We are in the midst of a week long look at our educational standards and programs….every president and politician that I can recall from the earliest days of my political meanderings has said the same thing…over and over and over…….that children are our future….that education will preserve the middle class….on and on……and what has been done with all the rhetoric? Not a damn thing! We are 25th or so in the world as far as education goes…….
So when Obama and his minions get on the tube and spout their diatribes about the need for education…they are doing NOTHING that has not been done in the past……what do they want to do? Well, as best as I can say…they want to reform the educational system in the US…..the key word there is REFORM….the word means NOTHING! We have been reforming education for decades and what has it got us? Bush did it….Clinton did it….Bush II did it….they all have done it……so far what have they accomplished? Just making the bad situation worse…..it appears that NONE of these people truly want to change the education system……
Look at the Obama initiatives…the Race To The Top…reform and it will be crapped on as soon as another prez takes over…the same with Bush’s No Child Left Behind…..crap! These programs stress retention in the children, not comprehension…and then there are the “Charter schools” that everyone in the media is so damn proud of…they are a lottery…so your child’s education is in the hands of some idiot with a bingo machine…is this what you want for your children? And each presidency has trotted out its Sec. of Education over and over and has told the American people that all would get better….guess what? It was a piece of crap 25 years ago and it is a piece of crap NOW!
People, let us be honest….if you want to make the US educational system better and I mean much better….then forget reform and look for real change…it may take a generation but it will be worth it if the children are truly the focus of this issue.
I know I have bitched a lot….but what is the answer…..IMO, Finland…they have the number one education system in the world…..
First of all, “there is a near absence of poverty,” says Julie Walker, a board member of the Partnership for 21st Century Skills. Walker visited Finland, along with Sweden and Denmark, with a delegation from the Consortium of School Networking (CoSN) in late 2007. “They have socialized medicine and much more educational funding,” she adds. For residents, school lunches are free, preschool is free, college is free. “Children come to school ready to learn. They come to school healthy. That’s not a problem the United States has solved yet.”
The second reason is all students’ fluency with languages. Most students know three languages: Finnish, Swedish, and English.“They are way ahead of the game on the language side,” says the National School Boards Association’s Ann Flynn, who made the trip with CoSN. “Nearly every student can communicate in English as well as in their native tongue.
”Although Finnish children don’t start formal schooling until the age of 7, by the end of their first year, they all know how to read and write, says Bryan Luizzi, principal of Brookfield High School in Connecticut. Luizzi visited the country this year with a Connecticut contingent from Education Connection.
The third reason is the degree of respect and trust teachers are given in Finland. Walker compared it to the status that doctors enjoy in the United States.
One of the reasons for that reverence is how hard it is to become a teacher in Finland. Only one of eight applicants to teacher education programs is accepted; each teacher has a master’s degree.
Salaries are roughly comparable, and in total Finland spends about $1,200 less per student than the United States’ $8,700 per-pupil average.
The key to the success of Finland is a long term plan….not some lame ass reform that can be overturned by the next person to sit of the WH throne…..there are NO short-term fixes for education…either you are in in it all the way or you continue the pathetic pace that the US has today. American politicians are NOT prepared to do what is necessary to make America strong…..as long as they (politicians) get their paycheck and their “donations” they are willing to screw the children out of their education…..and people ignore and continue their carelessness…and you are surprised that we are not number one……
“Education is simply the soul of a society as it passes from one generation to another.” Gilbert Chesterton
What are we leaving the next generation?
Yes. Great post and absolutely spot on!
The problem, or rather the solution, though, begins at a much deeper level.
I agree entirely that medicine should be free, as should education because it is vital to have a well educated and healthy population – BUT (there it is) the problem begins in the home – in fact it begins in the culture of the whole of the nation’s society.
We had something like the beginings of the Finnish experience in the UK and we LOST it! Our education system was good and free; our medicine was good and free; and then along came Trotskyite unions (only a few, but enough) with their class struggle rubbish, followed by the EU, political correctness and the rest and the whole f*cking thing fell apart!
