R. Lee
Wrights
Contributing Editor
R. Lee Wrights is a writer and political activist living in North Carolina. He is co-founder and editor-in-chief of the free speech online magazine Liberty For All and an editor at Free-Market.Net.
Children
vs. School
Who is failing
whom?
Last year I wrote an open editorial for a local, county newspaper in which I informed the Superintendent of my 5-year-old daughter’s school system that his services were no longer required. I said it then and I’ll say it now, government today is filled with politicians that think it is their job to take care of us. Either we are too lazy to care for ourselves, or, we are too stupid to know what is best for us. No matter the reason, the majority of politicians in this country today, believe in their hearts that they must save us from ourselves. Even to the point of promoting failing children so as not to ruin their self-esteem.
This week a report from the State justified my decision to remove my child from a forever failing government school system. My home town paper reports that the State’s “Gateways” promotion standards, which are designed to test third, fifth, and eighth grade students, are largely being ignored by principals all across the state, at least at the fifth-grade level. I was appalled to learn that seventy-three percent of fifth grade students (the only students tested last year) who failed their exams were promoted anyway. In my county alone, 298 students failed the test three times and still, only 53 of these unfortunate, inadequately-educated children were held back. Why are children being robbed of a proper education?
You see, there is a “provision.” Ah yes, the all-powerful provision, better known as the exception to the rule. In this case, the “provision” allows for principals to have the final word when it comes to promotions. Now I ask you, what the hell good is the test if the decision is the principal’s anyway. Why even bother requiring these unfortunate children to take a test that means nothing since the final decision rests in the mind of one, single individual? The result of this fatally-flawed system is 245 students from my home county entered the sixth grade this year woefully under prepared. Almost two hundred and fifty children that did not learn last year, stand even a slimmer of chance of learning this year, just so principals can dress their promotion rates up to reflect success that does not actually exist. Inexcusable! We are being forced to pay for this, remember?
I say inexcusable, but of course, bureaucrats always have their reasons for doing the absurd. In this case an assistant superintendent for elementary schools told a reporter that, “Most of these students were promoted either because they won an appeal or because they met a variety of conditions that qualified them for a local waiver.” The “conditions” mentioned were appalling. For instance, if students are not at grade level, but they show a year’s worth of progress in a subject, they can be promoted. In other words, if your child enters the fifth grade reading at a third grade level, all he/she has to do in order to be promoted to the sixth grade is improve their reading skills to a fourth grade level. This allows the schools to show an inflated promotion rate while keeping a percentage of the children, and potentially all of the children, perpetually two years behind in their studies. No wonder McDonald’s has little trouble filling those vacancies.
Another “condition” the State uses is extra tutoring. If failing students (remember they are more than likely already two years behind) participate in extra tutoring, and, score within a range “very close to passing,” they can be promoted. Again we see how the bureaucrats work the system to make it appear they are serving our children well. In reality, government schools are failing our children by promoting them with little regard for standards and no concern for their future. Education has become another governmental bureaucracy that perpetuates itself by falsely-inflating its success rate at the expense of innocent children. But, they are keeping the fast-food industry stocked with a teaming work force, don’t forget.
Is your child getting a proper education? How would you know if they were not adequately schooled? Can you trust a system that ignores skill level in favor of simple, if only meager, progress? The children of this country suffer and your own tax dollars pay for the instrument of their affliction. Do as I did. Take back responsibility for your children’s future. Do not leave their fate in the hands of a beastly bureaucracy that does such a poor job of educating young minds. These minds are too precious to be trusted to administrators that are more interested in graduation rates than they are educating the future leaders of our communities. Enough is enough, give your children a decent shot at success by taking control of their education. Love them enough to ensure not only that they do not fail in school; but moreover, that the school does not fail them.
