February 27, 2006 10:40 AM
The dumbing down of public education
I don't know. This just seems too silly, too trivializing of two men who were great heroes of our nation. It's this kind of subtle weirdness that really reveals the agenda and bias of today's public educators. I mean, I have to wonder if they would do the same thing to Martin Luther King or Susan B. Anthony.
And you know for sure if I were to complain about this, they'd look at me like I was a nutcase. Gotta choose my battles carefully - like keeping religious pieces in the music curriculum (which is not only legal, but actually encouraged and protected - see this resource)
Before President Bush's State of the Union message, I joked with Tripp that maybe with Republicans now firmly in control of the executive and legislative branches, Bush might go all out and dismantle the Department of Education, returning the control of education to local governments and maybe even opening up education to the free market, where with competition and parental choice we would be sure to see better results (ever wonder why Catholic schools with crowded classrooms and fewer resources produce better students? And how about homeschooling, where the cost per student is in the hundreds rather than the thousands?).
Anyway, when Bush started rattling off all his education spending initiatives, Tripp just turned to me and said, "Looks like he's not going to be dismantling the DoE, honey."
In the best of all possible educational worlds, though, I'd really like to stop the devolution and dumbing down that result in this kind of output.
What do you think?
Posted in Current Affairs, Public schools | Permalink
Comments
My husband and I have been dreaming of the DOE (and the NEA while we're at it) being dismantled for ages. We're spending a fortune on a private school because the public ones here are completely useless when you have an intelligent child with a learning disability. Of course, we think they're pretty useless anyway.
Could go on and on but it's nothing you haven't heard already. *grin*
Posted by: spring | February 27, 2006 11:23 AM
I have to agree with you. In general I am not as "staunchly" conservative as I get the feeling you and your commentors are, but I absolutaly despise the DoE and have long dreamed of its removal. I am also hugely in favor of vouchers and more charter schools.
One of the things I really don't feel is benefitial to kids, and is standard now, is co-education. I know the feminists would go crazy because they would assume that the women were getting the short end of the stick but the statistics seem to indicate that it is the boys who are being short-changed by the public school curriculums.
Posted by: paigeu | February 27, 2006 12:49 PM
We are actually moving in the opposite direction. Bush has just convened a commission to discuss more monitoring and control over HIGHER ED. (Read testing for students when they leave college.) Texas is already doing this. The federal reform is being modeled after Texas. The head of this commission is the same man who headed the Texas reform. I posted this on my blog recently under the post The New 'C' in NCLB. The C stands for College. The report isn't due until August. But the conclusion is already been determined.
Watch for words in the next coming months like "crisis" in higher education. "Relevance" and "rigor" are two other words that will be continually popping up. All this is leading to a national standard and curriculum in education. Less and less parental and local control. This should make all parents who care about education shudder no matter where there children are educated.
Posted by: Spunky | February 27, 2006 5:47 PM
