For a very long time I pondered how America would fall, pondering what cataclysmic event would bring her down. It was a series of disappointments (or reliefs). The Atlanta Olympics? No. Bill Clinton? No. Y2K? Ha, no. 9/11? Nope. The Great Recession? Uh-uh. While I was looking for a zombie apocalypse the end quietly snuck up on us. As Jack Perry points out, the end is not near, it is here. Turns out it was all the little things, ever creeping along, that got us. It was like in the War of the Worlds – itty-bitty microbes slowly did what bombs and guns could not in brief but intense battle.
Every facet changed degree by degree – justice, economics, culture, education – creep, creep, creep. As the decades passed the education system (public at least) declined day by day. It was dismal when I was in school (in another century). Now, it is gone, living on in name only. Year by year the names of the great end-all, be-all education programs changed too. Head Start. It never started. Horizons Something. Never got anywhere near the horizon. Common Core. The only commonality was that the core was rotten. No Child Left Behind. This one actually lived up to the name. No one child was left behind – they all stayed behind together. Now, as of December, 2015, we have Every Student Succeeds. Pub. L. 114-95 (2015). Another lie, they don’t all succeed. In fact, under the government’s system most do not and those that do, do so in spite of the programs not because of them.
Another Lie Becomes Law. http://www.ed.gov.
Like the collapse, Every Student came along quietly. I just heard of it this morning. I read a blurb in a story about the new non-white majority in the school age population. That story isn’t reassuring at all. Sixty years ago, racial discrimination aside, non white children (and all children) in America got more or less a decent, real education. It happened with smaller budgets, fewer standardized tests, no Department of Education, and no stupidly named, do nothing but waste money programs.
Every Student, like its predecessors, is based on lies and misconstrued findings. The government boasts: “For example, today, high school graduation rates are at all-time highs. Dropout rates are at historic lows. And more students are going to college than ever before.” Dropouts are down and graduations are up because standards have been dumbed down and everyone passes regardless of ability. They all get to college now but only half of them can read. This is not a success. This is delusional failure. Measured internally and ignoring illiteracy, things are fine. Measured against the rest of the world or our own history – against stark reality – things have fallen completely apart.
“We are a place that believes every child, no matter where they come from, can grow up to be anything they want… And I’m confident that if we fix No Child Left Behind, if we continue to reform American education, continue to invest in our children’s future, that’s the America we will always be.” – Hussein Obama lying to someone somewhere. Rest assured in a few years some other dipshit will be promising to “fix” Every Student. The children still won’t be reading.
More official lies: “…the bipartisan bill upholds critical protections for America’s disadvantaged students. It ensures that states and school districts will hold schools to account for the progress of all students and prescribes meaningful reforms to remedy underperformance in those schools failing to serve all students.” That was the purpose of the other failed programs. Programs and learning seem to be antonyms. Maybe we need a program banning programs.
Animal House, Universal Pictures.
Never let education get in the way of learning. Get your students, if you care for them, out of this failed and useless system. American education has become child abuse writ large. Leave the government behind and the child will go ahead and succeed.
PERRIN LOVETT 