The Brunswick News
Over the past several decades, public school education in America has been examined, re-examined and examined again by every kind of expert imaginable. It's been probed, dissected and X-rayed more than any other service or program funded by taxpayers.
Army test failures should be a wake-up call
Without fail, each probing has ended with someone on the state or national level recommending changes in the make-up, direction or goals of public school education.
And where has it taken us? Just ask the U.S. Department of Defense, which recently announced that almost 25 percent of wanna-be recruits are unable to pass the test required by the U.S. Army.
In 2010, years after the passage and implementation of the federal No Child Left Behind Act, 23 percent of the men and women still can't pass the Army's military entrance exam. These are high school graduates who cannot manage to get a passing score.
Keep in mind that these are not tests that would take someone with a college education to pass. They are, in a word, simple as simple can be. They include questions, according to a recent report by The Associated Press, like this: "If 2 plus x equals 4, what is the value of x?"
This is alarming. This is pathetic. This is a wake-up call for this nation.
Even Army recruits acknowledge that they are products of a weak education system. As one recent graduate stated, "The classes need to be tougher because people aren't learning enough."
The Army, which administers the easiest test out of all the branches of the armed services, is concerned. If the trend continues after the economy heals, it may be unable to reach its new recruit quota. That would mean dumbing down the test or reducing its strength.
The only other alternative would be to improve public school education, return to the days when students were taught the three Rs and not just what was expected to be on national, standardized test.
And where has it taken us? Just ask the U.S. Department of Defense, which recently announced that almost 25 percent of wanna-be recruits are unable to pass the test required by the U.S. Army.
In 2010, years after the passage and implementation of the federal No Child Left Behind Act, 23 percent of the men and women still can't pass the Army's military entrance exam. These are high school graduates who cannot manage to get a passing score.
Keep in mind that these are not tests that would take someone with a college education to pass. They are, in a word, simple as simple can be. They include questions, according to a recent report by The Associated Press, like this: "If 2 plus x equals 4, what is the value of x?"
This is alarming. This is pathetic. This is a wake-up call for this nation.
Even Army recruits acknowledge that they are products of a weak education system. As one recent graduate stated, "The classes need to be tougher because people aren't learning enough."
The Army, which administers the easiest test out of all the branches of the armed services, is concerned. If the trend continues after the economy heals, it may be unable to reach its new recruit quota. That would mean dumbing down the test or reducing its strength.
The only other alternative would be to improve public school education, return to the days when students were taught the three Rs and not just what was expected to be on national, standardized test.
Allow me to firmly establish a few concrete facts first. Slavery should have NEVER happened, but it did. It was ABOLISHED and it should have been.
Integration of schools naturally followed and it SHOULD have, but not in the way it was handled. Why?
Just as in every other aspect of life the African-American citizens were attending schools that in no way measured up to the schools of the Caucasians. The schools of white people had the best teachers, the best buildings, the better of everything. Face it, we did.
BUT....our generation did not bring the slaves over. It fell on our generation to solve a problem that we did not cause.
The Blacks integrated Pike County High with brute force. I remember the day. It scared me to death. Why did they do this? Because they were fed up and had the necessary force and power to finally correct the situation in the only way they understood. Brute force. Mad people in big groups can accomplish anything in the world. ANYTHING. If you cannot, you need more mad people. This was their way of telling us that "we Blacks are people too!"
So, schools integrated, bussed people all around to make everybody happy. As always, we had to go overboard. We did not realize that it is impossible to put second grade level students into the seventh grade and expect favorable results. They were probably A-B students in their old school but now they were thrown overnight into an educational Bootcamp which consisted of all white Chief Petty Officers. A little time passes and OOPS, the new recruits OBVIOUSLY cannot make the grade.
Oh my, what will we do now? You cannot hold all black students back, that would be discrimination at its' worst. So in the end we took the path of least resistance, we lowered our standards.
What should we have done differently? In my opinion, we should have started integration in
the first grade. The blacks would have still had the disadvantage of name calling and some abuse from other children. That is when teachers should have stepped up and enforced "getting along with others." That is also when parents should have lost the KKK attitude which they shoved into their childrens mind. BUT that is not how people work.
That being said, whites owe black people nothing today that they do not earn, the black people owe the whites nothing that they do not earn. We are Americans, not Irish Americans, German Americans, African Americans, Italian Americans, etc.
Now, make the classes more difficult starting from the first grade. Pass the ones who deserve it and hold back the ones that do not. It has taken 50 years to level the playing field, now it is so level that there is not a hill in sight. Put back the challenges people. If kids cannot behave send their rears home to their parents who should be raising them. It will take 50 more years to get us back up to where we once were, so get to moving on it. Hire TOP OF THE LINE first grade teachers, next year hire TOP OF THE LINE second grade teachers, etc. as time progresses the currently inadequate (because of their weak education) teachers will retire and a new and much more intelligent breed of AMERICANS will evolve.
We all owe illegal immigrants ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!!!!
2 - sheila's comments were about integration in general
c - pc schools used to be 70/30 back in the days at the beginning of integration.
thanks for your time
I thank you for your time!