Barack Obama says, "I don't want to send another generation of American children to failing schools. I don't want that future for my daughters. I don't want that future for your sons. I do not want that future for America."
Hasn't public education been afforded plenty of chances to educate our children? Public education is essentially a monopoly in the education sector. Most parents cannot afford to pay the taxes which support public schools and pay private school tuition. The only choice is public school. Ironically, politicians complain about pseudo-monopolies such as oil and energy companies, but never complain about public education. Educational test results seem to indicate that public education is failing. Our kids stay in school for 13 years and many of them cannot read, write, and do math at a proficient level.
The solution to our education ills should be breaking up the government's monopoly on public education. People who have no children in the public education system should not have to pay for the education of others in that same system.
WHAT OBAMA SAYS: Obama will launch a Children's First Agenda that provides care, learning and support to families with children from birth up to five years old.
WHAT IT MEANS: Our current public school system is failing to teach our children how to read, write and do math. In order to solve this, let the government have our children sooner. This Children First Agenda reminds me of the North Korea Communist regime and their educational system. One of the first things a communist regime seems to do is to set up early childhood education. The North Koreans take the children at 77 days after birth and begin indoctrinating them into the communist ways. It is a scary thing when a government wants to begin teaching a child at birth. Much of the public education is filled with propaganda supporting the idea that government is good and benevolent. Perhaps the reason our children cannot read, write, and do math is that they spend too much time learning propaganda, which is never stimulating.
WHAT OBAMA SAYS: Obama's comprehensive "Zero to Five" plan will provide critical support to young children and their parents. Unlike other early childhood education plans, Obama's plan places key emphasis at early care and education for infants, which is essential for children to be ready to enter kindergarten. Obama will create Early Learning Challenge Grants to promote state "zero to five" efforts and help states move toward voluntary, universal pre-school.
WHAT IT MEANS: Educational test scores already indicate that America's fourth graders compete very well with the rest of the world. The problem with our public school system isn't the early years. It's the later years. Why should we spend money on something that isn't broken? If you want to improve the education process, focus on the middle and high school levels and what is being taught there. Focus more on reading, writing, and math and much less on propaganda. A totalitarian government always wants to get at the hearts and minds of its people as soon as possible in order to indoctrinate them to the benevolence of the government.
WHAT OBAMA SAYS: Obama will also provide affordable and high-quality child care to ease the burden on working families.
WHAT IT MEANS: I always find it funny when a politician waxes on about the burden of working families. One of the biggest burdens on working families is the size of the federal government and the tax and regulation burdens. The federal government makes sure that their employees have the best retirement benefits (full retirement after 20 years), secure and well-paid jobs, and plenty of time off. This comes at the expense of the working families who are not part of the federal government system.
Once again, Obama's plan for education involves gaining access to your children as soon as possible. Government should not be involved in child care. It should not have a monopoly on education. The temptation to indoctrinate and teach propaganda is too great to trust any government with this kind of access. They will eventually abuse this access.
In summary, Obama's solution involves more government and more money. He seems to think that the only thing wrong with the schools is a lack of money. There are a million and one reasons for our public education system failing and lack of money is at the bottom of the list. Schools are failing because they aren't teaching our children how to read, write, and do math. They aren't expecting or asking for our children's best efforts. Instead, they teach propaganda and waste time on materials that do not directly impact reading, writing, and math. A monopoly does not have to listen to the consumer. In public education, administrative (non-teaching related) expenses absorb a higher percentage of spending than private education. A higher percentage of money is spent on non-teaching activities in the public school system than in the private school system. Obama's plan fails to address the primary causes of our failing public education system. These causes include money spent in the wrong ways, monopolistic control of public education by the government, unions standing in the way of change, the difficulty of ridding schools of poor teachers, too much time spent on propaganda and too little time spent on reading, writing, and math. The problem with education isn't money. The problem is the government.