Election Issues
12/2011 Filed in: Government
Current campaign speeches reflect many issues - and education sometimes makes the list! However I believe it more central than the time it is given. Here is why...
Our nation is in a mud-wallow! The obvious parts of the “wallow” relate to the tightness of the job market, global concerns over money, healthcare, the appropriate role of government, and the growing threat of unfriendly nations.
Public education makes some lists as part of our “national wallow” because we have so many “failing schools,” but education is actually central. Many of the other national concerns grow out of the failure of public education. How?
Do I merely link low test scores with a failing job market? No, at least not so simply. I reject the idea that education is primarily about test scores. Education is about nurturing mentally, spiritually, physically, and academically healthy individuals. With this broader definition of school expectations, the failure of our public school system broadens.
Secular schools do little to positively touch most aspects of human development… It is not that teachers don’t want to, but that Church/ State law prevents them as long as public education is considered “secular.” Only when America embraces “plural public education” through vouchers or tax credits, will most children be free to attend schools that nurture them broadly as humans.
And what might this do? Lower the crime rate, make more responsible parents, nurture stronger families, give children a greater sense of responsibility for their lives and communities… It may even reduce our foreign tensions because the conservative Islamic countries are most offended at the “West” because of its export of a culture of immorality.
Thus, education should be a central American concern. But it doesn’t look like it will become a lead concern in this presidential election cycle!
Public education makes some lists as part of our “national wallow” because we have so many “failing schools,” but education is actually central. Many of the other national concerns grow out of the failure of public education. How?
Do I merely link low test scores with a failing job market? No, at least not so simply. I reject the idea that education is primarily about test scores. Education is about nurturing mentally, spiritually, physically, and academically healthy individuals. With this broader definition of school expectations, the failure of our public school system broadens.
Secular schools do little to positively touch most aspects of human development… It is not that teachers don’t want to, but that Church/ State law prevents them as long as public education is considered “secular.” Only when America embraces “plural public education” through vouchers or tax credits, will most children be free to attend schools that nurture them broadly as humans.
And what might this do? Lower the crime rate, make more responsible parents, nurture stronger families, give children a greater sense of responsibility for their lives and communities… It may even reduce our foreign tensions because the conservative Islamic countries are most offended at the “West” because of its export of a culture of immorality.
Thus, education should be a central American concern. But it doesn’t look like it will become a lead concern in this presidential election cycle!
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