bulbs go off at the public school.
Something has to be done, and done quickly, or the money will not be there for the next school year. The superintendent, all his bureaucracy, the principle, and all the teachers will be out of a job, come next fall.
Since it doesn’t require a brain surgeon to figure out the problem, the public school determines the private school has more educated and motivated teachers, many of whom have never set foot in a collage of education school.
It also determines, to it’s dismay, that the bureaucracy at the private school is less than half that of its own public school bureaucracy.
Tenure raisers its ugly head.
The public school superintendent knows he can’t fire any of his present teachers, unless one is cough murdering a fellow teacher, no matter how bad they are, and even if he could he would still have the teachers union, to deal with.
We all should know how this is going to end.
The public school system has become so ingrained ( set in its ways ) that it can’t change over night.
The public school superintendent throws up his hands in frustration, and the public school closes its doors.
It simply can’t compete with out changing its system, and it can’t change its system.
Many would be upset over the closing of the public school.
Maybe even you.
As a child, you went there, and its been there, for at least 50 years. Over the years, its become part, of the town, and now its gone.
Yes, it’s a sad thing, but is it a good thing.
We have to think clearly.
Logic tells us its better to have our kids attend the private school, than it is to keep open the old town fixture, of the public school.
You might think our little story ends here.
You would be wrong.
A couple of years later, a bright new bunch, of educators, comes to your town, and opens up an other private school. It turns out their new idea of teaching does make for a better educated child, and now the first private school has to change.
Since the first private school is not waited down with moribund bureaucracy, it is able to change and compete with the new private school.
Now you have the best of both worlds, two private schools in your town, each competing with the other, to produce the best educated child possible.
Boy how lucky are the kids in your town?!!!
Boy how lucky you are to be living in your town?!!!
Ladies and gentlemen there are those in Washington DC who are diametrically apposed to any type of competition, in our Public Schools.
I told you I would name names and pont fingers.
In the Senate, Ted Kennedy, Tom Daschle
If you checked, you would find that all their children have gone to, or are now attending private schools, and now all their grand children are attending private schools.
Some would call this a paradox.
I call it plain old underhanded politics.
Find out, for yourself, who these Politicians are, and let them know, in no uncertain terms, how you fell about competition, in our Public Schools.
In your research, you might find out some interesting facts. A hint, just follow the money.