Free Education for Whom?

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By  Christian Ruben  on   Dec, 13 2011
If the rich get richer because they rely on the poor, is it accurate to say the rich will soon hire brainless employees because our public school system doesn’t offer the right education during the elemental years? Plus, with the decline of teaching jobs, are all of the good professors hired or looking for jobs?toeducate v2
 
An understanding of “freedom of education” is equivalent to the American understanding of the freedoms of religion, speech, press, and assembly according to our First Amendment in the U.S Constitution. If freedom of religion does not mean a “right” to enforced attendance at State-regulated churches where ministers preach a government-approved system of belief, and freedom of assembly doesn’t mean the “right” to enforced attendance at State-run rallies where officials treat us to government-approved speeches, then why would we use the term “freedom of education” to refer to compulsory attendance at State-run schools?

Freedom of education is not education that is controlled or delivered by the State, any more than freedom of speech is speech that is controlled or delivered by the State. Nor is it found in the “right” to attend State-recognized, State-regulated, privately-funded schools in lieu of State schools. And freedom of education is certainly not what is exercised when parents jump through hoops to gain legal authority to provide non-institutionalized (home schooling, family-based learning, etc.) options for their children. If it’s supposed to mean anything at all, “freedom of education” can only refer to education that is free from government establishment, oversight, restriction, registration, assessment, standards, compulsion, and funding.

Thomas Jefferson is hailed to this day as the founder of America’s whole tradition of public education. But his formal schooling is actually an extreme example of the creative power of tutorial learning by observing and doing, dialogue, and above all of self-education. Virginians of his time were predominantly frontiersmen who learned few if any reading and writing skills because they did not need them and were fully engaged from dawn to dusk earning a living. But almost all of those who got ahead enough to have some leisure time quickly learned and encouraged their children to learn far more.

Being the son of a well-off planter, Jefferson spent several years in typical one-room local grammar and classical schools. His first school teacher, William Douglas, actually did little to help him learn, but his second, the Reverend James Maury, made a lasting impression on him. As was common at the time, Jefferson boarded with Maury’s family, so his education was one of total immersion. His class at the one-room school included four other boys, so learning was by the ancient tutorial. He proceeded entirely at his own pace and learned to read classical Greek and Latin works in the original in only two years.

Last year in April, Mark Woods from The Times Union in Jacksonville wrote the following: A fifth-grade teacher goes to a meeting at his school where teachers and administrators talk about preparing for the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test. He takes what he says was discussed at that meeting, including specific FCAT questions, and passes it along in an email to a fourth-grade teacher at another school. He writes that his school is preparing students for the test by having them work on similar questions. He asks if the other teacher would like him to send some copies through school mail. He could be fired and lose his teaching certificate. What’s wrong with this picture? The idea that teachers and administrators were attempting to do that at Neptune Beach Elementary doesn’t make the school different from others in the state. Everyone is playing the testing game, holding prep meetings, trying to develop everyday tasks that will prepare students for The Test.

Are you starting to get a clear picture of my message? Our nation offers free education from government, oversight, and funding while our nation’s public school systems provides a dose of standardized test obsession and preparation. These schools believe your child would be lucky to catch this obsessive mania, but I say it can be deadly. If you have read the paper recently or even paid some attention to our newscasters while channel surfing, you would understand that the bulk of our nation’s public school systems are filled with many teachers interested in having their student’s pass tests; and become teachers in the first place for benefits and summers off. I wonder; do they get bonuses if their student’s scholastic and standardized test scores are higher than the neighboring schools?

Teachers that were born to teach are enrolled in schools that offer the best education to students, of course, these schools, majority being private, are located in the best neighborhoods where the affluent reside. One-on-one teaching is enforced, wisdom is appreciated, and most importantly they apply wisdom and don’t have to cram for standardized tests. Basically, they have the right to pave their paths with their brains. Contrary to what is offered to the low and middle income sectors.

A typical day in a “rough” school begins with police arriving in attempts to stop an out-of-control fight amongst young girls. When the bells rings, students run into classrooms and are not greeted by their professor because he or she is still writing emails on the school’s in-room PC. They announce a test for next week and provide the questions and answers to the test and ask their students to memorize the questions and answers so they are prepared for their exam. Now, who is supposed to learn in these conditions and environment?

My major point? If the rich employ middle and low-income people, what benefit are these business owners gaining if the education of their staff is a byproduct of teachers who don’t care and school systems that are simply obsessed with having students pass tests? Will there be a flood of wealthy people willing to “cover the phones and cash registers?”
 
Who is responsible to educate all class sectors with the highest level of passion and dedication within the most vital years of a person’s life? And now, even more of worse cases, cerebral professors with a taste for excellence who can make a difference, are out of jobs and in the unemployment lines due to budget cuts and school closures.

Many opinions say that government support of education seems to lead to bad consequences because they run the significant risk of supporting a bad system of education. True education requires above all else personal initiative and commitment, and government schooling tends to deaden personal commitment by depriving people of the responsibility of providing for their own education. Education of children tends to fall on the shoulders of people without the proper incentives or requisite knowledge to do the job well done—why should we allow politicians to take charge when they sometimes find it hard to even control their own political parties?

A common complaint of parents involved in the operations of the public school their children attend is that disappointingly few other parents are similarly involved. Low parental involvement in public education is a chronic problem. Why are so few parents involved? One explanation is that when the government takes on the responsibility of providing for the education of children, parents stop concerning themselves with it. The present system of government schooling—with its necessary monetary support by taxation, its required attendance and curriculum—attempts to control almost every aspect over which parents themselves might otherwise have had control.
 
Parents do not decide on their own how much they are willing to pay or to whom, whether their children should or should not continue to attend school, or what the curriculum is. Even if they send their children to private schools, they must continue to pay for the government schools, and in most states private schools either receive government support, which entails various restrictions, or are otherwise regulated by the state in such matters as attendance and curriculum. In view of the limited scope for parental responsibility, it is not surprising that parents tend to dissociate themselves from what they might otherwise treat as a matter deserving great personal attention and commitment.

Americans across the political spectrum see the failure of the government school system in teaching the basics, such as reading, writing, math, science, and history. No matter how many tax dollars have been spent or reform proposals implemented, the performance of public-school students continues unabated. The fundamental role of public schooling is not to teach the basics but instead to instill obedience to the government’s authority.

Again, I bring up my major concern: What will happen if companies are led to hire stupid blue-collar workers because their primal education was not equivalent to those from better neighborhoods?
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