WHTT Education
A good basic education is essential for a person to fully realize the potential of natural rights of life, liberty, pursuit of happiness, and equal opportunity to achieve. The public education system in America does a commendable job of attempting to provide a suitable education for all, even though beset by many obvious problems such as insufficient resources and inadequate community support. However, many schools now look like armed battle zones in which the only important lesson is how to avoid being stabbed or shot during lunch. That problem is not limited to ghetto schools. In just the last generation, many schools have deteriorated from safe and fun learning centers into frightfully dangerous places with far too many problems with violence, drugs, crime, sex, and teenage pregnancy.
The reasons for that degeneration are the same for both the rich suburban schools and the poor ghetto schools. Those reasons are inadequate parental responsibility and forced attendance. Every school in America now has a significant number of trouble makers who are there only because they are forced to be. As a result of feeling trapped inside a school where they have no interest in learning, trouble makers do what they do best and enjoy most - they cause trouble. The almost perpetual state of chaos generated by the trouble makers disrupts teachers' efforts to teach and other students' efforts to learn. The school is forced to spend an inordinate amount of money and other valuable resources like teachers' time on usually unsuccessful attempts to control and discipline the trouble makers. Many of the very best teachers change occupations because they don't like being continually abused and surrounded by problems that can't be controlled. The schools are powerless to solve the problem because the only disciplinary tool they have is a temporary expulsion. To the trouble makers who don't want to be in school anyway, that is like threatening to give a child ice cream and candy if it doesn't clean up its room!
The source of this problem is parents who did not teach their children the proper values or respect for education. Part of parental responsibility is to motivate and encourage their children to learn and progress. Parents must also teach their young children how to mesh into society and instill in them respect for society's requirements, such as education, discipline, and cooperation with other people. These values are best taught while children are very young, by parents who are themselves motivated to have a high regard for education and the other values required for a person to fully function in society. Schools cannot substitute for insufficient parental education or motivation. Children are not as receptive or as easily motivated when they are old enough to be in school. Also, schools have limited resources which must be devoted to the primary task of providing a first class education to well motivated students. Schools do not have resources held in reserve to instill values in children that were not properly motivated by their parents. People who do not value education and who do not want to motivate their children should not be parents.
Education is a Privilege
A quality public education is a privilege which society provides at no cost to children who desire it. However, frequent troublemakers and poorly motivated children who refuse to learn are problems which the school system is not equipped to handle. Problem children such as these, and their problem parents, should be counseled in an attempt to improve the child's motivation and performance. If that fails, then the school must expel the problem child so that resources can be properly allocated to the other students who want to learn. The first expulsion could be temporary as a warning mechanism to both the child and its parents. Parents of young expelled children should be alerted to the risk that society may be forced to remove the children from the parent's custody and relocate them to a more positive home environment. Those parents would still be obligated to continue providing full financial support for the children separated from their custody. Older expelled children should be temporarily assigned to menial work to show them what life would be like without an education, and to provide the motivation those children need to complete their education. If the older child refuses to return and complete the education in a manner which respects the rights of the other children who are trying to learn, then society has an obligation to prevent that person from becoming a parent. A person who is not motivated to improve his or her own life must not have society's permission to make babies and ruin their lives.
It is worth noting that by the relatively simple process of removing trouble makers from the school environment, the school will save a substantial amount of money from reduced security requirements alone. That savings will enable the school to focus more resources onto the primary task of education. The quality of the school's education product will improve at the same time that the cost to taxpayers will decrease.
Improved Quality of Education
The public education system should focus on improving it's facilities so that the system can deliver academic excellence to all students. The schools should concentrate on teaching. The curriculum in each school should be intensified so that the skills of high school graduates will be substantially improved from current levels. It is inexcusable for high schools to graduate individuals who cannot read, write, or do simple basic mathematics. Students who have not learned enough to function in the working world should be retained in school, at their parent's additional expense, until they meet a uniformly high set of criteria so they can graduate. Troublemakers and non learners should be removed from the school environment so that all students will be sheltered from disrupting influences within the school system.
Physical education is an important aspect of the overall learning process, but actual sports competition should have a much lower priority within the school system. Sports competition should be limited to events which emphasize friendly competition based on personal self achievement and team cooperation, but which de-emphasize the concept of winners versus losers. The focus of the school system should be primarily on academic achievement, with sports playing only a minor supporting role.
All schools should follow the current practice of some by providing different curriculums for different educational needs. Gifted students should be put into an academically challenging environment. Bright students planning to go to college should have a course of instruction which provides a solid grasp of academic fundamentals. Students who do not intend to go on to college should be offered a curriculum which emphasizes the skills those students will need in the working world. All students should receive comprehensive instruction in the challenges and responsibilities that future parenthood will present.
The school system should also provide frequent counseling and motivation sessions so that all students are encouraged to progress to their maximum potential. All schools should have clearly defined minimum standards of acceptable education accomplishment. The minimum standards should be increased as needed to ensure that all graduates have a solid basic education which fully provides all fundamental requirements that the graduates will need for survival in the working world. Each student should be challenged to exceed those minimum requirements, but no student should be passed without achieving at least the minimum standards of accomplishment. It is a criminal waste of valuable education resources to graduate students who can't read or perform simple math. Schools in every community must rise to their responsibility and refuse to pass or graduate any student who does not meet at least a minimum set of uniform academic standards. Parents of under-performing students need to be counseled about the additional effort that their children require, and the entire community must stand firm against the inevitable pressures to pass or graduate students with demonstrated academic deficiencies.
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