The Problem With Education

Photo of Houston Elementary School, Mineral Wells, Texas, the the Mineral Wells Index

Today our local paper explained in great detail that the school district, or ISD as we call them here in Texas, has a big problem because my former campus has low STAAR test scores.  Humph!

The reason, in my humble opinion, that many schools have low standardized test scores is because they have standardized tests which teachers have to teach to, rather than the trained teachers teaching! Leave them alone and let them teach! The teachers have to spend so much time being accountable to the state that they are no longer accountable to the students - to teach them reading, writing, and arithmetic!

Also, I believe that because many parents and administrators do not back their teachers, but, rather, send them to many, many extra days of training to teach them how to teach what they have been teaching for low these many, the kids are permanently injured, and teachers are no longer given free rein to teach in order to benefit each child!  After all, unlike what the government thinks, all kids are NOT the same.

Further, kids are no longer expected to mind, to be quite, to listen, to participate in an orderly manner.  Teacher can no longer punish kids, or even call them down - so UNLIKE what will happen to them in the REAL world.

Finally, if prayer and God were brought back into the classroom and morality, rather than "if it feels good, do it", was the order of the day, we would have far less violence and far more learning.

If each teacher would, and was allowed, to look at each individual student and think, "what can I do to help this child be a productive adult?", whether he's the highest or lowest in the class, the world would be a far better place in which to live.

Don't blame the teachers and principals at Houston Elementary, folks, blame the administration, the state, the government!  And change it.  

Government, tear down this wall of hazards to education!  And do it quickly!