Woodlawn HS, Baltimore County
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Obama on Education Reform: Would Get Rid Of Summer Vacation
As a stooge of the teachers’ unions, Barack Obama just doesn’t get it. The problem with education isn’t that students need MORE schooling; they need better schooling. Subjecting students to MORE of a failing curriculum accomplishes nothing. Surely, in Obama-Nation, every additional moment students can be torn away from the corrupting influence of their parents and subjected to the Liberal brainwashing of public education, the better. Sing it kids, “Mmm, mmm, mm, Barack Hussein Obama!”
Growth and maturation requires far more than time spent in school for kids. Time to dream, time to fool around, time to just be kids are all necessary ingredients to becoming a well-rounded adult. Besides that, there are many alternative activities which help kids grow in other ways whether its summer camp, swimming teams, volunteer work (supposedly an Obama cause), helping out around the house, or for older kids, taking a job. What is more one dimensional and sterile than what public schools have become today?
The answer to school reform is busting the virtual monopoly state schools have and provide parents with good options for their kids. Schools need to have rigorous, challenging curriculum using time proven methods that get results. All too often, modern public schools allow students to become lab rats in social engineering experiments where some scholar at some elitist university attempts to reinvent the wheel with methods that just don’t work. Case in point, “language immersion” instruction to teach reading, this method assumes kids just naturally want to read and by giving kids lots of different opportunities to read, they will do so. The time proven method that works for most kids is the Phonics approach. However, schools need to be pupil-focused and observant of each kid’s learning style and not just assuming kids who don’t respond well to the program have some kind of ADD issue and need medication. For kids who don’t learn using phonics, tutor them with something else!
Schools need more play time, more special subjects, more time to reach kids on various levels to give them something where they can excel and feel a sense of purpose in school. Again, this is a matter of BETTER not MORE. Art, music, and physical education contribute to the child’s development every bit as much as math, English, and science. Of course, whatever happened to social studies? American History no longer shows our country for all the good it has done. Sometimes even the timeline is abandoned. History is now the tale of victimology and the horrible crimes American society has inflicted on the world. You can bet industrialism focuses on the abuses not the contributions. Think about this. Would you trust your public school to teach your kids about the legal process and The Constitution? Would you trust a liberal school system to be able to explain the importance of the second amendment?
No Child Left Behind enacted under President Bush’s administration at least provided the framework from which schools can improve. Finally, failure had consequences. Unfortunately, state and local boards of education became intent on demonstrating why it can’t work rather than accepting the challenge of making it work. In paranoiac reaction to testing requirements, students were loaded with much more time devoted to reading and math instruction at the expense of the activities that just might make a kid want to go to school, but MORE of a failing program is not BETTER, it’s just MORE.
Education secretary, Anne Duncan argues, "Our school calendar is based upon the agrarian economy and not too many of our kids are working the fields today." Well, there are a lot of things about public education that are based on archaic principles too many to address here.
They clearly don’t understand families. How would families enjoy vacation time in year round schools? Surely, family bonding and some of the places and experiences kids enjoy are important parts of growing up too.
One thing is for certain, public education is failing miserably, but as long as kids “get by” parents aren’t likely to be outraged unless some explosive incident draws them into their local schools where they’d typically get the public relations nonsense teachers and administrators recite with zombie like precision.
More opportunities to send kids to private school, alternative programs, charter schools, and even to support home schooling where parents are up to the challenge need to be explored. Conventional public education needs reform from the bottom up not from Washington down. Communities need to chart the path of their schools and have more decision-making in what their kids learn and when.
No one understands better than the radical movement how schools can be used as tools of indoctrination to transform society. While schools in theory remain in local control, state boards of education have taken away so much local autonomy. The one constant nationwide to which school systems must respond are the teachers’ unions, mostly NEA affiliates except for in urban systems where the AFT prevails. Collectively, they are two of the most consistent financial supporters of the Democratic Party and fight meaningful reform on every level. If it’s good for gaining members and pulling more money into union bank accounts, it’s reform. If it is empowering parents and communities, is reactionary yokel thinking. Communities vary from coast-to-coast, but the one constant exerting heavy-handed influence to the same radical ends is the teacher’s union.
