INTRODUCTION

Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of happiness--these are the principles that our country was founded upon. I believe that our founders were great men. They were spiritual men, who were guided by God to found this nation upon Natural Law--a law that proclaims that men do not gain rights as a gift from powerful men or governments, but instead are endowed with those rights by our Creator. We, as children of God, are always entitled to those rights, but we must fight to keep them.

There is another force in this world that wants men to be in bondage. It is evil, it is seductive, and it makes us feel secure just before it enslaves us. This evil force is our adversary, otherwise known as Satan--and what we know of him is that the thing he wants most is to take our agency, and our freedom to use that agency. As a Latter-day Saint, agency is something I am familiar with. It is the thing that defines us on this earth. How we choose to use our agency will determine our outcome not only in this life, but in the eternities. Agency is the single most important gift that God has granted us, and we must protect it, not only for ourselves but for future generations and for those who suffer political oppression around the globe.

That will be the main topic of discussion here, how the secular world, the governments of men, and the devil himself are working to rob us of what is most precious to us. The things that our founders knew were essential to our freedoms--life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Friday, January 15, 2010

School Budgets Wasted on Political Correctness

I have worked for a school district in Oregon that says it has one of the smallest budgets (lowest paid teachers, least spent per pupil, etc) in the state. Oregon in general pays their teachers fairly well compared to the national average and the surrounding states. School funding is an issue every year, which is why we are voting on yet ANOTHER tax increase (Measures 66/67).

    Under these conditions, I would have expected to see frugality in the school I worked for. That was absolutely not the case. I was working as a classroom aid and after school program aid. Though my job was to work with students, often the teachers would send me to the copy room. One teacher, who is a great teacher, was especially guilty of wasteful practices. She once had me copy 'reading packets' for all 26 of her students. the packets were more than 60 pages each. By the end of the school year, they had not once used these packets. They just sat on a shelf and were 'saved' for next year if she found the time to use them.


      That same year, the school received a federal grant (because it had been classified as a Title 1 school, and due to the apparent impoverishes, it needed more money for special programs). This grant had to be used within a certain amount of time, and only for certain purposes--such as books. They wisely invested it in a huge collection of books that could be used by all of the teachers as they needed them. The collection was intended for reading groups (approximately 12 copies of 6 books, each with a manual containing all of the accompanying teacher's materials and worksheets for the 6 different books). This collection had hundreds of books, it took up an entire wall. It was a great addition to the school's resources. Then came the waste. For weeks and weeks there were at least 3-4 teachers aids taken from the classrooms to help copy, laminate, and organize the manuals for these books. Because each manual contained teacher's materials for 6 books, we copied the entire manual, and then the appropriate worksheets for each book, then laminated, cut them out, reorganized them into zip lock bags, and then put the now individual manuals with the books they accompanied.


        Why did we do this? I have no idea. There were only 13 teachers at this school, only 2 classes for each grade. Why couldn't we coordinate the use of the manuals? What a waste of not only paper, ink, laminator sheets and other materials, but think about the waste in labor. I was a 1st year, part-time aid and I had already received a raise (thank you teachers union) and was making more than $11/hour. Everyone else made more than me. Four aids at $12/hour for 6 hours per day for about 6 weeks adds up to $8640!!!! This money should have been spent in the classroom where it was intended. What a great way to spend our tax money on schools that are servicing the poor.


          Knowing how wasteful schools can be, I later was working as a substitute in another school district. This district is in a rural/agricultural area and though it is in the northwest, at least one elementary school in this small district was more than 50% Hispanic with a large majority of them receiving ESL services. As a substitute for one of the two middle schools, I saw how this dynamic had destroyed the educational opportunity of most of its students. The immigrant children would be enrolled in the fall, leave for approximately 2 months in the winter to return with their families to Mexico, then return to school having missed 2 months of instruction. The school system had no way to properly accommodate the instructional needs of these children because they are forced to mainstream them with the year-round residents. The result is that 8th graders don't know what 5 X 5 equals, or any other simple times table. They can barely add and subtract without a calculator, and they are behind in reading, grammar, and subsequently all other subjects as well. Because they are mainstreamed, and the state expects the schools to help those at the bottom the schools/teachers are forced to teach to the dumbest kids in class in order to not 'discriminate' against the Hispanic children. They also cannot keep them all back, they don't have the resources to deal with that many students in grade school. What kind of nonsense is this!?!?!


