For years when it comes to public education, I have
been asking the question; how much is enough? That simple question has now
taken on a much greater meaning; while I was asking it about from the straight
forward financial perspective, with the advent of Common Core, that question
has now expand to include government control of our and our students lives.
Media mogul Glenn Beck offers up the second installment
in his Control series; Conform – Exposing the Truth About Common
Core and Public Education, which offers up a basic primer not only on the
roots and breadth of Common Core, but also spells out a broad based break down
of systemic problems with the U.S. public education system.
Naturally, because Beck is who he is, this will no
doubt engender howls of protest and name-calling, but the fact of the matter is
he does arm folks with the basic understanding they need to fight back against
Common Core before it becomes deeply engrained in the education system. While
the career path training may sound good and has certainly proven the strange
bedfellows analogy by drawing interest and support from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce
and business organizations across the U.S., the longitudinal computer tracking
of students through out there educational career and on into their career path
is downright scary.
Clearly, anyone with even a modicum of common sense
will recognize that Common Core’s twisted approach to education will do nothing
to improve outcomes and sets up the perpetual argument that the only reason why
it failed is of course, because we didn’t spend enough money! Not that it was
doomed to fail from the start.
The U.S. education system is beyond repair until we
address the systemic issues that have become deeply seated and are protected by
education fiefdoms and teachers unions. Taxpayers are saddled with too many
school districts that duplicate too many administrative functions at too great
a cost. The city that I grew up in upstate New York is divided into four
separate school districts in a relatively small geographic area. There are
500(!) school districts spread across the 67 counties that make up Pennsylvania;
that means 500 school superintendents, 500 district administrative staffs and
the high costs inherent to these systems.
Unions are designed to do two things; perpetuate unions
and protect the worst teachers, keeping them in the classroom and subjecting
students to their mediocre skills. Until we create a system that properly
measures and rewards highly skilled teachers and frees those less than stellar
teachers to pursue their true career path, we will continue to lag behind the
rest of the world in educational outcomes.
