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It is clear as day to me that our education system is in desperate need of reform. Our children are our nation's future. They deserve much better than the mess we have now. Ever since the Soviets launched Sputnik, more and more taxpayer funds have been dumped into Education from the Federal level. As the funding has increased the quality of education has gone down. Our children are continuing to lag behind the rest of the world. How long are we going to accept this? It should be clear as crystal that what we are doing isn't working but we haven't seemed to get that message. Now is the time to not only realize there is a problem but to demand positive change and reform to the current failing system. I may not be an expert or have a degree in the field of education (for I am a simple man), however I have a few ideas to improve our current plight in this area.
1. I was not old enough to vote in 1994 during the Conservative Revolution. Despite that fact I remember one of the broken promises of Newt Gingrich's Contract With America. The promise I am referring to the disbanding of the Department of Education. The DoE is a big convoluted mess that is failing us and increasing our amount of debt. It is about time to finally fulfill that promise for America.
2. With the Department of Education shuttered, I think we should focus on transferring more responsibility in educating our children to the states. Doing so would result in some good old-fashioned competition. The citizens in any given state will demand higher standards in education for their students, especially in those states that lag behind the rest. I believe that the competition will result in an increased quality of education across the board, even in the states that happen to lag behind.
3. Speaking of competition, Public schools should not be treated as the only game in town as an option for parents to have their children educated. Charter schools, private schools, and even homeschooling should have equal footing as options. Does that mean I support school vouchers? Not exactly, at least in their current state. For example, I volunteer a lot of time with the Special Needs Schools of Gwinnett, a local private school for children with special needs. The State of Georgia passed a bill last year that allowed parents of special needs children to get vouchers for their education.
While the intentions were great the system has been nothing short of a travesty. The staff is now burdened with increased red tape and paperwork for people who don't seem to care about these students at all. The state now has the ability to have their say in what is and isn't taught to the children (which will no doubt decrease the quality of education these wonderful children receive), and there is no help for parents who send their children to escape the public schools because to qualify for the voucher those students must be put back into the public school system for a certain amount of time. The vouchers have made a mess, a mess that makes you wonder why liberals aren't pushing for vouchers to increase the amount of red tape parents must go through and force Government involvement in schools that they had no access to before!
That is not to say that I am against vouchers. For a voucher system to work, reform is needed from its current form. There is do doubt that parents raise better children than Government can.Therefore every parent in America deserves the ability to choose how and where their children should be educated whether that choice is at a Public, Charter, Private, or a homeschool environment. If the parents of a child decides that the public school setting is not appropriate they should be provided with a voucher to provide for their child's education where they see fit. The voucher should have no strings attached. If a private school is selected the state should have no right to impose their will on said school.
4. Lastly I am in total and complete agreement with Governor Huckabee on the fact that there should be an increase of funds for arts and music education. If it wasn't for classes like Band, Drama and others My mind would not have been stimulated and school would have completely bored me. The more stimulation in the arts and music the better my grades were in areas like math and science because I didn't become as bored during the day. I don't have and can't give you any hard stats but I wouldn't be surprised if the same is true nationwide.
In conclusion, I feel we have a responsibility to give our children the opportunity to have the best education that we can give them. these children are our future leaders. While it is true that we are failing them right now I feel that in four steps that we can greatly improve our education system: Disbanding the Department of Education, encouraging competition between the individual states, reforming the voucher system to give parents more freedom of choice, and making sure arts and music play more of an integral part in education. I could go on forever on this and other subjects but I will hand the floor back to Governor Huckabee, our fine HuckPAC candidates, and other citizens like myself. Thank you for giving us the opportunity to participate in Vertical Day!
God Bless,
Brian Donegan
-Lawrenceville, GA
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Baldwin, Allen
07/24/2008 11:17 AM
Daren Cline, Perhaps you are a bit of a rebel among your peers. Your views certainly diverge from most government school teachers in a positive way. It mitigates my comment about supporting the status quo but doesn't negate it. Government controlled education is our problem. Government has a vested interest, we can agree on this. But it is not its job and it has proved that by its grand failure. Parents need full control wherever they want it. And when they don't want it and neglect their kids there MAY be a place for government at the local, NEVER national, level to step in. The problem will not be fixed overnight but it will reverse course and move toward a resolution.
