Rick Lowe
Neal McCluskey posting at Cato @ Liberty about the new movie about education that:
"The edu-documentary Waiting for ‘Superman’ continues to generate lots of noise about fixing American education. Unfortunately, like the film itself, most of the noisemakers ultimately ignore reality: The only way to make educators truly put children first is to require that they satisfy parents — the customers — to get their money. And that can mean only one thing: transforming our education system into one in which parents control education funding and educators have to earn their business…"
Read more here…
The same applies to The Bahamas Ministry of Education that has been failing our children for generations now.
Has anyone ever considered that it is the parents that are failing their children and the failing school system as well?? Just look at the family structure in the United States and the Bahamas to find the answer..
For children to do well in school, they must have a sense of self-being and a positive attitude and values.. They must at a very early age develop a sense of being special, that they are individuals first and foremost.. If not they will have little self respect or respect for others including their classmates and teachers.. Their individualism will soon give way to a collective mentality of the gang culture.. I believe we are beginning to recognize this in what is happening in our nation’s school system today..
The governments, both in the United States and the Bahamas, continue to throw money at the system believing that money can fix anything.. The classic example of failure is the school system in Washington, D.C. where the government spends over twenty-four thousand per student.. The dropout rate is the highest in the nation and academic achievement is the lowest.. The government’s answer is spend more money and every thing will get better.. Sounds like the Bahamas as well..
What is needed to be changed is the attitude of children when they first enter the school system.. Children must be exposed to ideas that they are each special in their own right.. Positive values must be taught and a sense of individual self-esteem fostered in every student.. A sense of high self-esteem leads to a higher sense of individual self-respect and respect for others as well..
Money is not the answer.. To spend more and more money on children who have little interest in learning and self-development is a waste of money.. To turn the school system over to the student’s parents is foolhardy at best.. What perhaps is needed is a complete change in the government’s educational policies.. Schools must become the nation’s foundation for the development in our students of individual character and positive self-esteem.. Students with high levels of individual self-worth and self-esteem are the more productive students in our society.. They seldom use dangerous drugs, avoid tobacco and alcohol and early teen pregnancy.. As individuals they reject the collective mentality of the gang culture.. Hopefully government will someday recognize the problem is not an issue of money, but a problem of the negative attitude that our children developed during their first years in our failing school system.. For the sake of our children, change must be forthcoming..
Tradewinds has it right.
Parents are responsible for raising their children and that includes their education.
The decision to make the state responsble for schooling in the US goes back to 1852 in Massachusetts. By 1918 all States had compulsory schooling. In England it was introduced in 1880.
The do gooders got an early start.
There is little hope for improvement until parents take their kids back – along with the money they are forced to give for state education.
In the meantime the acceptance of the status quo is a barrier to change. The home schoolers are lighting the candles in the darkness. Voucher programs in the US offer some alternatives, but it is slow going because the Teacher’s union do not like the competition private schools offer, and they like all the benefits of a state employee.
I guess it all boils down to personal responsibility or lack thereof. Like many other things, its always somebody else’s fault, and as long as that is the approach we take, nothing will change, and quite frankly if people are not made to suffer for their actions, (in this case not being well educated) then again nothing will change.
Where there is NO political comment to education, the system can only fail.. Sadly government after government in the Bahamas only pay lip service to this growing crisis in education.. Unless we can make meaning change in the attitudes and character of the majority of our school children, they will continue down the path of personal failure..
It is up to the government to introduce at the primary school level social development programs which emphasize, recognize and reward positive character development and individual self-esteem.. Learning to do ones very best at an early age creates in an individual a sense of self-worth that will always be a motivation in later life.. Learning self-respect will lead to important social skills of respecting other values and differences of opinions.. As positive character is recognized and emphasized, individual self-esteem will develop students to seek higher level of personal achievement..
It is up to the government to implement necessary reforms in the educational system.. Such reforms will make the necessary changes in the individual development and character of our school children.. Is this easy?? The answer is no, but with full political commitment on the part of government, we can make a real difference in the attitude and character of future Bahamian generations.. The time to begin is now..