Our higher education system is acknowledged as the best in the world, Yet, our primary and secondary educational system is currently failing our children. While we are scorned yet admired as the most powerful country in the world, other countries are also laughing at us for continuing to deliver such an inapt system of education.
As a culture:
We spend our dollars on fancy-model cars.
We contribute our hard earned money to elect our politicians.
We gamble away (legally and illegally) our savings in the hopes of striking it rich at casinos and sports-betting houses.
We consume drugs and alcohol in incredible volumes.
We are enticed to buy unnecessary products by companies who spend a large portion of their profits to persuade us to buy those products.
We support a sports entertainment industry that glorifies filthy rich athletes as role models for our children.
Where have we gone wrong?
Why then are so many state legislators, including Arizona’s, willing to slash our school budgets and deny a quality education for our children?
We must stop blaming our teachers for the outcomes of a system which they must endure. Our teachers are the most dedicated segment of our labor force. They strive every day to reach our children in spite of the many challenges faced when dealing with many children from unstable family environments. Many spend for supplies and materials out- of-pocket in order to effectively manage their classrooms.
Yet, comparatively, they receive meager compensation for their efforts and educational level.
Our governor, state legislators, school administrators, and all parents should get behind our teachers and their programs and efforts. We must provide sufficient financial support and redirect our wasteful spending.
I humbly submit to you a quote from one of our greatest leaders. A president who led us through the great Depression and WW II and who had the vision and resolve to establish a series of programs and reforms known as The New Deal. Franklin D. Roosevelt, our 32th president stated: “The school is the last expenditure upon which America should be willing to economize.”
Sal Gomez
Gilbert
Leon Ceniceros posted at 12:08 pm on Wed, Feb 13, 2013.
Our teachers don't "teach" anymore....they "mentor".
They want to be friends and buddies with the students so they dress like them, are tattooed and pierced like them and have the same purple, red, blue, green, spiked or gelled hair styles like them.
Teachers whether they like it or not are..."authority figures".
They have to be to maintain discipline in the classroom to enable students to learn the subject. If they want to be a Mr. Kotter, a Miss Jean Brodie...then move to England.
If teachers want to be better paid ...then be...."better teachers". This isn't California, the Arizona parents don't want a "holistic student", they want a "well-educated student".
chatmandu002 posted at 12:52 pm on Wed, Feb 13, 2013.
More money does not equate to a better education.
downtownresident posted at 12:53 pm on Wed, Feb 13, 2013.
Leon,
I have students in visable tatoo nor any non-ear body piercings in all the years I have been visiting either campus.
You are a wierd one, indeed.
Get a life!
sockratties posted at 1:46 pm on Wed, Feb 13, 2013.
Making our education system work should be our priority.
Remember the original lottery? The proceeds were supposed to go 100% to education funding. Gov. Symington then decreased an equal amount of state funds earmarked for education by moving it to the general fund which nullified the purpose of the lottery. We still have the lottery and the Arizona legislature squanders it every year. Our lawmakers are playing a shell game in which the taxpayer can never be sure where the pea is going to turn up. And they continually support alternative educational choices which divert public school funds by redirecting them to charter and not-for-profit schools. School districts try to recover by asking taxpayers to fund bonds for maintenance and infrastructure repairs. They even tried to cheat the public by creating a floating tax, in the last election, where the bill stated that the money could also be used for other things if so decided and the rate would be allowed to increase as needed. That’s fleecing the flock and taking skin along with the wool. You can bet we wouldn’t have seen one cent of that tax trickle down to classroom needs. They’d still be waving their panhandler’s cup now.
sockratties posted at 1:47 pm on Wed, Feb 13, 2013.
Taxpayers get tired of being asked, over and over, to refund what they have already paid for. Taxpayers need to see a return in the educational tax dollar before putting more money into the pot. It would be nice to see a plan as to how new money would be used to actually repair what is a factory for educational failure. So far those who run Arizona education don’t have a clue as to what is wrong, let alone any idea of how to fix it.
JMJ posted at 3:05 pm on Wed, Feb 13, 2013.
Should-a. Would-a. Could-a.
Arizon-a. Forget-about-it.
Delta Delta Delta we can't hep ya', hep ya', hep ya'.
Can't-a. Won't-a. Don't-a.
Leon: I have no tats. I have no piercings. My hair is not dyed. I taught my students to think for themselves. I know that scares you. Deal with it. Sad little man.
DonMey posted at 3:11 pm on Wed, Feb 13, 2013.
