Vouchers GOT the MO
Article, after article says this is the year we get choice for parents. Here is another interesting article that our legislators need to read, read again, then without emotion, read it again.Finally please lets knock off the rhetoric, and look past the mud slinging and smell the roses. Our kids today are not just competing with each other for college and high paying jobs, now with the internet, Voice O/IP and the bandwidth available, we now have call centers in India, and china where you have College graduates with engineering degrees are taking support calls.The sooner the Education machine realizes that what they are producing is giving our kids a completive disadvantage, the sooner we can get on a global road of improvement.Let’s see Utah take the lead.
Mark Towner,The Spyglass
3 comments:
We've been using the current school system for over 50 years, right?
And it is still broken?
One of the definitions of insanity is, "doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result."
It's time we started doing other things. Vouchers are a start.
But, it's always in the details.
Vouchers are a move in the right direction, but they (like the whole system) are built on four false assumptions.
Number one: one person can educate someone else. The only person that can educate you is you. You have exactly the education that you have chosen, no more, no less. The same will be true for our children. Until we stop blaming the schools, the legilature or global politics we will never become educated.
Number two: the purpose of education is to get a good job. The whole idea that education is something unpleasant that you must go through so you can get a job is killing education. We won't ever be able to compete on the global market until we lean to love learning and actively pursue education throughout our whole lives.
Number three: degrees equal education. The system of compulsory attendence, degrees and diplomas suggest it is the system that educates, not the student. This is entirely false. Having taught higher education for 15 years I've seen that most students care more about the credit and the grade than knowldge and self improvement. You know if you are becoming eduated if you study when you don't have to in order to get credit in some progam. This is not to say credit is bad, but it can't be our educational motivation.
Number four: you can make education easy. While education is extremely enjoyable, it is not easy. Methods that water down education or that look for short cuts in the process of learning have done more harm than good. People learn when people study and people study when they choose to do so.
Finally, we can't educate our children but we can inspire them to educate themselves. If you want to inspire them, become educated yourself. Let your children and grandchildren see you pay the price of a great eduation. Then let them see you apply that education in public service.
Vochers give choice and open the door for great education. But whether or not they improve education will depend on ourselves.
We DO have choice. It is the choice of what WE decide ourselves what kind of education we will get, REGARDLESS of the circumstances. WE are responsible for our own choices.
How about someone giving me a voucher so I can have the "choice" of raising a child like so many who want vouchers have? Many people have a "choice," or should I say privilege, to raise a child. It's interesting to me that many who do have such sometimes complain about their "lack" of choice when they already have the one of the best choices one could ever hope for in life.
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