People are NOT equal and NEVER will be – they can be of equal IMPORTANCE (which is something else entirely), but each of us is an individual and different from our neighbour. There are many examples (or at least there were 40-50 years ago when it all went belly up) of little Jimmy who was poor but happy and a basically decent kid if a bit of a rogue at times and he had a good chance of doing well in life and everything was fine… THEN some twat of a sociologist told him he was “deprived” and he became dispirited, uninterested in society or education, all of which he came to hate and finally after a life of crime, violence and misery for those around him, he committed suicide leaving behind a spiteful and dispirited mother of five kids, all of whom hated society and the dreadful inequalities they believed it had dumped upon them and their parents…
Finland doesn’t think like that – YET!
Thanx, my friend…I do have my moments….lol
That is the GOP’s boogey man…the unions…..it is all their fault that the ed system sucks….maybe a small degree, but here it is the government’s fault and theirs alone……one problem here in the US is that there are about 50,000 different school boards and all have a different agenda for the ed money taken in by section 16 taxes…there is NO common goal for the system other than getting omney and spending it…most times on worthless crap like some of the programs that the central government wants…none of it has anything to do with the ed of the student but rather what type of life they should be leading at any given time…..
Yes, I get what you’re saying and you’re right, but (there it is again) if the kids (and their perents) don’t WANT to learn, then whatever you do, say, or spend, it will be a waste of effort.
Good teachers and GOOD PUPILS go a long way to making a good school!!!
Oh yeah……and you are also correct….but (my turn) after decades of reform and we (my state) has one of the highest drop out rates because NO one gives a shit about their child’s ed……..good teachers….now here is a point of contention….we, the US, politicians in particular, want to blame teachers and unions……but most of the time it is the use of funds that is the real culprit…there are some shitty teachers and shit students and a ton of shitty parents…..and the massive amount of ed authorities does not help…there is no standardized courses…it is at the mercy of politicos that run for the superintendent positions that control the curricula…so what a kid learns in Mississippi is worthless in California….I think most kids want to learn and most parents could care less as long as they are out of their hair for about 8 hrs a day……another problem is that the subject matter is controlled by politicians and if they want to ignore slavery, say, then as long as they get their cash they are happy to oblige….so I lay the blame for the shitty US ed programs at the feet of politicians, not the unions that are demonized by both left and right………
So, does this mean you don’t think the American education system is as good as it might be???
OK, OK – joking aside, I accept all you’re saying, but you just described the BASIC problem in a nutshell – “shitty teachers and shit students and a ton of shitty parents”. It doesn’t matter HOW good you managed to make the rest of the system, there’s just no way to beat that rap – especially the shit students and particularly the shitty parents…
The whole culture is the problem and that is what spawns the crap system!
Yes it does…the key is trying to change the system in place and there is the rub……accumulation of wealth is more important than education…until ed becomes the #1 priority…the system will continue to suck and that will lead to a such ass country…..
Yes. So, like I said – the culture is really the root problem or the current system would never have been acceptable in the first place…
Change the culture and the education system will change with it to suit – just as people get the goverment they deserve, people also get the education and other systems they deserve. If they really DO want better, they have to demand it and set about changing it for themselves, but will they? I doubt it – they STILL think everything is someone else’s problem to solve…
I agree that the society is still not responsible for its actions…..we know that is a pile of do-do……we will always look for thew quick fix….to prove it look at our elections….
We-eell, yes – but then explain Finland…
I wish I could explain Finland…..only thing I can think of is that they have a desire for a better future…where Americans look at the next election as the answer…..
My explanation is that they are a generally a basically decent people – doesn’t make ’em perfect, but… go figure…
I am sure that little of the Finnish model woulod be acceptable in the US…..but we have to start somewhere…..
Perhaps it’s time for Americans to rethink what it is they find “acceptable” and why!!!
So true….anf that time passed many years ago…but we had rahter listen to crap and only look at it in the short term….