More on public (government) education

I thoroughly enjoyed (I'm not sure if enjoyed is the right word though...) the article posted in response to my previous posting. Sadly, I could easily envision our public schools adopting the policy of "No raising your hands" because god forbid some studnets feel "invisible" or left out. Well, then those little fuckers should get their hands up! Our school system fails to recognize the fact that all people are NOT created equal. To quote one of the greatest American novels of all time: "Thomas Jefferson once said that all men are created equal...There is a tendency for certain people to use this phrase out of context, to satisfy all conditions. The most ridiculous example I can think of is that the people who run public education promote the stupid and the idle along with the industrious--because all men are created equal, educators will gravely tell you, the children left behind will suffer terrible feelings of inferiority. We know all men are not created equal in the sense some people would have us believe--some people are smarter than others, some people have more opportunity because they're born with it, some men make more money than others, some ladies make better cakes than others--some people are born gifted beyond the normal scope of most men" (Atticus Finch in To Kill A Mockingbird 205). Although this novel is taught in most likely every public high school in the country, and Atticus is commonly hailed as one of the most noble characters in all of literature, his logical statement (written by Harper Lee in 1960!) fails to go noticed by those in charge of our school systems. Rather, the trend in education these days is to minimize the number of "levels" within the school systems. In other words, all students will either be in an Honors or an Academic level class as opposed to the Honors, Academic, Standard, and Low Standard levels.

This absurdly idiotic notion stems from the idea that all students should receive the same education, thereby ensuring that "no child is left behind." Sadly, not all students have the same cognitive ability, and placing the "lower" functioning students in upper level classes is unfair to them, the upper level students, and the teachers. For a fantasitc satire of what happens when equality is forced on a society, read Vonnegut's "Harrison Bergeron." This story satirically points out how absurd it is to expect the upper level students to basically be handicapped by not allowing them to surpass their peers (see the article about not raising hands!). Furthermore, when "lower" level students are placed in more rigorous courses, 504s become typical. This means that every student in the class will come with a legal list of accomodations (see pervious posting to fully grasp the stupidity of some of these accomodations) that the teacher must make. So, the teacher now has a class of 30 students, each with a completely different capacity for learning; it then becomes the teacher's job to come up with 30 different lesson plans--one for each student, a lesson that meets each individual's needs. Ultimately, the smart kid who does the intense literary analysis and the dumb ass who draws a picture because that is all he can do both end up reciving "As" for the course. Where is the fairness in that? Do colleges or, perhaps more importantly, "real world" jobs cut down on the amount of work each individual has to complete? No! So why not prepare kids for the harsh reality of the "real world" and make them actually WORK for and EARN their grades?