The U.S. Education Failure

I doubt you`d be surprised if I told you the U.S. educational system is not stellar. If it were, MTV would not be making millions of dollars off shows like 16 and Pregnant. Still, I had no idea it was so bad, that sixteen year old kids can barely spell their names…

source: rt.com

According to CBS New York, nearly 80 percent of New York City high school graduates need to relearn basic skills before they can enter the City University’s community college system. That means about 11,000 kids who got diplomas from city high schools needed these special courses that taught them the basics all over again.

“When they graduated from city high schools, students in a special remedial program at the Borough of Manhattan Community College couldn’t make the grade. They had to relearn basic skills — reading, writing and math — first before they could begin college courses.”

Now, maybe I`m asking too much… but shouldn`t schools teach kids how to read, write, spell and add 2+2 before graduating from high school? It makes me wonder… how did they pass any tests up until this age? They must have had hundreds of test in all these years… how were they graded? “The grammar isn`t the best, but look at this pretty drawing of a bird! Deserves a C+.”

Seriously now, these extra courses that teach almost-grown-ups how to read properly are absurd! This is not the solution for our failing educational system… but it is a good way to rob people off more money.  Every student who takes these classes are forced to shell out $1,000 or more out of their own pockets.

“The basics that I’m receiving now should have been taught in high school. It’s more money coming out of your pocket.” (Feona Wilson, a high school graduate from Brooklyn, for the New York Post)

This is how they choose to make up for a faulty educational system: they leave everything just as it is… continue to raise illiterate kids until they`re ready to go to community college… and then force them to pay thousands on courses that teach everything they should already know.

This way, the government reaches two goals with one smooth move: they get their obedient flock of sheeple that can barely sign papers… and they take money from them in exchange for a comfortable level of education … one that doesn`t pose threats to an increasingly controlling system.

But this is nothing new. The dumbing down started decades ago in American schools… It began in the 80s and now you can clearly see “The Legacy of Dumbness”, as Charles J. Sykes calls it.  Sykes is the author of a book called Dumbing Down Our Kids: Why American Children Feel Good About Themselves But Can’t Read, Write, or Add. And here are just a few facts he points out, to give you an idea of how serious this problem is:

* More than a decade after A Nation at Risk drew attention to the nation’s educational mediocrity, the reading proficiency of nine- and thirteen-year-olds has declined even further.

* The 1994 National Assessment of Educational Progress found that a third of American seventeen-year-olds say they are not required to do homework on a daily basis.

* Only one high school junior out of fifty (2 percent) can write well enough to meet national goals.

* Less than 10 percent of seventeen-year-olds can do “rigorous” academic work in “basic” subjects.

* In the United States today, only one in five nine-year-olds can perform even basic mathematical operations. According to the 1990 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), only one in six nine-year-olds reads well enough to “search for specific information, interrelate ideas, and make generalizations.” Only one in four nine-year-olds can apply basic scientific information.”

* Only one in eight thirteen-year-olds can understand and apply intermediate scientific knowledge and principles.

* A Washington, D.C., grade-school teacher reports that many of the fifth- and sixth-grade students in her geography class were unable to locate Washington, D.C., on a map of the United States, even though they lived in the nation’s capital themselves.

* Despite the growing importance of scientific knowledge, surveys have found that Americans are woefully ignorant of basic scientific facts. A majority of Americans,. for example, do not know that the earth and sun are part of the Milky Way galaxy, and a third of them think humans and dinosaurs walked the earth at the same time.

You can only imagine these future adults will not be reading MFSP, criticising the government`s decisions or fighting for their independence. They`ll be sitting on their sofas, watching moronic tv shows, eating food they got on Food Stamps and waiting for the day they win the lottery. And they say children are our only hope for a brighter future… 

By Alec Deacon