The State of the Union has finally came and gone. The SOTU postponement, government shutdown, and the always controversial Donald Trump all contribute to the extra attention the address received this year.
All of that being said, I am an educator and not a politician. So, what is the State of Education?
PEOPLE ARE DISSATISFIED
A 2018 Gallup Poll did a public poll showing that 55% of Americans are somewhat or completely dissatisfied with the education their child receives.
It has to be teachers’ faults, right? According to that same poll, only 6% feel their child’s teachers are doing a poor job.
Well, it has to be someone’s fault. Whose fault is it?!
GOVERNMENT TO BLAME?
If you analyze the numbers and public outcry, it would be… the government’s fault.
19% believe public schools do a poor
Much of the public outcry surrounds standardized testing – the amount of testing, the type of testing, or what is being tested.
WHAT’S BEING DONE
JUST THIS WEEK, my home state did nothing. They addressed it but did nothing about it. All legislative bills related to over-testing died in committee and bills looking to alternative testing died in committee.
BEven our own government seems to be saying it is their fault… although not directly because that would be political suicide.
Here’s what I mean: during election year, legislators are willing to give teachers a $9.61 raise per week before taxes and call it a $1000 pay raise while also passing more legislation benefiting the privatization of education.
See, legislators want to pass the blame as well because most are unwilling or unable to find a way to improve public education.
By giving more funds and legislation to private educational entities, they will be able to place the blame for education on them in the future.
WHY YOU SHOULD BE SCARED
These actions are scary. There aren’t a lot of reports available that compare charter schools to public schools. But, the studies that are available are not reassuring for charter schools.
A Stanford University study found “only 17 percent of charter school students performed better than public school students on math assessments.”
The study summed it up saying, “In fact, charter school students were more than twice as likely to post math scores that were significantly worse than their public school peers.”
You can read more about their results by clicking HERE.
CONCLUSION
To summarize, the public is unhappy with schools because of testing. The government dictates the testing that must be done in schools. The government doesn’t know how to fix the problem, so they try to pass the blame to someone else.
Sadly, this leaves educators and students to suffer the repercussions.
But until then, thank you for your support. I
