| much, if not all, of that can be attributed to what young people were taught - and are being taught - in government-run schools. No longer are young people taught to be accountable and responsible. Those two words have been stripped from society's vocabulary and the distinction between "right" and "wrong" is of the past. Could you blame them? Teachers, who already have their hands tied, are forced - at least when I was at Midlothian High School two years ago - to put at least a 50 down as a report card grade. In other words, Johnny Smith could miss a third of his classes and not turn in his work at all, but at the end of the semester, he still gets spotted a 50 on a report card. Government rewards failure, and instances like that prove it. Try being the teacher explaining to your students you have to grade it that way - "well, that's not fair," will be the main response. But how can you expect our hard-working teachers to actually teach a curriculum based on what's best for the students, as well as the parents, (both educationally and morally) when they're mandated to shove standardized tests and Scantron answer sheets down your throat? I'm sorry, but repeating the phrase, "Use a No. 2 pencil and fill in the oval" is not my idea of instructing. And as many teachers have said time and time again, it just gets old. Know what I learned (and remember) from the old Texas Assessment of Academic Skills (TAAS) test? Nothing. And if obtaining a quality education is being able to read, write, and do basic mathematical skills, then you're in for a surprise. A majority - I take that back - almost all of the students coming out of high school now (any school) probably couldn't compute a basic math problem such as 40x16 without the use of a calculator - and this is from the words of math teachers themselves! I still have to figure that problem out on paper or with a calculator (journalists have zero math skills to begin with). And in my sophomore English class, several students couldn't make out the words, "resume" and "mechanical." This is tenth grade! According to a myriad of Department of Education-funded studies, costs of education keep going up, while students' educational achievements go down. From 1960 to today, according to the federal education agency, public education dollars has risen 212 percent - without inflation adjustments. Throwing more money at education is "okay" to the education establishment though, because as long as teachers are teaching to the test like they're supposed to do, and students are making schools "Exemplary," "Recognized," or "Acceptable" by passing those tests, then nothing else matters. "I think we spent more time preparing for standardized tests so the school district could get funding than learning things that could actually prove useful," said recent Waxahachie High School student Theresa Dorlan, 17, who graduated two weeks ago. "I honestly didn't learn anything valuable from my classes. What I learned, I learned from being around other people." Dorlan, like me, feels as though high school "short-changed" her. For instance, in government, which is usually taken during a student's "blow-off" senior year, there is no solid focus on the Founders, or of the Constitutional republic. It's all historical, and nothing more. The Founders are treated as just old people; sure, we'd watch an occasional video or two about Ben Franklin, but it was mainly fluff. When I was a freshman, I had a teacher flat-out tell me,"Your Constitutional rights do not apply until you are 17." If a teacher says something like that, do you honestly believe your son or daughter will be any different? And do you honestly think they will learn anything about our Founders? Which is another topic altogether. Conforming is a big issue in public schools - if you even make an attempt to draw yourself out of "the loop," with comments, views or appearence, you're automatically held out to dry. Dorlan, the WHS grad, refers to the conforming types as "cookie-cutter" people. Individualism and independent thought in school is "against the rules" - I wasn't well established in my pro-Constitution beliefs during my four years at MHS like I am now (which is so far to the right, it's almost left), but I was outspoken and vocal about many things. Needless to say I was the only one with alternative viewpoints. "Sure, I did stuff to fit in. And I cringe looking back on it all," Dorlan said. And, of course this is not to say all of public education does not work. Self-promotion aside, I am a product of the public education system - but it's still a rare case. Journalism was the most influential of them all, followed by my accountability and responsibility-teaching business law instructor. In fact, my business law teacher would go off on some issue or example about how accountability and responsibility are the most important values needing to be stressed, but couldn't because of what we experience now (as a society and country). If he could only see me now. Basically, the only "good" thing our students are used for is to make more money. Students, city economic development officials like to brag, are great money-generators - they attract the people, which in turn attract the businesses. Tools, in other words. The solution Sex and homosexuality is glorified and stressed to be "accepted," right and wrong, as the recent case of Sammy Sosa's corked bat shows, is no longer needed. We have lost all of our basic moral fiber and basic learning skills, and the root cause is government-run education. The only way to attempt to salvage what's left of this country is for government to abandon it all together - allow schools to compete like businesses, and have them work to make education quality the goal - instead of awarding failure and engineering our students to become thought-less, politically-correct robots with silly standardized tests. The politicians have had their hands and our money in education for too long. It's time to give them a failing grade and give our students an oppurtunity at a real quality education. |
| No Such Thing as a 'Quality Education' By Joey Dauben Make no mistake about it, the quality and content of education has diminished greatly compared to that of 20, 30 years ago, and as a result, it has bankrupted our society's moral fabric. I told myself I wouldn't bring this issue up during my recent school board campaign so as to not sound like an "extremist," but this is a matter of principle, not politics. Our society has taken a nose dive in the moral department, and |
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| ------------------------------------- Joey Dauben is a 2001 graduate of Midlothian High School, and recently came up 18 votes short of winning a seat on the Midlothian school board. He is a member of the Republican Liberty Caucus and the Alliance for the Seperation of School and State. He can be reached at joeydauben@hotmail.com. |
| Joey Dauben Previous Columns • No Such Thing as a 'Quality Education' • PRISON PLANET.com • INFOWARS.com |
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