In a recent speech, Alan Greenspan says our public schools are going to kill us in competition with China. Why? Well, just check out this incredible article. Link. Excerpts:
In the long run, he accurately pointed out, our economic strength in the world market eventually rests mainly on one factor -- brainpower, measured by the quality of our education system. In that race, he emphasized, we are failing badly.
Why is it, Mr. Greenspan asked, that our fourth-grade students are superior in international competition, while our eighth-grade students have proven inferior? Also, why are 12th graders hopeless in the key disciplines of math and science? In the Third International Mathematics and Science Study, our high schoolers scored 19th out of 21 countries, beating out only Cyprus and South Africa. They scored 20 percent lower than the Netherlands, a nation that lives on its brainpower -- as America might one day have to do.
Asked why our students become more ignorant the longer they stay in our public schools, Mr. Greenspan's response was typical of America's uninformed leaders: "I have no idea."
But for those of us who have studied public education, the answer is clear: Our educators, from teachers through superintendents of schools, are academically and intellectually so inferior that the fourth grade is apparently the outer limit of their teaching abilities. They are so poorly selected, poorly trained and lacking in general intelligence, that failure by our middle- and high-school students is foreordained. . .
More than 100,000 teachers take a master's in education, but that degree is essentially false. A study of 481 masters in education showed they took 26 more credits in debatable "education" and only nine in the liberal arts. Only 1 in 5 were even required to write a thesis. Hardly masters of anything. . .
Defenders of the system claim more money is needed. Teachers now make almost $50,000 a year -- considerably more in affluent suburbs. More money is valuable, but it is not the answer. Catholic schools perform better with lower teacher salaries, as do most private schools.
Why aren't parents outraged at the poor, expensive education given their children? Because they are lied to about their children's progress. Students who should get C's and D's are instead being given A's and B's.
This clever if dishonest scheme of "grade inflation" has spread across America, satisfying parents who might otherwise be critical of the schools. A majority of students in a middle school in my area were put on the honor roll, which gullible parents quickly announced on their bumper stickers. However, one suspicious parent was surprised when his daughter got an A in algebra. When he worked with her, he realized she could not do the simplest algebraic equation, and put her in private school.
Educators also lie about most teachers' competency. Education graduates take a state licensing exam at a lowly high-school level, then enter the public school classroom as supposedly "qualified," a clever propaganda term. However, better private schools such as Choate (John F. Kennedy's alma mater) refuse to hire these teachers. Of the entire faculty at Choate, not one has the typical undergraduate degree in education. . .
