I am so excited about an article I read today in the Denver Post of all places, and, by a lawyer, of all professions! Robert Hardaway is a professor of law at Denver University. He is the author of a book entitled America Goes To School: Law, Reform, and Crisis in Public Education.
Which country in the world would you guess consistently has the students who score highest on international tests? I'll give you some clues. Students in this country are often asked to do janitorial chores. They do not have carpets, counselors, or cafeterias in their schools. Despite the fact that they have a higher cost of living than here in America, they spend about one-third per student as we do in America. It is not unusual for them to have 40-45 students in a classroom. Their textbooks are cheap paperbacks costing less than one dollar each. Even their school libraries are poorly stocked. The answer: Japan!
Which country ranks highest in self esteem and the number of hours students spend watching t.v.? Yes, you guessed it, the United States. We come in nineteenth out of twenty countries studied in scores on international achievement tests! Spending, however, on education in the United States exceeds that of any other country on earth.
Okay now, which state has the highest scores on the SAT? I'll give you a hint. This state practices solid American values of hard work and close-knit families. They rank 27th in per-pupil expenditures. No, it is not Utah, which is dead last in per-pupil expenditures, but came in fourth on the SATs. It is Iowa!
Okay, if the problem is not lack of money, then what is it? Mr. Hardway says that the problem is that our public schools refuse to grant authority to teachers to discipline students or protect innocent students from disruptive ones! Authority? Discipline? Protecting the innocent? In the ultra liberal Denver Post? By a lawyer? What is this world coming to? Read the whole thing here.
1 comment:
Interesting statistics. Regarding Japanese students, one wonders if their culture drives a desire to excel; asian transplants seem to do
exceptionally well in the US education system also. It is true
our classroom discipline has gone downhill. Among factors, failure of parents and threat of legal action join the general feelgood
policies of the me generation for
the lack of classroom authority.
My wife, now retired, broke a thumb
breaking up a couple of kicking 4th graders years ago and thought nothing of it, just part of the job. In her last year, a student
placed on detetention cellphoned
daddy, who promptly called the school and announced he was coming with a rifle..the usual lockdown.
A niece whose life's dream to be a teacher, taught for one year and quit..it wasn't the students, she
observed, it was the parents.
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