The other night I talked outside the Hampton Diner for hours on education.  It was enlightening.  I already believe the school system is dysfunctional, but the conversation has pushed me to rethink my assumption, or maybe to just become more conscious of all the things I already know:

1.  The current system is one of miseducation.  Unfortunately children are just as often taught not to think.  They are taught to conform, to follow the rules, to live inside the system.  This is evident in the very nature of the school system where bells and whistles move students along an assembly line of classes, and where getting work in on time and raising your hand accounts for as much of your grade as what you actually learned.  This is not education, it is miseducation.

2.  Buearocracy breeds dysfunction.  One of the biggest problems with education is that it is a top-down system, where administrators and politicians with little to no experience in the classroom dictate education policy to people better qualified to make those decisions.  More importantly, this beaurocracy slows down even simple decision making as information is brought up the hierarchy, taken to committee, brought down, etc. etc. etc.  Meanwhile, the people who should have the most say in education actually have the least.  Teachers are bound by a pre-determined formulaic curriculum dictated by politicians and beaurocrats.  Parents are compelled to send their students to institutions where they have no say in the curriculum, unless they can afford a private school.  And most importantly students are given the least choice of all.  The choices that are not dictated by buearocrats and politicians are usurped by parents and teachers.

3.  Beaurocrats are thieves.  Another large problem is that beaurocrats and administrators suck up a vast amount of resources that could be used toward (gasp) teaching children.  Superintendents, Principles, and Czars of Education are paid vast salaries to do nobody knows what.  They use school money to buy limousines for the district and 'fact finding' trips to England.

4.  Standards are violence against the Mind.  The one size fits all education model is not only a lie, it is intellectual violence.  While teachers are taught about differentiated learning, multi-culturalism, and appealing to a wide cross-section of students the schools they work in continue to work operate under a one size fits all mentality.  It is presumed that every students needs X amount of English literature, mathematics, science, etc regardless of need or want.  Students are taught to a complex web of national, state, and local standards regarldess of ability or skill, and they are taught to national and state standardized tests that have no merit in the real world.

5.  Schools are in the business of taxes.  Standardized tests do have a place in generating revenue, however.  Standardized tests are most frequently used to measure the value of real estate.  High test scores equal high real estate which equals high real estate taxes which equal greater revenue for the shool district and higher pension for the Superintendent.

6.  Maintaining hierarchy.  The other method real estate agents use to calculate the wealth of local land is the percentage of graduating seniors and college-bound seniors.  Thus, middle/upper class school districts have a vested interest in pushing every student toward college regardless of need or want, while failing students and others that do not fit the mold are encouraged to drop out before they can negatively effect the college-bound percentile.  In poorer school districts, students are discouraged from even applying to college; they are pushed toward Vo-Tech, Work Study, and other programs pushing low class students into the work force early and away from upper class education.

Other Misc. Dysfunction: Missionary Dating

You know.. I could probably come up with some witty comment about why we should mandate sterilization for some folks.  But I won't.  I'll just let the utter stupidity speak for itself.  (From ElvenSarah)