What does public education do? Nothing. I've been involved, either willingly or otherwise, in half a dozen educational reforms designed to fix our problems. They all fail. The solution lies outside the auspices of government and teacher unions. The responsibility for educating our young has to start with the family. It can easily blossom into private enterprise, charter schools, and school vouchers. The homeschooling industry is thriving, and so are the students educated at home.
. . .
"This continues until high school when the problem just blows up. Unless the district chooses to do what my district did: we "raised the bar." You've got to love educational jargon. We did this by:
1. Cutting out the "D" as a grade option – which merely inflated the grades.
2. Demanding that students turn in all assignments. I know: this doesn't seem out of line, but most students miss an assignment now and then, and no one could see that a do-or-die turn-in policy only erased the ability to insist on due dates. We couldn't legally fail a kid for being late on an assignment. One of my students said to me one day, "Ah, due dates, schmue dates." Kids were turning in papers months late, and we had to accept them.
3. Forcing kids into honors-level classes whether they are capable or not. And then when too many began failing, the administration demanded that teachers dumb down the curricula. Then the following year, students were assigned to the next level up, and they weren't ready to do the work, because the previous curricula had been so simplified. That was "raising the bar.". . .
