One City, One School, One World?
I was just reading "Saint Anothony and the Chicken Poop", a great essay about the lost art of storytelling in the sciences. I came across this essay while tripping through the internet, researching some questions I have about the Charlotte Mason Method of education, which I use in homeschooling my children. Finding the essay was a pleasant surprise because, though the author probably doesn't know the obscure 19th century English educator, his beliefs about using storytelling in the sciences fits in perfectly with Miss Mason's beliefs and underscored for me the importance of what I am doing. It is a shame that I had to refer to Miss Mason as an "obscure" educator, because really she shouldn't be. Her methods are experiencing a renaissance in the homeschool community, but I think if you mentioned her name to your average public school teacher, you would be met with a blank stare.
OK, public school. And now here is what I really want to talk about, Omaha's "One City One School" fight. My take on it is this: we have a large, mediocre school district that wants to take over a smaller, better school district in the name of social equity (and a higher tax base). That's all well and good but I'm still scratching my head trying to figure out how the kids in the poor, underperforming OPS schools will be better off after the take over. I guess it will be better because everyone will have an equally bad education and equality is what it is all about, right? Money is not the answer for improving education. Our per capita spending on education has continued to increase exponentially over the past few generations and educational outcomes have continued to decrease.
I have a novel idea, for OPS. Why don't they fire a few administrators (which I think to myself every time I drive by their huge administrative building), drop the NEA's communist manifesto and concentrate on teaching! Nothing makes me hotter under the collar than the NEA. They are categorically opposed to any system of school choice in the form of vouchers, hate homeschooling and want control of my kids from birth, yes birth, through graduation.
If OPS really wants to improve their schools they could chop the district up into smaller pieces, making "neighborhood" districts where the parents and the teachers (non-union preferably) call the shots. I am in the midst of a love affair with nineteenth century education and that is after all, how it was done then. Small communities and churches were in charge of education and they did a lovely job! Yes, I know many children dropped out after grade school to work their parents' land, but let's be honest, a grade school education in the late eighteen hundreds was more than equivalent to our high school education now. Really, take a look at some McGuffy Readers or other textbooks of the day. Before compulsory education and mammoth school districts we had a very high literacy rate.
If you take the time to wade through the NEA's platform and poke around on their website you will find that they are concerned with a lot more than education. Their platform, in fact, sounds like a Miss America contestant on crack... world peace, non-nuclear proliferation, birth control and justice for all. While I'm not gung-ho on nuclear proliferation, I do think that problem is better dealt with in another arena. Carl Marx in his Communist Manifesto advocated a state run, compulsory educational system as necessary for a communist takeover. I do see more than a few shades of socialism (socialism is the necessary step before communism) in the NEA's platform and I don't think it's a far reach to make the connection between the One City, One School and a One World socialist mind set. Wake up parents! Our schools are very broken and we need to throw it out and start again. One City, One School is not the answer.
OK, public school. And now here is what I really want to talk about, Omaha's "One City One School" fight. My take on it is this: we have a large, mediocre school district that wants to take over a smaller, better school district in the name of social equity (and a higher tax base). That's all well and good but I'm still scratching my head trying to figure out how the kids in the poor, underperforming OPS schools will be better off after the take over. I guess it will be better because everyone will have an equally bad education and equality is what it is all about, right? Money is not the answer for improving education. Our per capita spending on education has continued to increase exponentially over the past few generations and educational outcomes have continued to decrease.
I have a novel idea, for OPS. Why don't they fire a few administrators (which I think to myself every time I drive by their huge administrative building), drop the NEA's communist manifesto and concentrate on teaching! Nothing makes me hotter under the collar than the NEA. They are categorically opposed to any system of school choice in the form of vouchers, hate homeschooling and want control of my kids from birth, yes birth, through graduation.
If OPS really wants to improve their schools they could chop the district up into smaller pieces, making "neighborhood" districts where the parents and the teachers (non-union preferably) call the shots. I am in the midst of a love affair with nineteenth century education and that is after all, how it was done then. Small communities and churches were in charge of education and they did a lovely job! Yes, I know many children dropped out after grade school to work their parents' land, but let's be honest, a grade school education in the late eighteen hundreds was more than equivalent to our high school education now. Really, take a look at some McGuffy Readers or other textbooks of the day. Before compulsory education and mammoth school districts we had a very high literacy rate.
If you take the time to wade through the NEA's platform and poke around on their website you will find that they are concerned with a lot more than education. Their platform, in fact, sounds like a Miss America contestant on crack... world peace, non-nuclear proliferation, birth control and justice for all. While I'm not gung-ho on nuclear proliferation, I do think that problem is better dealt with in another arena. Carl Marx in his Communist Manifesto advocated a state run, compulsory educational system as necessary for a communist takeover. I do see more than a few shades of socialism (socialism is the necessary step before communism) in the NEA's platform and I don't think it's a far reach to make the connection between the One City, One School and a One World socialist mind set. Wake up parents! Our schools are very broken and we need to throw it out and start again. One City, One School is not the answer.
posted by Danielle at 4:33 AM
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