Here's where we disagree with one another more
deeply, John. Don Henley wrote a song, "Johnny Can't Read," with the line:
"is it Johnny's fault? Oh, no-o-o!!"
"Johnny can't read?" Fire the
teacher!
"Fukkit. There are easier (and safer) ways to make a living. Being a secretary, for instance." Since NCLB was introduced, enrollment in teaching degrees has plummeted "at a precipitous rate."
And this is the crop that we have sown:
Quote:
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"I don't care if your miserable kid gets an education," if the official policy of the land is that "teaching a kid" is a procedure that can be objectively applied, and tested like weighing a package to see if it's too light or too heavy. Just go to Istanbul and start bringing teachers over on H1-B and L-1 visas, like is now done for virtually every other job in America. They'll do the job for one year and go home, knowing that they'll be sent home after one year anyway. And, as for your kid, just give him a diploma whether or not he can read the thing. He doesn't really need an education in order to drive a truck and to unload packages in a warehouse, anyhow.
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Unfortunately,
this is what I see as the rapidly-developing outcome of a great many of the "social experiments" that have been imposed upon us since Jimmy Carter left office. (And by administrations in
both parties, by the way ...) There's also a very noticeable up-turn in the number of kids who are not
bothering to finish high school, and who also are not
bothering to try to attend college.
("Why should I accumulate $100,000 in student-loan debt and then not be able to get a job?" Indeed.)
For those of us who either remember the GI Bill, or indirectly benefited from it, it's like watching a train-wreck in slow motion, wondering if
anyone is actually at the controls of that train. The parable of the Prodigal Son is grinding toward its inexorable end, and one wonders if, in fact, the party that will tell us, "you've been a
fool for the past thirty years," actually will
be: 'the pig.' It is actually quite
painful to find one's own country becoming a world-wide laughingstock.
