Education is the great equalizer. It gives people the
ability to move up the economic ladder – no matter their
circumstances. Our schools must create citizens who can
participate in self-government as well as compete for good jobs in the
global economy.
To compete in the 21st Century economy, the United States should make
available to all students post-high school education—junior college,
college, university, or trade school. Students and families should not
be going into debt over education. We must make post-high school
education free doing so will cost less than $50 billion annually – half
the cost of keeping troops in Europe and Asia, 1/5th the cost of more
than $300 billion in annual corporate welfare.
Similarly, pre-school needs to be made available to families that
want it. The evidence is strong that pre-school helps produce better
students. Fully funding Head Start will cost $5 billion annually.
“No child left behind” was a great campaign slogan but has developed
into very poor policy. It has pushed teachers into becoming
testers who focus more on test preparation than teaching.
Standardized tests are not the way to improve public education.
Improving education requires local control not federal control. The
most successful approaches in public education are found at the local
level – with control down to the individual school. To cultivate
success, we should adopt a policy that:
(1) Lets students and parents pick their public school. This
creates competition and raises the quality of schools. Essentially,
each student should have a certain amount of money that follows that
individual to the school of his or her choosing.
(2) Puts control back into the hands of the local school. Give
principals the power to direct their schools. Working with
parents and teachers, these professionals will create institutions that
match the needs of the students.
Maryland high school students must now pass several standardized
tests (High School Assessments or HSAs) to graduate, policy that takes
affect with the graduating class of 2009.
Unfortunately, in 2005:
42.4% of Maryland students taking the biology exam did not pass.
46.2% did not pass the algebra exam
42.7% did not pass the English 2 exam
33.6% did not pass the U.S. government exam
Public education in Baltimore City is in a crisis. In 2005 in
Baltimore City:
70.7% FAILED the biology exam
78.2% FAILED the algebra exam
65.4% FAILED the English II exam
58.3% FAILED the U.S. government exam
The problem is not unique to Baltimore. Detroit, New York,
Milwaukee, Cleveland, Los Angeles, Miami, Dallas, Denver, and Houston
have on-time high school graduation rates of less than 50%.
If we are to reverse the trend of decay in urban schools, local
control and student choice are the keys. Consider the Baltimore
Polytechnic Institute, a public school with a performance-based
admission process. Because of the unique nature of many of the
courses and programs available at Poly, it is afforded some degree of
autonomy in regards to curriculum and discipline.
The results speak well of this approach: On every test Poly was
the highest performing high school in Baltimore City. It also
placed among the top five high schools in the state and earned the
highest scores on the English 2 and U.S. government exams.
It is time for education to be more than political rhetoric – it is
time for it to become a political priority.
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