E is Education

Before everyone jumps up and down, hear me out.

Education was not broken before George Dubya accepted fistfuls of cash to start the No Child Left Behind Act. An unpopular puppet of the Far Right, he needed someone in  the nation to listen to him.

He later would try to invade the wrong country. Yet, somehow, we let him make some major decisions about education.

Ironic given that he failed out several schools or just passed.

Education was in a sorry state, but it was not broken. Take a look at it. Education, when it became compulsory, needed teachers. We’re talking the dawn of time here, people. And it needed caring people. Prior to that point, it was the few educated men in the nation who would teach in the one room school houses, for those kids who couldn’t be made useful in the fields. This made sense for the time. Then unions came around, and, because they’re awesome, asked that companies stop looking that their bottom lines and stop employing children. Corporate America shivered and was pissed. These kids, now, needed to be part of the new workforce. They needed basic skills. And American education was born. Those kids could learn to read and write and do math-and really help business and economy thrive. Made sense. Worked over in Europe. So we followed the Eastern European model and things got underway.

Women. We needed teachers and there was this vast untapped workforce during those times after the Civil War. Women started to also retrieve higher degrees of all subjects and could become teachers. And it was awesome. They now had viable income and could support the family by going with children to their schools.

Understand, I’m not trying to make sexist comments. These are the broad strokes of history being painted for you, so I can make a point. Woman have run education. To this day, it has been one of the few places where women have made the wonderful strides in equality. Kids were being educated by women and seeing them as leaders and the power of such perception will march onwards. They were principals. They were the teachers. They were the aides.

And, because of the idiot men who run this country, the culture still saw them as second class. The glass ceiling still applied to those female teachers and their budgets. Even the men who got into teaching. Nope. Teachers were paid squat, because, in the eyes of the culture, they were the wives of men who had jobs. In many regions, the concept of a ‘living wage,’ is not even a teacher’s pay.

Then? Everyone turns and says education is a mess. The culture has done little to support it. And, since everyone has gone through some school and pretty much rejected it (if they didn’t, yahoos like Trump wouldn’t even be considered to be president) and then started nodding that education was rotten.

Literally, out of nowhere. Reading scores? Fifth highest in the WORLD. However, yes, kids scored lower than other counties on the other counts. And the gap was widening.

Because, as we know, America isn’t too keen on change. When farming became an industry? And students didn’t need to stay home over the summer? Did they go to year round? Nope. Why? Not really sure. When the rest of the world lengthed their school year, week, and day, to encompass all the more information in the world? Nope.

And politics would then blame the usual suspects. Unions. Bad teachers they can’t fire. And to fix it?

They recommended testing.

Testing.

Huh?

Not only testing, but compulsory, 5 weeks worth of testing. No longer school year. No knowledge of what is on the test. The argument, Dubya put forth, was that they could see what the kids were doing wrong and we could fix it. Now, there are THOUSANDS of tests out there. But the lobbying for these tests came from a group called Pearson.

Yeap, a publishing corp. Now their tests were required, annually, and they had to print and support ALL of the tests.

And teachers, reeling, had to comply.

Or be fired.

The humor of this, of course, is evident.

They don’t care about education.

They care about money. Follow the money. In fact, it’s now down to a poorly written, unresearched curriculum. So now? Teachers can’t adapt for their own microcosm of a classroom. They have to use the words the print provides.

The money comes from the districts to the publisher and the government. And then the government can fire teachers, since the kids are failing. Failing a test no one has seen and no one actually sees results for. Tests that aren’t normed: as in, a fourth grader should have a basic dolch vocabulary of X amount of words.

None are included on the exam.

Instead, the test is written on a fifth grade level.

‘Cause that’s where they can fail.

And no one is saying A THING.

It’s frustrating.

It can be fixed. The drawback of that is...we need some cultural changes.

*)  Attract people (of either gender), with a basic living wage that is supported by the averages of the community they live in or move to.  Now, here’s the tidbit. You’ll attract teachers to better paying areas. A teacher who might be willing to drive to Orlando from the farms to get better pay. That happens with any job and shouldn’t necessarily be put down.

*)  Administrators and board members shouldn’t get more that five times the teachers they work with. Why? That way, if they want to raise their pay scales, they have to do the same of those they work with!

*)  Do not base teacher pay on poor tests.

*)  Use normative tests like the IOWA Basic and give them yearly. Yes, you heard me. Get a record of how students are doing. That part is totally okay. But don't start from scratch. Don't make it auditory. Don't put in movies. Make it plain old reading, carrying vocabulary from the level of the student, the length of the student's attention span. Not three pages of reading. One.

*)  In this immediate reward world, the rhetoric needs to change. When a student forgets their homework at home, it’s late. Don’t run it in to them. They suffer those consequences. WHen a student is failing, the question isn’t to the teacher as in why--ask the student. Let’s make Americans responsible again. Then ask the teacher, “what can we do, together?”

*)  WHen a student fails, have consequences. No extra credit.  If they fail the test? No worries. If it’s being used to diagnose ability level, failure is always an option. But it shouldn’t be punitive.

*)  Start to encourage schools to employ multiple intelligences. Arts, math, sciences, more arts and such should be made good again. People, as usual, yell at school for not having these things any more, but, since they have to pay money in a district to buy tests, guess what gets cut? Encourage performing arts schools.

*)  No vouchers. No government money to private schools that pick and choose their populace. I do not want my taxes going to faith based programs that I do not wholly approve of.

*)  Keep open Deaf schools.

*)  Encourage huge lunch programs. Make only good food, even the bad food. A nation marches on its stomach.

That’s just my view.