A pair of articles about American schools reveals the chutzpah of our nation’s top education commissars. Actually, chutzpah is too polite a word. Wackiness, even scariness, seems more appropriate.

First up is an article featuring Secretary of Education Arne Duncan’s comments while he was visiting schools in Denver, Colorado. Duncan touted an idea to improve performance that he admittedly deemed unpopular: longer school days, weeks, and years.

Here’s the money quote: “I fundamentally think that our school day is too short, our school week is too short, and our school year is too short. You’re competing for jobs with kids from India and China.  I think schools should be open six, seven days a week, 11, 12 months a year.”

Are you serious, Mr. Secretary? More schooling won’t help American students if federal government policies continue to encourage the importation of IT workers from India and continue to facilitate the exportation of manufacturing jobs to China.

Also, Duncan confessed to being “heartbroken” that the Colorado Senate had the good sense to narrowly vote down a bill that would have allowed undocumented aliens to qualify for in-state tuition. Duncan has no problem with U.S. citizens having to compete with illegals who have to compete with students from India and China for an ever-shrinking pool of good-paying jobs.

See what I mean about wacky?

Second is an article reporting that 46 states (so far) are coming together to create “common reading and math standards” that will reflect “expectations set for students in countries around the world at a time of global competition.”

States would have the ‘option’ of signing on to the new standards, giving it the feel of a ‘voluntary effort.’ Hats off to Alaska, Texas, Missouri, and South Carolina, the governors of which have not yet begun drinking this batch of educational kool-aid.

According to the aforementioned secretary, “This is the beginning of a new day for education in our country.” Given the trillions of dollars we, as a nation, have spent on education over the years, you’d think we could have bought many new days already. Why do we need a new day, anyway? Why not an ‘old day,’ teaching kids what they need to know the old way and giving them time to play and time away from these educational busybodies?

Every ‘new day’ turns out worse than the last, and is always more expensive.

So, once again, the government’s solution to our education woes is more government education. (Unfortunately, too many of the poorly served populace agree.) If only the school days were longer (How’s 7 to 5 sound?), the school week longer (6 or 7 days), and the school year longer (year-round, with a two-week vacation, say), then the same government teachers, in the same government buildings, could better teach the same government curriculum?!

If government could educate children adequately, it would already be happening. Then community colleges wouldn’t have to offer so many remedial math and English classes, which are overloaded with students (at least 12-13 years deep into the government-sponsored educational muck) trying to learn to add, subtract, and read.

What’s needed is a 180-degree turnaround toward local, private education (including homeschooling), which consistently proves to be more effective and more efficient. Instead, the current administration (and state bureaucracies nationwide) is opting for more of the same model, which has already received a failing grade. Indeed, as Thomas Eddlem points out in the May 25 issue of The New American, President Obama wants to make greater federal involvement (ka-ching!) in education “one of the hallmarks of his presidency.” Obama stated: “[I]t will be the goal of this administration to ensure that every child has access to a complete and competitive education – from the day they are born to the day they begin a career.”

Phew! By then these this poor children may be too exhausted, too tired to start a career.

Is there at least one member of the ruling elite class who will step forward on this crucial issue and veer from the party line?

Just one …

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Pat Henry said:

Dumbing Down More schooling will make a less educated (but better controlled) workforce. That is a fact, because that is the design of public schools. See http://www.deliberatedumbingdown.com/ and download the free report. Charlotte Iserbyt served as Senior Policy Advisor in the Office of Educational Research and Improvement (OERI), U.S. Department of Education, during the first Reagan Administration, where she first blew the whistle on the dumbing down policies being implemented. Read this!

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June 08, 2009
Votes: +4

Pakistan said:

LWCO I am writing you from inside Pakistan. The people of Pakistan and the USA need to be friends. We are part of your world family. Pakistanis strongly admire almost everything we know about the USA including your problems. If only we could have such problems. My name is Aneel. I am 24 and my fiancé, Pawan, lives six hours away near the Swat Valley where there is all this conflict today. We are both the directors of a network of small schools with thousands of students run by young women and mothers. They learn literacy and skills. Women that were trapped in their homes out of fear make us all proud when they read poetry to their husbands and become teachers. These women are making beautiful hand embroidered flowers on patches to sell and pay for their tuition. It would be a great collaboration to send these patches to people in the USA who need work and could make something practical, like shopping bags, out of them as a sort of home business. We could help each other and share the profit. Please take a look at our website www.lwco.org and if you see some possibilities, then join hands with us, your family far away

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June 10, 2009 | url
Votes: +0

Beacon said:

	Federal Control Equals ..... ? The U. S. Constitution does NOT authorize federal involvement in education. (See Article 1, Section 8 and The 10th Amendment) It is a state, local, and individual issue in this country.
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June 10, 2009
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diverumve said:

Government run education is always wrong!!! For the record I agree with year round six day a week education for students at primary level, but i do not agree with government run education period, it is unbiblical. All education is discipleship and for christians must be explicitly christian. We should not be having to pay for an educational philosophy that we fundamentally disagree with(i.e. humanist education). also the constitution of the US does not allow for educational interference. also the government is causing the literacy rate to slip to almost nothing.

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June 10, 2009
Votes: +2

us and them said:

	... HEY TEACHER LEAVE THEM KIDS ALONE
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June 12, 2009
Votes: -1