By: Gerald Harris
Education and teachers take a lot of criticism for the failure of students in the public schools today. The public seems to think that it is mainly teacher failure that is causing the problem and that is shown by the firing of whole groups of teachers in schools that are considered as below a specific performance level. People in Washington think that they can take control of schools at the federal level and put in the one size fits all program that they use for everything that they do. A senator, years ago, told me that to do otherwise would be to cumbersome and not feasible. That was in reference to something that placed the same rules on LaMoure, North Dakota as on New York City. Just the number of different ethnic groups in New York should have told that senator that there is no way that one size fits all and if you can't design specific legislation you probably shouldn't legislate at all.
Most teachers in the schools of this country are doing the best that they can. They do their homework, get the papers corrected, are well prepared in the classroom and in general like the students. What they have no control over is the quality of the individuals that are sent to them each year. They take what they get and do the best job they can. Some of the students coming each day didn't get a good breakfast. Some of the students were never disciplined in the home and so they are not very receptive to discipline in the school. Some students come through the school doors in the morning with little or no sleep and as a result have a very short attention span. Many students don't get a balanced diet even those that eat the school lunch every day. They don't all eat everything on their lunch tray. Some students come in having spent the night out drinking and carousing or watching television until midnight. The list goes on and on as to what the teachers face every day of the school year. I think that for the most part they do a remarkable job and are not the problem with the lack of successful education for some students.
The new education bill that the federal government is pushing will take more responsibility away from the states and give it to the federal bureaucracy. That will mean that the people paying most of the bill will have the least say in how we educate our children. We will not have any local or state control by the end of the next 50 years and education will be worse than it is presumed to be today. The new bill that is going to be enacted at the federal level will also lay the blame (we have to blame somebody) on the teachers for every failed student. It will not solve the problem that we have with student success and failure. In fact it would be a good idea for the federal government to remove itself as the final arbiter of what is a good education and turn it back to the states.
In order for education to be successful the parents and the students and state legislators need to realize that education is important and they need to learn to respect learning not think it is some kind of punishment. The general public must also come to realize that education is the most important aspect of a child's life and learning the basics of education is the most important thing a child will do and support academic education for all students.
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“Man’s happiness in life is the result of man’s own effort...” Ch’en Tu-hsiu