I think we should phase out the US Department of Education. Take the 2010 level of funding and give it to the states based upon population. Lower the funding by 10% per year until eliminated. Require all states to allow private charter schools and give individuals and business incentives to assist in funding. Provide vouchers to students to attend non-religious schools instead of public schools. Religion based charter schools would receive no public funding.
I previously worked for a small manufacturing company located in rural Florida. We made all potential employees take a short 13-question test that they had to pass before we would let them fill out an application. The test was very simple and it should have been a "no-brainer" for any high school graduate. We had several versions and they were geared toward the position being applied for. One of the versions for the actual manufacturing area contained the following questions:
1) What is 10% of 240?
2) If a shipping case has 3 layers and each layer holds 6 bottles per row and there are 4 rows, how many bottles are in the case?
3) At what temperature does water boil?
4) Who is the Vice President of the United States?
5) What general direction is Los Angeles from here?
6) What is 324 x 629?
7) Please add 657+124+345+212+197=?
8) What is 1900/40?
9) How many fluid ounces are in a gallon?
10) How many ounces are in a pound?
11) To close (turn off) a valve, do you usually turn it clockwise or counterclockwise?
12) What state is the big city of Milwaukee located in?
13) Do you smoke?
To pass, the applicant had to get 10 of the 13 correct, however, missing question #1 or answering "yes" to #13 were automatic fails for the entire test. Applicants were not allowed to use a calculator or have anyone else present while they took the test. They were told to do the mathematical calculations in the margins. Should be an easy test right? Well approximately 70% failed the test. In a year's time only two applicants scored 100%. One was 63 years old and the other had been home-schooled his entire life.
We had high school seniors about ready to graduate take the test and fail it. The questions were mixed up quite often in case someone obtained a copy, but the questions were similar. Many times applicants would look at the test then hand it back and walk out. I once sent a version of the test to the local State of Florida Workforce Board so they could prescreen referrals and they called and asked me to send them the answers...I was beyond incredulous! I also showed a copy of a test to a local school board member and suggested they needed to do something.
My point of all this is to illustrate a small example of how our schools are turning out morons. But examples are not hard to find. George Carlin once asked "have you noticed how many really stupid people there are? And half of them are even more stupid!" It is scary how stupid people are and it seems to be getting worse. Us baby-boomers didn't have computers when we went to school so we invented them and put a man on the moon. We learned everything from books, our teachers and our parents. What happened?
Now you take a hard look at education and you see things like the Texas Board of Education being more concerned about the religious slant of the textbooks than they are about the quality of the basics...math, English, science and undistorted history. Teach religion in the churches! That's what they did when I was a kid. And the Left is just as bad trying to get schools preaching things like social justice and equality along with socialism.
Parents should have a say in local school curriculums. They should have the collective ability to close under-performing schools and fire teachers that don't teach. High school students with no college aptitude should be sent to modern trade schools and taught skills so they can earn a living upon graduation.
We need to address education soon before we become a third-world country. For more on this visit my blog at http://www.middlebuzz.com
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