            Perhaps instead of trying to be politically correct in education, we should be focused on academics. I have a few suggestions to make:


            1. Classes should be segregated by academics, not by age or any other factor, especially in grade school. A 3 grader who is reading at a 5th grade level, will attend reading with all of the 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th grade students who are reading at that level. Likewise, a 5th grader reading at a 2nd grade level will attend reading with all other 2nd grade level readers. The same children may end up in the same or different math classes. The curriculum will be geared around time tested methods of teaching and testing. Levels will be flexible, so a child who starts 5th grade reading at a 3rd grade level, can by the end of the year be reading at a 5th grade level. Other subjects, where skill level is less of a concern (like PE and Music) can be divided by age, and free time would be spent with children of a similar age. In middle and high school, you cannot graduate until you have achieved an appropriate level of academic performance, and you can graduate early or pursue college credit if you achieve that level at an earlier age. This model would keep most children at grade level, while compensating for those who are behind or ahead providing opportunity for all students to obtain a valuable education.
            2. Children who need ESL services would be required to attend ESL classrooms, and would enter mainstream classrooms only after proving adequate English proficiency. These services would only be available to a student for a limited number of years, (perhaps 2-3 years) so as not to encourage them not to learn English. If they do not achieve English proficiency in a timely manner, the family will have to supply someone who can translate for their child in class--not at the expense of the school. ESL classes would also be divided by academic performance. When leaving the ESL program, they would enter school at whatever academic level they had achieved. This will provide a way for them to learn the fundamentals that they miss when they are not attending school without taking away from the education of others. Our public school should not be servicing illegal immigrants. If they want to use our school system, they must provide proof that they are here legally. American children should not suffer so that illegal immigrants can have free education and day care.
            3. Since special ed students bring more funding with them than they usually need, their placements should be according to their skills and social needs. Since the purpose of mainstreaming disabled students is to help them thrive in society, they should be given as much access to a normal school day as possible. We should also give special ed students more school choice. Some schools are more accommodating than others. Some schools want to keep their special ed kids for the money, but refuse to make accommodations for their needs. We need to keep a child focused view for all students. Having children with disabilities in the classroom has proven to help typical children learn that people with disabilities are not to be feared, and become more compassionate adults.
            4. It should NEVER matter what race, socio-economic group, or any other demographic when it comes to academic performance. Teachers should teach the basics, then teach children how to use those fundamentals to expand their knowledge of the world around them for whatever purpose they want to pursue. We should never try to pigeon-hole children. We cannot afford to teach to a certain culture, race, religion (or lack thereof), or economic class. No Child Left Behind has made it impossible for schools receiving those federal funds to look at children without seeing their race and economic class. This is discrimination above and beyond what already existed.
            5. No more waste! Because public education is run like all other government beaurocracies, teachers are not compelled to be efficient like those working in the private sector are. Imagine if an employee used company resources for a training that required 26 copies of a 60+ page report, and then never did the training? I would expect that if that kind of waste continued they would be out of a job, not protected by tenure.

            We need to eliminate waste and political correctness from our schools. School choice, performance based pay and employment for teachers, and more local control for parents and communities will improve all of these problems. Each school and district should have the ability to tailor their system to the challenges that they face. Whether it is high drop-out rates, overwhelming ESL needs, low budgets, poor family involvement, or any other problem, allowing the locals to sort through the problems will give them more control and make them take more responsibility for the outcome of the public education their children receive.

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