1. Twelve years in jail
In Thirteen Reasons, Hannah, the bullied
protagonist has no way to escape a toxic environment. Her helpless position
progressively worsens and eventually drives her to suicide.
Because education is compulsory in the
United States, Hannah lives in a de facto prison. She cannot change schools or
classes without parental approval and undergoing a humiliating bureaucratic
process.
An education system that prioritized
learning would put students at the center, leaving them free to choose their schools,
classes, teachers and programs.
2. American kids can’t vote
The challenges facing American kids are
exacerbated by the fact that they aren’t allowed to vote. They thus have little
stake in the system, no sense of responsibility and adopt a de facto poise of
helplessness.
3. Students
come last
None of the dozen studies reviewed for this
article assessed the US public education system based on students’ needs.
Governments prioritize public education
based on its effects on national competitiveness. Businesses focus on getting skilled
workers (whose training they don’t want to pay for). Teachers’ unions focus on salaries
and working conditions.
The upshot is that students’ interests come
last.
4. Bloated administrations
America spends
more per student than any other country
yet ranks 14th in terms of results,
behind Russia. Must of this is due to legions of highly-paid administrators that
clog the system with rules, regulations and forms, few of which prioritize
education.
5. Kids taught to worship government; shun
individual responsibility
The young have always been concerned with
social causes. It’s thus hardly surprising that teachers would encourage
students to prioritize government’s role in healthcare, welfare and environmental
regulation.
However today’s public schools offer
essentially no counter arguments about individual responsibility.
High school graduates thus emerge as easy
prey for politicians who claim that near-unlimited government spending and borrowing
are the cure for the nation’s problems. (
See
the Krugman con
).
6. Public schools teach no marketable
skills
The greatest indictment of the
public-school system’s actual performance relates to the fact that students
graduate with no marketable skills.
If America’s kids emerged from schools able
to read, write, do basic math, type, work as a team and use a half dozen common
software packages, they would have something to show for their 13 years in the
slammer.
7. Banning anything to do with an intelligence design
Socrates’ motto at the Agora was to
“question everything.” However public schools prioritize politically correct
doctrine that consciously excludes key ideas and concepts. The concept of a Higher Power, soul, or God, is banned. Unless it is satanic. Then it is taught, encouraged, and even honored.
8. State-directed curricula: one size fits
all
Students vary as do the communities they
live in. However a disproportionate amount of teaching is dictated by bureaucrats.
This leaves teachers little flexibility to adjust based on students’ needs.
These differ based on whether the school in
located in poorer neighborhoods where many students come from single family
homes, or in upper middle-class professional communities where traditional
family structures are more common.
9. Kids graduate clueless about finances
Public schools teach essentially nothing
about managing money, likely the single most important life skill a kid could
have. Students graduate thus thinking that borrowing is fine.
This leaves them prey to America’s biggest
predatory lenders: big universities, which have managed to saddle youth with
$1.2 trillion worth of debts,
many of whom have little to
show for it
.
10. “Hoop jumper” worship: drives out the
talented and curious
One of the biggest weaknesses in public and
private schools is their collective worship of “hoop jumpers,” - that universal
collection of the obsequious sorts that clutter Dean’s lists and other “Top
Students” awards.
This wouldn’t be a problem if schools were
able to correctly identify top performers. However heavy state-defined
curricula force teachers to “teach to the test.”
This leads to the advancement of drone-like
students who are able to recite mindless data, massaged concepts and formulas,
and more dangerously: with the need to guess and kow-tow to what teachers want
them to say.
Worse, in two centuries of public
schooling, teachers still fall for that old trap of giving the best marks to
kids with nice hand-writing or to math students who get the wrong answer but
manage to “show their work.” Students who challenge conventional thinking are
smiled at and given a B.
The upshot is the students with drive,
curiosity and creativity are quickly driven out.
The number one students - like John Maynard
Keynes, the father of modern economics, who taught that the best way to get
rich was to spend more than you earn - rocket through the system, and now run
the nation’s central banks and university economics departments.
You get the picture.
11. Powerful unions
In a world in which students are stuck in de
facto prisons, teachers, who spend more time with them than their parents do,
ought to be their biggest backers. They aren’t.
Teachers thus need to accept the lion’s
share of the blame for the disastrous state of American schools.
That blame starts with the fact that
teachers’ first priority has been to band into powerful unions, which put
salaries, benefits and vacation time first and students’ interests last.
12. Millionaire teachers
True, teachers perform one of society’s
most useful functions. However during a time of strained public finances
students’ needs must come first - not teachers’ salaries.
The teachers’ unions have been hugely
successful. Median
compensation
for US workers
is $28,900. Teachers earn
$128,000, almost four times that amount
.
The gap between teachers and those
communities they teach in is exacerbated by the fact that gold-plated,
state-guaranteed pensions mean that public school teachers generally retire as
millionaires.
If teachers were paid at market rates,
there would be more money available to fund students’ needs such as smaller
class sizes, libraries and computers.
13. Mediocre teachers that can’t be fired
Teachers begin their careers ranked among most
socially-committed of any professionals. But as with any human beings, a change
takes hold of teachers once they acquire tenure and can no longer be fired.
Office hours and volunteer activities
shrink, emails from students and parents are returned slower, if at all. The
upshot is that many of the best teachers decline towards mediocrity as their
careers advance.
*****
The takeaway for the alternative investors,
who wonder how the American public could so easily fall for politicians,
economists and central bankers that are running US productivity into the
ground, the answer is clear.
