(By
Charley Reese, published in The Orlando Sentinel on October 19, 1999)
Well,
you should never think that you've heard all of the cockamamie ideas liberals
can come up with to "fix" public education.
The
latest one is a scheme to take the best teachers out of the best schools and
put them into the worst schools. That way, this liberal genius thinks, the bad
schools will improve and the best schools will remain the best.
OK,
what's wrong with this notion?
First,
it is predicated on the assumption that the worst schools are the worst because
the teachers are bad teachers. Second, it assumes that good teachers can teach
bad students to be good students. Third, it contradicts its own assumptions, by
assuming that removing the best teachers will not affect the best schools.
For
heaven's sake, the nation's teachers can't win for losing.
You
know what's wrong with public education? Nothing. What's wrong is society. Let's
face facts. We have a materialistic and morally depraved culture. We have a
two-tier economy, with the poor getting poorer. Among poverty, ignorance and
moral depravity, many children show up for their first day at school with
scarred psyches, undeveloped intellects and often poorly nourished bodies.
And
to make matters even worse, how the schools can cope with this flood of injured
children is dictated by politicians and federal judges -- theorists dictating
this and that without an ounce of experiential knowledge of education. I'm
surprised, frankly, that there are still people willing to try to teach
children.
It's
no accident that the worst schools are in the worst neighborhoods and that the
best schools are in the best neighborhoods. Given that fact, one does not need
a high intelligence quotient to infer that the problem is not the teachers but
the students and their families.
Liberals,
however, seem to expect teachers not only to teach but to undo all the social,
emotional, psychological, intellectual and physical damage that has been done
to the child for the five years before anybody in a school ever sees him or
her. I have news for you, Mr. Liberal. The medical literature is pretty clear
that the most important years of a child's life, in terms of his or her future,
are birth to age 5.
In
other words, you can improve the schools only by getting to the parents and
children before the child ever reaches the kindergarten door. Only the parents
can salvage the child. And if they damage the child, an overworked
schoolteacher is not going to be able to salvage him, though, heaven knows,
many good teachers break their hearts trying.
Nor
is government the answer. There is no way the government can become the parent
of all children. The real solution lies with churches, synagogues and mosques.
They have a better chance of changing a parent than a social worker does.
In
the meantime, what government could do is crack down on pornographers, pass
Sunday-closing laws so parents would have at least one day with their family,
quit paying women to have illegitimate children and condition all public
assistance on marriage and the presence of a father. It should also move
quickly to remove children -- permanently -- who are abused.
And
this sleazy, greedy commercial industry that corrupts children with sex and
violence in movies and on television ought to be treated with the public
contempt it so richly deserves.
Most
of all, blame should be put where it belongs -- squarely on the parents. There
is no greater responsibility than being a parent, and it's time liberals quit
making excuses for those who shirk their responsibility.
In
the meantime, stop scapegoating teachers. It would serve the politicians right
if all the teachers in the United States walked out and said, "We quit.
Because you politicians and judges know so much about education, you do the
teaching."
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