We insist every child go to school. We even test the ones who find it a challenge to sit at a table and eat. We also insist illegal immigrants and their language barriers be dealt with as well.
Do the other nations have to deal with ridiculous requirements like teaching the unteachable (I know...every kid is teachable, right?..PC carp) and teaching people who aren't even allowed to be here?
DonMey posted at 3:11 pm on Wed, Feb 13, 2013.
wow. C-r-a-p is a bad word they won't allow in their filter?
truth posted at 3:48 pm on Wed, Feb 13, 2013.
Our government at every level pays out $90 billion a year on promises from corporations that they will create jobs. We should stop wasting our dollars on this unfounded practice and use these $ 90 billion on educating our children. The U.S. is rated 17th in the world in education.
Rich posted at 7:35 pm on Wed, Feb 13, 2013.
An educated man doesn't need a job. I've rarely had one and then out of boredom. People need to create, think, make it better. 10% of the population can create everything you need and more. And 90% of that is minimally skilled labor. Education in most countries is simply, be good little sheeple. Public education isn't education it's indoctrination and we are he best in the world at it. Didn't we just re-elect the most ineffective, destructive President this country has ever had?. Pledge the flag every morning, written to bring 'socialism to the USA through the schoolhouse, according to it's author.
Educate your children, that's what parents do. There is no need to turn it over to the government because when you do, your kids are just guaranteed victims.
sockratties posted at 6:20 am on Thu, Feb 14, 2013.
Yes, truth, the US is 17th among developed countries. Arizona is something like 47th of the 50 states. Where does that put us? Probably somewhere in the area of Mali or Ghana.
Rich.... I think you are realizing your dream. We aren't educating our kids, and in that vacuum they are being indoctrinated by rock stars, pimps, gang-bangers and televisions version of success. Your land of dreams is cute, but it isn't real. What our kids need IS indoctrination, discipline, motivation and a sense of purpose. We can't all walk through life with a bow and quiver while quoting great works of dead authors and arcane philosophers.
valleynative posted at 6:52 am on Thu, Feb 14, 2013.
Sockratties, please don't further the myth that Arizona is near the bottom in quality of education. We're near the bottom in spending per student, and our 4th graders are below average in reading, but students who value their education enough to bother to take the ACT or SAT test score above the national average.
sockratties posted at 8:07 am on Thu, Feb 14, 2013.
VN, it's nice that you qualified your comment with those who value their education enough to bother. While there are many reasons students drop out, I think a big part of it is that they become bored with the stand-and-deliver method of what they perceive to be irrelevant material. Even at the college level I see very little participation required of the kids. In this multi-tasking, digitally driven age such efforts are archaic and ineffective. Add that to language challenges, single parent families, et al and it’s a wonder anyone gets through the maze.
A recent department of education report released in January 2013 for the 2009-2010 period indicates that Arizona had the lowest graduation rate and the highest dropout rate in the nation. The report is the percentage of students who register in the ninth grade and graduate within four years.
Arizona Willie posted at 8:20 am on Thu, Feb 14, 2013.
chatmandu002: you said " More money does not equate to a better education. "
Well, it may or may not, but I can GUARANTEE that LESS money equates to a worse education scenario.
Cutting funding cannot possibly help anything.
Except your desire to not pay any taxes.
Arizona Willie posted at 8:22 am on Thu, Feb 14, 2013.
DonMey, many of the words the SPAM filter won't allow us to use, I have seen in articles by editors and favored contributors. Surprisingly it lets us say hell.
Bluepoet posted at 9:38 am on Thu, Feb 14, 2013.
Mr. Gomez has some very valid points. He calls for commitment, on the part of our legislators, administrators, and parents, to educate our children. He says that entails both funding and cutting the waste. Both of these are sorely needed...both!
Then, the same old, tired opinions fly, in response.
When will we realize that politicizing our education system is actually the problem? Are we to continue down the path of least resistance, betting on the future through the myopic vision of today?
Yes, schools are institutions, and, as such, they are indoctrination centers, by default. The real challenge is to offer at least a modicum of practicality to the core, so that, whether a person is gifted, or not, they have the means to be productive, in some way. As a nation, we share this obligation, because it's not only right, it's in our own best interest to do so...
VofReason posted at 1:48 pm on Thu, Feb 14, 2013.