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2Kings22-23
07/24/2008 09:37 AM
Brilliant stuff mate. Puts my humble paragraph to shame. Congrats on getting chosen, you certainly know what you are talking about!
Education, close to home. I am not quite sure whether or not I would completely obliterate the US Department of Education. I do know I would take drastic measures to remove wasteful bureaucracy (freeing up money to be spent where it’s needed), and shifting power from the disconnected, unresponsive, detached, sluggish federal government to the state, municipal, and ultimately family levels of government, who are most aware of and able to respond to the problems facing their unique communities. One size fits all systems don’t work. Schools in southern Florida do not have the same problems as schools in northern Alaska any more than schools in rural Montana share the same needs as schools in urban New York. I think ultimately the students, parents, teachers, and principles should be the ones making decisions about education. I would encourage the creation of more private and charter schools and provide vouchers so that more people can have access to them. After that it is up to the students and their parents to decide to improve their education and once again the real power is with the people.
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Darrin Cline
07/23/2008 10:51 PM
Mr. Baldwin,
I am not sure how I fall into "protecting the status quo." (My colleagues would heartily disagree with you as I am often the lone-ranger fighting for significant change in an uphill battle) In my next to last paragraph below, I specifically refer to those in the profession that do not belong in the classroom. I agree that there are many teachers who are not equipped with either the intellectual abilities and/or skills to be in the classroom or that lack the motivation, character, or high expectations to help students achieve at the highest levels. That's exactly what I was referring to when I said we have a system that protests mediocrity and is limited by the "equipment it has to work with." I meant we have schools full of teachers who are not performing as we need them to (unable or unwilling) and school systems that are structured to maintain this. Most of our schools (mine included) are controlled by those who are more interested in protecting jobs than educating students. However,to be fair, there are also many outstanding instructors in our public schools.
It also may surprise you that I support school choice, competition, and vouchers. However, I think it is an oversimplification to believe that this will result in "problem fixed." I sincerely doubt that the general public is aware of the lack of parental support (and that is an understatement) that exists in arguably a majority of homes. I was not aware of how much the American family has deteriorated until I came face to face with it when I entered the classroom after working previously as an engineer. It will a be a long process if we are ever able to reverse this decline. Even if we have a variety of schooling options, it is highly unlikely that even a majority of our students will have parents that will take the responsibility for or be equipped to help their children pursue their best educational options.
You also state that schooling is "NOT the government's job." The responsibility for education may not be expressly implied in the US Constitution, but it IS in every state constitution I am aware of - it is of the public interest that we have an educated citizenry.
As a conservative, I believe the government's role is for doing the things that the private citizenry cannot best do for itself. In the case of education, many can and should be permitted to do so, but many will not and we need to invest the resources to provide for these children.Having witnessed them firsthand for the past 15 years, I have recognized that our educational issues are complex. I believe we must take a comprehensive approach to addressing them - school competition, teacher recruiting/selection/placement and training, student and teacher accountability, awards for teacher/school performance, school size (I didn't say class size), discipline, liability reform, curriculum, standardized testing or other assessments, etc., and as a society as a whole, an evaluation of the degree to which we honestly value and model learning.
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E. Phil
07/23/2008 08:03 PM
Well said. . . I have also volunteered for 17 years to do my part to improve Public Education.
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Brian "BDBopper" Donegan
07/23/2008 05:54 PM
First of all thanks to Governor Huckabee and to HuckPAC for allowing supporters like myself to share their ideas and solutions to the critical issues of the day. I am extremely humbled to not only have mine selected but to be the very first published. I could have written on many topics especially the issue closest to my heart (the FairTax) but I wanted to broaden myself.
Thanks everyone for your comments and input (both here and on my blog). What an awesome day this is. I urge you all to continue to comment on the posts by the HuckPAC candidates, and to spread the message they are sharing with us! We need all of these candidates (and similar ones) winning this November. It is of critical importance!
