A Nation of Dummies

It has become blatantly obvious to anybody observing. We live in a nation populated by historical, mathematical, geographical, political, and scientifically ignorant people. The ignorance of our population is only getting worse.

I have always found 'man on the street' questions to ordinary folks entertaining. Jay Leno has a segment every once in a while, and you can get a glimpse of what people know on the different quiz shows like 'Who Wants to be a Millionaire' and others. The questions asked of the people are simple such as, "Who is the Vice-President?" or "How many inches in a Meter?" It is truly amazing the percentage of people that do not know the answers and most have absolutely no idea.

But asking pop-culture questions hits the jackpot. They hardly ever miss questions about songs, movies, or games. They know how to use their gadgets (cell phones, X-Boxes, or Wii's) but have no clue as to how their gadgets work. They can tell you the latest hits by most of the headliners, even the lyrics to most, but can't answer the simplest question of substance.

What has gone wrong? It is not a question of money. The average dollar spent per pupil is over $8,000.00 per year. The following are three states rated by the amount of money spent. The one that spends the most, one from the middle and the state that spends the least are rated by how well they are teaching math and reading skills. This information is from http://putourkidsfirst.com/kidsfirst/nat_reading.asp


Dollars/student:

1st New Jersey $11,793 ---, Spending per pupil - First in Spending

20th Minnesota $7,736---, Spending per pupil - Middle of the Pack

50th Utah with $4,900 ---, Spending per pupil - Spends the Least

How They Rank
Math:

1st Minnesota 44% rated above Basic Levels

13th New Jersey 33% rated above basic levels

20th Utah with 31% rated above basic levels

Reading:

7th Minnesota 37% above basic levels

13th New Jersey 36% above basic levels

29 Utah with 32% above basic levels

Does money make a difference? It is also notable that no state has a majority (over 50%) of their students above the basic levels. As you can see by the tables above, Utah spends the least amount of money per pupil, but ranks solidly in the middle of learning statistics among all 50 states.

If you click on the link above you will notice that those states with high minority populations consistently rank in the lower half of the statistics.

What do we do? Continuing with our dummy factories only has one outcome - more dummies. I am absolutely no authority but I have a wish list about educating our children. Parents are not parenting nor making sure that their children are doing the things necessary for an education. So first, we have to train the parents. A parent should be fined if a student does not have his/her homework on time, a child's truancy, misbehaving in class, and not following instructions. - Else, a parent should sign over to the school permission for the school to administer appropriate corporal punishment (spankings, extended exercise, corner standing, etc.) for intentional offenses that impede the child's education. The parent will hold the school harmless in all cases that do not rise to the level of injury, harassment, or sexual abuse of any stripe.

Education is a serious matter and the sooner we address it and solve the problems in our schools, the better. My ideas may not be the way to do it, but somebody needs to do something other than argue about the teacher's union, parents, poor teachers and all of the rest of the carping and playing the blame game. A good start would be to establish order in our schools. In the beginning, it might seem to be heavy handed but once the students realize that they will have to use the school as a place to learn instead of a social club, it will get better.

This piece is not meant to impugn the small percentage of students who do well in our public schools. This writing only calls attention to the majority of students who graduate functionally illiterate.

Please send me your thoughts on the subject,

Cheers,

-Robert-