Public Schools: Government Disgrace
Failing students , Rising Costs, Union Control
"[The U.S.] educational system, founded on freedom of choice and competition, worked. Adult literacy in 1795 is estimated to have been 90 percent. And it preserved our religious and political freedoms.
"Beginning in the 1850s, that system was undermined and then destroyed. Public funds were withdrawn from all but Protestant schools, and those schools became government schools, with their buildings owned by governments, their teachers working for governments, and their curricula chosen by governments. Parental choice and competition in education, except for a very small private sector of mostly religious schools, came to an end. [. . .]
"U.S. education [became] in essence a socialized business, the American equivalent of the Soviet Union's collectivized farms.
- Government schools gradually crowded out private schools, so that today about 9 of every 10 students attend government schools.
- Unions took over the government schools, bringing with them workplace rules that protect incompetent and even dangerous teachers while making it difficult or impossible to reward the best teachers.
- Curriculum was debased. Teachers and administrators conspire to lower standards in order to avoid being held responsible for falling student achievement.
- Spending exploded, to where today the government schools spend more than $10,000 a year per student, more than twice the amount spent by private schools.
- Nearly half of all students perform below even the basic level of proficiency in national tests, meaning they are functionally illiterate and haven't mastered even basic arithmetic. A third of students drop out before graduating; 70 percent of those who do graduate aren't academically qualified to enter college. [. . .]
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