I have said it and will say it again. The average public school student in AZ gets 9K funding for all sources. The average class size is 26. 26*9K= just under a quarter of a million dollars. Maybe the question should be “how in the world can you get a quarter million per class, not pay the teacher well, and ask parents to provide school supplies?” Do you think if given 9K that you could find a private school to send your kid and get better outcomes? Why shouldn’t we have the same expectation for public schools? For Truth, just how does it work that the government “pays” $90billion a year to companies to hire people?
Rich posted at 5:52 am on Fri, Feb 15, 2013.
"Well, it may or may not, but I can GUARANTEE that LESS money equates to a worse education scenario."
Like to see this tried, put up your money. Everything public education now does FOR THE CHILDREN, can be done much better and a great deal cheaper. You could lose about half the 'administration' and their inflated salaries. You don't need to build schools, when you're closing others. Knowledge doesn't change, neither should textbooks. Education is a cash cow for corruption because for years the politicos could count on taxes, and bonds and overrides 'for the kids' when the money never went anywhere near them.
valleynative posted at 8:31 am on Fri, Feb 15, 2013.
The high school dropout rate in our school districts is directly correlated with Mexican Street Gang activity. Obviously, school districts and gang districts aren't coordinated, so schools that have gang members often have members of more than one gang. Since the sort of person who feels the need to join a gang is often cowardly to begin with, finding themselves in classrooms with rival gang members becomes too stressful to tolerate, so they drop out to escape the threat.
Arizona Willie posted at 8:40 am on Fri, Feb 15, 2013.
We put up our money every time we pay taxes, Rich. :)
Private enterprise advocates ALWAYS claim private enterprise does a better, cheaper job than government, but 'taint always so. Witness Arizona's private prisons which have wound up costing more than the state run prisons with a lot of escapes of dangerous prisoners.
Corporations ALWAYS want to do things on the cheap instead of doing them RIGHT.
I agree about closing one school and building another. Don't know what the solution for that is. As neighborhoods age, the kids grow up and the neighborhoods become populated with seniors. The kids that went to the school being closed moved way way out in the boonies in search of cheaper land and houses and then demand the State come build them a new school.
Two solutions come to mind. More fleets of school buses ( more money taken from the education budget ) or make people with kids live in neighborhoods where there is an existing school by refusing to build more schools. Of course that is political suicide.
Knowledge does change as we discover new scientific laws and advance new theories. But basic knowledge does not. ALL textbooks should be digital these days. Some school districts are doing that ( but not in Arizona as far as I know ).
Arizona Willie posted at 8:41 am on Fri, Feb 15, 2013.
SPAM filter just gave me trouble but it ok'd the message when I took a / out.
If this doesn't post then I'll know that is one of the things that trigger it.
Arizona Willie posted at 8:43 am on Fri, Feb 15, 2013.
Nope. Well that's strange. It wouldn't approve the message until I took the / out and replaced it with and. But it will accept a post with a forward slash. Replacing / with " and " is more characters so it wasn't a number of characters limit.
Bah damned Spam filter.
valleynative posted at 9:46 am on Fri, Feb 15, 2013.
My guess about the spam filter is that it looks for a number of different clues that your post might be an advertisement, assigns a weight to each such clue it finds, and if the total exceeds some threshold, decides it's spam. Your message used the word "cheaper" twice, which might have put you near the limit. It might be a matter of which words the slash was separating. if they were "better" and that other word I put in quotes (don't want to use it twice), that might have been a heavily weighted clue.
sockratties posted at 9:58 am on Fri, Feb 15, 2013.
VN... you obviously know nothing about gang dynamics. Your assumption that dropouts are a result of gangs could just as easily be interpreted as gangs are a result of dropouts. Also the reference to them being Mexican street gangs is really only a matter of demographics. When Irish immigrants were the poor majority in New York about 100 years ago the street gangs were Irish kids, later Italian. In San Francisco, Chinese. And it's not a matter of cowardess when you have to join one gang or be killed by another. There can be alternatives to gang membership, and schools are right in the middle of the fray, but role models and success stories play the biggest part. The answer is not... let them eat cake.
valleynative posted at 11:01 am on Fri, Feb 15, 2013.
sockratties, my knowledge comes from the testimony of many gang members and of gang experts.
"Mexican Street Gang" is a law enforcement term, not my own.
Rich posted at 7:31 pm on Fri, Feb 15, 2013.
"We put up our money every time we pay taxes, Rich."
And yet we can make them produce more while spending less. In the next decade we will spend more, the con will still work because a whole new group of parents enter the voting ring. Will it get better? Wanna bet?
BTW Sock, the published facts support VN. As a publisher I sort of doubt them, but then I doubt about everything.