Can We Fire The Students?
By Peter Lee
East Side Tea Party
I was at the recent education event promoting the use of vouchers in our school system where national syndicated radio host Mike Gallagher and well known political commentator Dick Morris presented arguments extolling the virtues of “school choice”.
My wife stood up and bravely identified herself as a conservative teacher and added the statement “I am AFP” to quiet the nonsensical liberal rabble that was granted entry with their grammatically incorrect signs. My wife and I are conservatives, heavily involved in the Tea Party movement, but we do not necessarily endorse the conclusions made about a national voucher system presented.
One of the most serious flaws to a Constitutional conservative is how do the same conservatives, who rightly argue against the constitutionality of the department of education; insist on another federal mandate to require an educational voucher system?
Education is a state issue and Florida already has a quasi voucher system but it needs some work. Students with disabilities can receive vouchers to go to private schools. That limited system reveals a few imperfections. The system on the surface seems to benefit a disadvantaged population but it actually does the opposite. The vouchers do not cover 100% of the cost of the private schools so parents have to pay the additional cost.
Parents also have to transport their children to school since the public school bus system is not able to accommodate the various routes. These two factors alone hinder families where both parents work, have limited transportation or those without the additional resources to pay the additional cost of tuition.
Private schools also reserve the right to reject students who apply. Student who are Emotionally or Behaviorally Disturbed (EBD), for example, are more difficult to educate and frequently a disturbance in the classroom. A private school can simply reject their admission stating that they do not have the resources to accommodate their needs or they do not have the appropriate level of knowledge to succeed in their school.
These are not options or legally permitted excuses afforded to public schools.
Public schools cannot fire a student. This is where a main difficulty with our system and the voucher conversation lies. While we agree that there is no Constitutional right to an education, we behave as if there were.
Children are falsely given an education as a right of existence on American soil. They and their parents do not earn the education they are given. Something given, over generations of time, has less and less value. While children indeed should be concerned with their own education, our society has not enforced this ideal.
We award everyone on the baseball team even if they came in last place. We prohibit educators from identifying success or failure by preventing them from divulging grades to anyone to not embarrass students. We insist on propping up the self-esteem of students who have not produced anything of value.
As we discuss creating competition for the schools, we need to discuss how to return competition to the classroom. How to we make students earn their seats? Will Americans allow public schools to fire under-performing students like the private schools do?
America’s performance ranking in math and literacy was also questioned during the event. The countries who have the highest performance on this list do not educate all of their children as we do. Many of the top countries also separate vocational students from higher education students at early ages. Only the higher education students are tested. Underperforming students are not allowed to continue in the schools. By the time students are 15, where the comparison for the statistic is made, all American taught students good, bad and mentally deficient, are compared to the best of the best of the students in other nations. Allow us to eliminate underperforming students from the equation as they do and the statistics will change dramatically.
A company hires trainers to educate their employees. If individual employees fail to grasp the training, they fire the employee, not the trainer. If all of the students graduate without the required knowledge, that might be the fault of the trainer and the trainer might be fired.
If everyone is presented with the same instruction, 50% fail and 50% succeed how can the trainer be blamed for the failing students? Is not the human resources department more to blame for hiring the deficient employees? Education is not a customer service industry. They train the American’s employees who might rise the corporate ladder to find profitable places in the company.
Parents and students have the obligation of proving that they have earned that initial employment. Teachers struggle daily with every new regulation and expectation demanded of them but they are alone in the school system and society when they make demands on their students.
Until we resolve these issues the voucher argument will remain flawed. Changing the walls around a student will not produce better students. Instead of blaming teachers, hold responsible the students and parents for their own education.
Private schools are able to force this accountability with the expulsion of students to the public schools. Public schools are legally prohibited from demanding the same accountability because America insists that all inhabitants, regardless of merit, are awarded a free education.
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Peter,
“Will Americans allow public schools to fire under-performing students like the private schools do?” That is a great question. I think they will not, but certainly society will and does when that student becomes a “worker”. Liberals are trying to change that scenario as well, but I’m betting on Mother Nature in that fight.
You bring up some very good points, probably too many and too soon for the educational system we have now. We, as tea party citizens, need (and I would say we ARE) to make changing that education system at the top of the list.
You are correct that government-operated schools cannot fire students, except for cause (suspension/expulsion).
It is also true that comparisons between schools in different countries are difficult because there is not a common standard for measurement.
Some teachers work diligently to learn and improve their “craft,” and I suppose that those teachers have a higher success ratio than those who do the minimum. Some students also work diligently, and they also tend to earn their successes. Some parents take a very active interest in their children’s educations. Because schools no longer challenge students with competition, involved parents set their own high standards to challenge their children.
When you combine dedicated, involved teachers with good students who are challenged by involved parents, the success rate rises dramatically. One of the reasons private schools tend to have a higher success rate is that they have a better chance at combining the best qualities of all three elements – parents, teachers, and students.
As a country, we need to be concerned with the academic achievement of all children, regardless of ability or motivation. Whether a child is educated at home, attends a public school, or a private school, we need to judge our education institutions in aggregate, not piecemeal.
It is the parent who must decide how a child is educated. For parents who choose not to decide, state education laws apply. Although school vouchers are not perfect, they are worthwhile because they allow private schools and parent-led home schools to ease the burden of the public school system at a very reasonable cost.
Yes, there are some parents that take responsability for their children’s education. Want to know how many? At seminole county’s highest rated middle school just over 100 total parents, representing about 70 students showed up for an open house. That is for a school with 1300 students. Blindly blaming the teachers and the schools will not fix anything until we change our communities.