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Baldwin, Allen
07/23/2008 04:51 PM
Darin Cline - I'm afraid that, as a teacher, you fall to protecting the status quo. Putting parents back in charge of the education of their children is the only answer. It is NOT the government's job. Let parents take the $$ spent on their child and spend them in ANY school they choose. The competition that Brian mentions will produce better schools for all and a lessening cost, not increasing cost. Government schools will have to get rid of the excuses-for-teachers that private schools routinely fire in order to compete. Our best and brightest will be hired and paid to satisfy demand. Problem fixed. NOT at taxpayer expense.
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Jill 4 America
07/23/2008 04:50 PM
Thanks Brian,
For your wise and thoughtful comments. I will have to digest a little more of it later.
Jill Anderson
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Altman, Stella
07/23/2008 02:33 PM
Put God back into the Education System. Set aside a period of time for the elction of either Christian (non denominatinal but Christian) devotions or reading/recreational/study. Surely all students could make one choice or the other getting parental consent if necessary. Create an enrironment that has caring, well informed, able and apt educators with wonderful character to teach "reading, writing, and arithmatic" and how to live and contribute and be a good citizen of the United States of America. This is coming from a 71 year old that remembers singing "My Country Tis of Thee" in grades 1-12 and thanking God for my lunch and in those early grades the ones of us WITH a lunch (packed from home) shared with the ones WITHOUT lunch. I understand times are different. I am still working as Human Resource Directior. However, the lessons taught back then should be taught today. I
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Darrin Cline
07/23/2008 02:20 PM
I appreciate the poster's sentiments, but as a current public school teacher, I don't see many viable solutions being offered. Although the Federal Government has established guidelines (and certain requirements for receiving Federal education funds), the states are already mostly responsible for what happens and there are wide discrepancies in standards, implementation, and funding. There is "competition" between states which affects economic development, but this does not benefit the hundreds of thousands of students which have no choice as to where they live. Charter schools, private schools, and home-schooling all can play a role, but we need to deal with the reality which is likely to continue into the foreseeable future that most American students will be educated in public schools.
I had also submitted education ideas for vertical day, so I won't detail them in case they are posted later. However, I will make a few comments. Regardless of our public perception, there is no state in the union that is educating large numbers of its young people at anywhere near the level of places such as Canada, Finland, France, or Czech Rep., let alone Korea or Singapore. We are woefully ignorant of the world around us and are not developing solid mathematical reasoning and problem-solving skills.
The original poster spoke of competition. As an illustration, picture a race between a Chevy Malibu and a Ford Taurus. The drivers will be limited by the equipment they have to work with. In education, our foreign competition is often more like a BMW. Competition can only accomplish so much if the system itself limits what can be achieved. I believe that in many ways, we need to create a brand new system.
Like other countries (who we should be competing against instead of pitting one state against another), we need to recruit teachers from only our best and brightest; teaching is one of the few degrees that even the lowest-performing secondary students can currently pursue. We need to create a pay structure that would attract those who would otherwise pursue other professions and that rewards performance and competence, not just seniority. Our current system protects and even encourages mediocrity.
We also need "growth-models of assessment" instead of a one size fits all mentality of standardized testing. If all students are expected to achieve at a certain level on a standardized test, the focus is on the masses and we fail to expect enough of our top students. We need to challenge and prepare our future leaders as well.
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Joseph
07/23/2008 01:45 PM
Excellent! I could not have said it any better myself. To me, this is just simply common sense. I can not for the life of me figure out why it is so hard for some people to get this.
One other issue I have with our school system is the fact we have no real world training unless you go to Vocational School or some form of college after high school. We should be teaching our kids about possible career paths and not just possible jobs, finances such as staying out of debt and why leasing is bad (Dave Ramsey), etc...before they leave High School.
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SharonNC
07/23/2008 12:57 PM
We have such smart, articulate people here on Huckpac. Brian thank you for your input. I would have to say the schools in NC are really good. No complaints here.