Few appreciate the union label in education more than Barack Obama.
As a stooge of the teachers’ unions, Barack Obama just doesn’t get it. The problem with education isn’t that students need MORE schooling; they need better schooling. Subjecting students to MORE of a failing curriculum accomplishes nothing. Surely, in Obama-Nation, every additional moment students can be torn away from the corrupting influence of their parents and subjected to the Liberal brainwashing of public education, the better. Sing it kids, “Mmm, mmm, mm, Barack Hussein Obama!”
Growth and maturation requires far more than time spent in school for kids. Time to dream, time to fool around, time to just be kids are all necessary ingredients to becoming a well-rounded adult. Besides that, there are many alternative activities which help kids grow in other ways whether its summer camp, swimming teams, volunteer work (supposedly an Obama cause), helping out around the house, or for older kids, taking a job. What is more one dimensional and sterile than what public schools have become today?
The answer to school reform is busting the virtual monopoly state schools have and provide parents with good options for their kids. Schools need to have rigorous, challenging curriculum using time proven methods that get results. All too often, modern public schools allow students to become lab rats in social engineering experiments where some scholar at some elitist university attempts to reinvent the wheel with methods that just don’t work. Case in point, “language immersion” instruction to teach reading, this method assumes kids just naturally want to read and by giving kids lots of different opportunities to read, they will do so. The time proven method that works for most kids is the Phonics approach. However, schools need to be pupil-focused and observant of each kid’s learning style and not just assuming kids who don’t respond well to the program have some kind of ADD issue and need medication. For kids who don’t learn using phonics, tutor them with something else!
Schools need more play time, more special subjects, more time to reach kids on various levels to give them something where they can excel and feel a sense of purpose in school. Again, this is a matter of BETTER not MORE. Art, music, and physical education contribute to the child’s development every bit as much as math, English, and science. Of course, whatever happened to social studies? American History no longer shows our country for all the good it has done. Sometimes even the timeline is abandoned. History is now the tale of victimology and the horrible crimes American society has inflicted on the world. You can bet industrialism focuses on the abuses not the contributions. Think about this. Would you trust your public school to teach your kids about the legal process and The Constitution? Would you trust a liberal school system to be able to explain the importance of the second amendment?
No Child Left Behind enacted under President Bush’s administration at least provided the framework from which schools can improve. Finally, failure had consequences. Unfortunately, state and local boards of education became intent on demonstrating why it can’t work rather than accepting the challenge of making it work. In paranoiac reaction to testing requirements, students were loaded with much more time devoted to reading and math instruction at the expense of the activities that just might make a kid want to go to school, but MORE of a failing program is not BETTER, it’s just MORE.
Education secretary, Anne Duncan argues, "Our school calendar is based upon the agrarian economy and not too many of our kids are working the fields today." Well, there are a lot of things about public education that are based on archaic principles too many to address here.
They clearly don’t understand families. How would families enjoy vacation time in year round schools? Surely, family bonding and some of the places and experiences kids enjoy are important parts of growing up too.
One thing is for certain, public education is failing miserably, but as long as kids “get by” parents aren’t likely to be outraged unless some explosive incident draws them into their local schools where they’d typically get the public relations nonsense teachers and administrators recite with zombie like precision.
More opportunities to send kids to private school, alternative programs, charter schools, and even to support home schooling where parents are up to the challenge need to be explored. Conventional public education needs reform from the bottom up not from Washington down. Communities need to chart the path of their schools and have more decision-making in what their kids learn and when.
No one understands better than the radical movement how schools can be used as tools of indoctrination to transform society. While schools in theory remain in local control, state boards of education have taken away so much local autonomy. The one constant nationwide to which school systems must respond are the teachers’ unions, mostly NEA affiliates except for in urban systems where the AFT prevails. Collectively, they are two of the most consistent financial supporters of the Democratic Party and fight meaningful reform on every level. If it’s good for gaining members and pulling more money into union bank accounts, it’s reform. If it is empowering parents and communities, is reactionary yokel thinking. Communities vary from coast-to-coast, but the one constant exerting heavy-handed influence to the same radical ends is the teacher’s union.
Few appreciate the union label in education more than Barack Obama.
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