Education Today is a Serious Social Problem
In dealing with people problems an efficient system is one that has a simple organization, a truism whether dealing with education, welfare, or with any other social program. In public education, for example, the circle of responsibility should consist of the students, the parents and the teachers; any others involved encumber the system. The implication in this restriction is that there is no room in the management structure for those who are not parents or teachers, i.e. the management cannot be political and or bureaucratic and must be local. The best system of management would be one that was organized as small independent school districts managed by a committee of teachers and parents who serve a single two year term; and who are chosen by their peers. The funding of public education presents an additional problem because it requires tax dollars to provide "equal" educational opportunity for everyone. A convenient funding source is the state treasury, but such funding must come with no strings attached. A refinement to this plan, and perhaps the most important ingredient in the plan, is establishing competition through educational choice. Choice means that parents may use their share of the tax dollars from the state to chose the school they wish to have their children attend, be it public or private: and on the larger scale, school districts will have the option to chose the kind of public school system that will provide for their children without interference from any government body be it state or federal. In other words, in this system the federal government has no voice in education and the state government is simply a conduit for moneys to operate the public school system and to fund, up to a certain level, education by private schools of students who chose to leave the public school system.
Numerous conversations with a variety of public educator, with private school educators and with many students, coupled with my own experiences with my schooling, my children's schooling and my grandchildren's schooling have convinced me that the public school system, as now constituted, is a gross failure and is robbing this nation of its greatest resource, optimally educated children. The problem is a bureaucratic quagmire, which provides mandates from on high. Mandates that are not driven by children's needs, but rather by the whims of liberal special interest groups. Groups that see self esteem (what ever that means) as more important than mastery of the skills needed by young adults to function effectively in the work force. An effective school system should teach its students how to read, how to effectively express themselves both orally and through the written word and finally how to think and solve problems using both mathematical skills and the skills of logic. Anything more or less is short changing the students; burdening them with things they don't need or leaving out training that they do need. Today's public schools are a morass of garbage classes that do more to dull than to enlighten the curious mind, e. g. sex education, bicycle safety, drivers training and the list goes on and on almost endlessly. Such training is a parental responsibility and has no place in an effective and efficient educational system unless a school district deems such activities as appropriate for their community; parents who disagree can then opt for a private school for their children.
Discussions with both active and retired public school administrators have focused on an apparent flaw in this plan. These professionals rightly point out that the public school system will lose good students at an accelerated rate while continuing to be burdened by all or essentially all of the troubled and trouble making students. However, there is a solution to this problem and in my mind a very simple solution--"Boot Camps". Boot Camps, as part of the public education system, would provide both the incentive and the training necessary to divert the trouble making students from their path toward the criminal culture, back into the mainstream, so they too can become a productive part of our society. The other positive aspect of this plan is that there already exists a reservoir of trained talent to be employed as faculty for these schools. The ideal group to help these youngsters walk the proper path would be the retired first sergeants from our military ranks; complemented with other ex-military personal who have distinguished themselves by their ability to exact discipline and productive effort from those under their charge. The premise in this approach is that those who are trouble makers behave the way they do, because they have never experienced proper discipline, never have learned the satisfaction of work, or the joy of successfully developing a productive talent. Unfortunately this dearth of training occurs because of parental failure; either the parents are absent or don’t care. The public school system, anchored with bureaucratic bunglers and misguided do-gooders, has failed miserably in its attempt to bridge this gap and in the process has brought our educational system to its knees. The beauty in the "Boot Camp" approach is that it separates the trouble makers from those who want to learn and thereby relieves the regular public school of one of its greatest problems. Once the trouble makers leave the schools, the major barrier that precludes the hiring of quality teachers is removed, thus providing the solution to a second major problem in public education; a growing plurality of incompetent teachers.
The problems that face the public education system are acute but could easily be solved if we were able to overcome the roadblocks created by a horde of narrow-minded special interest groups. Therefore, the first step is to free the public school system from government control, i.e. close the federal and state departments of education. The second step is to implement competition in education by providing parents with school choice. With school choice parents are allowed to dictate where the state treasury sends their child's share of educational funds; be it public, private or charter school. The third step is to institute "Boot Camps" in each school district to deal with the students who disrupt the education of those who come to school to learn. From a practical basis these "Boot Camps" will not only benefit our judicial system by short-circuiting the growth of the criminal element, but they will also require the help of the judicial system to enforce attendance.
In this plan the Federal Government, i.e. The Congress, has three responsibilities; one is to immediately close the Federal Department of Education. The second is to direct the individual states to assume full responsibility for public education and to further direct each state to delegate that responsibility to each individual school district with each of those districts being as small as practical and that those districts are to be managed by boards elected from parents and teachers. The third responsibility of the Congress is to encourage each of the states to implement school choice so that parents can select the appropriate school for their children.
In this plan each state has three responsibilities; the first is to close the State Department of Education, the second is to channel educational funds to the school chosen by the parents for their child and the third is to provide the impetus for each school district to provide a "Boot Camp" to help those who need discipline, work experience and special training in social behavior.