THE
DUMBING DOWN OF AMERICA
MichaelConnelly.Viviti.com
As I write this article the battle continues
in Wisconsin between the Republican Governor, Scott
Walker, the Republican controlled State Legislature,
and the powerful teachers unions and their allies.
At issue is the future of a state that faces a
budget shortfall of billions, yet is required by
state law to have a balanced budget.
As is the case in many states across the
nation, the financial problems are primarily due to
outlandish salaries and benefits being paid by
states to public employees, including teachers.
Legislation has been introduced in the Wisconsin
Legislature to limit the collective bargaining
rights of the Teacher Unions and force the teachers
to contribute a greater percentage to their own
pension plans and health insurance costs. The unions
are opposing this even though the contributions
would still be far below the percentages in those
areas that are paid by employees in the private
sector.
If the unions win and the law is not passed
the state will be forced to lay off thousands of
public employees including several thousand
teachers. This is another example of the union
bosses caring nothing for their members since the
leaders are only interested in maintaining their own
political power and high salaries. They are even
willing to hold the children of the state hostage
because many schools have been forced to close for
days due to the illegal absence of teachers from
their classrooms.
Unfortunately we can expect to see this
scenario played out across the country as state and
local governments seek to avoid bankruptcy, and get
the runaway public employee unions in check.
However, as critical as the economic issues are,
there is another area involving the teachers unions
that is just as important to America’s future. That
is the fact that the deliberate actions of these
unions are causing the dumbing down of America’s
children.
Every year it seems that worldwide surveys
reveal that the children in public schools in the
United States are falling further behind in math and
science abilities than their counterparts in other
countries including Korea, Taiwan, Switzerland, and
Hungary, to name a few. In many public schools
across our nation the dropout rate continues to
climb and often students that do graduate are
functioning far below desired levels when it comes
to basic skills like the ability to read and write.
In the meantime, the teachers unions continue
to steadfastly oppose basic competency requirements
for teachers. In many school districts, the union
contracts require that teachers have tenure, and it
is very difficult to fire even the most incompetent
teachers. In fact, it is often virtually impossible
to fire teachers for any reason. In New York City
for example, thousands of teachers sit comfortably
and idly at home because they have been barred from
the classroom for reasons that range from gross
incompetence to allegations of the physical and even
sexual abuse of students. Yet, these teachers
continue to receive their salaries and benefits
because of the difficulty in terminating them.
It is interesting that none of this is
occurring in parochial schools, charter schools, or
other private schools. In most of these schools
teachers are paid less, and do not receive nearly
the benefits of their public school counterparts. In
addition, if they are incompetent, they are shown
the door. Yet, these schools generally have higher
graduation rates than public schools, the students
score higher on standardized tests, and a much
larger percentage attend college. In addition, most
home schooled children also appear to be far better
educated than many public school students.
The solution to the problem is obvious. In
America we have always cherished our freedom to make
our own choices and it should be no different when
it comes to educating our own children. Over 25
years ago I served on a state government advisory
group on education in Louisiana. I proposed that the
state adopt a voucher system that would allow
parents to receive vouchers from the state that
would let them pay for the schooling that they
wanted for their children, whether public or
private. Needless to say, I was generally looked on
as a radical conservative who had lost his mind.
However, now the call for vouchers, or some similar
system, is becoming widespread.
Of course, there is very vocal opposition to
allowing parents to have a choice in educating their
children and this opposition is led by the teachers
unions and their “progressive” supporters. I have
researched this opposition movement carefully and
have come to the conclusion that the reasons behind
it are far more sinister than most Americans
realize. I will discuss this in the next post to
this blog when I talk about the main political
agenda behind the dumbing down of America.