On Education
While waiting in a car line at a school for my daughter, I noticed a bumper sticker. It read, “We know we have arrived when Public Education is fully funded and the Air Force holds bake sales to buy a new bomber.” I ask you to think about that sentiment. Good morning/afternoon. I am Steve Blair, here on behalf of Tom Love today, who is running for the United States Congress, District 24. Tom is a personal friend of mine of several years, and education is a topic near and dear to both of us. His mother was a teacher and I was a teacher. You might say teaching flows through our veins.
Today, about 25% of every dollar spent at the local levels for education comes from the Federal Government. With a war that drags on into the future in Iraq and elsewhere, those dollars are likely to continue to decrease annually. That point is important since also State funds are also decreasing at an alarming rate. More lay offs of teachers, more cut backs of various academic curriculum, more staff reductions are a certainty if present trends continue. Worse yet, for teachers in Texas in particular, there is not a clear path to full Social Security benefits after the pillaging of the Teacher retirement funds. Those years that current teachers worked, and saved toward their retirement, have been erased.
I’m not telling you nothing you do not already know. But I want to emphasize, that Tom Love is aware of the problem. How do I know that for certain? We have discussed it on several occasions. As I said, teaching flows through our veins. I am a published poet and I am a stutterer. I taught myself to read when I was in the eight grade because no one thought I could learn how to read or write -- and I was hungry to learn. That was back then and this is right now. Today we are faced with rising drop out rates.
In Arlington, where I call home, we lose about 50% of all Hispanic students between Kindergarten and the Twelfth Grade. Think of what a waste that denotes. Today, under No Child Left Behind, we test students to how well they perform on one single standardized test. We do not test what they learned or what they might learn. We test on how well they perform on a single test. And then the Federal funds are increased or reduced upon that aggregate result. This reduces students to nothing more than rats in a Skinnerian box. You know.
Bar press appropriately, and you will be rewarded. But No Child Left Behind also punishes those students or rats who cannot or will not hit that bar appropriately. Then it also punishes those teachers who failed to achieve the required results -- all on that one single test. Under those circumstances, Albert Einstein, who failed Algebra, would have been cast aside. We need to fully fund academic curriculum that exalts the individual rather than punishes individuality. As teachers, you know every student is unique. Some excel in English while others excel in Art. Some excel in History while others excel in Sports.
The point is simple. If we want students to graduate from High School, we have to have those courses, and those qualified teachers, that excite the imaginations of the students.I defy anyone to come up with a single standardized test that shows that. We need to appreciate the uniqueness of individuals, rather than try to transform everyone -- teacher and student -- into some an automatic response upon command. People, individuals, make strides forward. Not automatons. Teachers, too, should be considered treasures. In the eight grade a teacher gave my class an assignment. We were to rewrite the ending of a short story. Every student in my class cut the last two pages and wrote a single paragraph or two. I wrote over 10 pages. Why? I wanted to write something else happening to the characters. Miss Frye, my teacher, pulled me aside and told me how much she appreciated my story’s ending. Then she encouraged me to keep on writing.
Imagine for a moment, a kid who had been told for several years he would be passed on even though he could not read or write because he stuttered. God bless that lady. She was the pearl of great value for me. And God bless those other teachers who take the time and effort to encourage their students. Today, teachers are the worst compensated professionals in the work force. No true accounting for their formal education nor for their experience is considered. Instead, we have a check list upon which salary increases are based.
If the teacher fits an area that Austin or Washington deems significant today, and if that teacher’s students score well upon a standardized test, then that teacher MIGHT be rewarded -- if funds remain. And when that teacher retires, well . . . . No other profession has suffered more, perhaps, than education. Yet education is the basis of our future.
No other test of a society’s values might be conceived than how teachers and education are treated. Do we value an Air Force Bomber or do we value the mind of a child? That is why that bumper sticker meant so much to me. I know what Tom Love values as well. He knows the strength of a people is how strong are the children. I ask you, please support Tom Love as he runs for Congress. Tom Love knows where our values should be. Thank You
No comments:
Post a Comment