Article in School Newspaper

[Iudicious]

The article can be found here: http://snntoday.snn.pcsb.org/index.php?opt...n&Itemid=78

The full text of the article is below. Keep in mind, this is for a school newspaper, and, considering the particular kids (and teachers) at this school (read: neighborhood schools!), I doubted if I would have been able to get across the deeper, moral meaning behind the conflict, but I still wanted to get the message out. So I tried as best as I could with limited space to write an article that would get across some of the reasons why a public school system cannot work, and a private school system is the better alternative, and I tried to get across that the crux of the issue lies in individual -choice-. Overall, I was just glad to be able to make visible a viewpoint that most kids don't see, and won't ever see in their school careers.

I'd love some critiquing, especially on how I could get messages like this across better to an audience that isn't necessarily well educated enough to understand the deeper moral issues at play. I understand that it is necessary that such issues be brought up and understood, but I think it would be best if I could try to focus more on the concretes in an issue and include a bit of the abstract concepts involved.

Cultivating Failure

"In a time when schools and students alike are attaining failing grades on state-mandated tests, our government is questioning what it’s doing wrong, as it ought to. It’s too bad they always question the wrong people.

Ask students in public school whether they want to be there. Many of them will say no. Ask them if they enjoy what they’re learning. Many of them, once again, will say no. If our government inspected the common denominator among many failing students, they’d find that it’s not wholly an inability to learn, an inability of the teachers to teach or a lack of funding. They’ll find the answer lies in the fact that schools are mandatory, taught with government curricula by government employees.

Why are all of these things bad?

Students don’t have a choice in the matter of school. They may never come to appreciate the education they receive, and they may never grow interested in subjects they learn. Why should they? They didn’t choose to go to school, they didn’t choose what subjects to learn. All that matters is that they are forced to go, and for seven hours each day, by no decision of their own, they’re stuck in a classroom with a stranger and forced to learn things they don’t want to for no foreseeable reason, lest they suffer punishment.

Why should students take this willingly? How can a student be expected to respect a teacher he did not choose and was made, by force, to spend a whole year with? Why should students even care about their education, at that point? To many students, teachers are the enemy. They’re nuisances to be dealt with who get in their way on a daily basis. How can teachers effectively teach students who are forced upon them and have no desire of their own to be there?

The curriculum itself is flawed. By mandating certain subjects, the government is effectively sterilizing any desire to learn or specialize that a student might have. Students who are wholly uninterested in high level mathematics or high level sciences are forced to learn the subjects. They can’t be expected to pass those classes when they don’t even like them, and many are given such a horrible learning experience that it’s ridiculous to expect them to ever want to spend even more time at another school, college, learning new subjects, even if those subjects are ones they choose.

Public schools even manage to stifle the children who want to be there. By forcing the bright students to learn at the same pace as the lowest among them on the same curriculum, the government is hindering the development of what could be great minds. By chaining individual students to their failing classmates, the government effectively sterilizes ability and rewards inability, corrupting brilliant minds at their roots.

Why are people today, people who still fear the Orwellian vision of a government brainwashing individuals and telling them what to think, so willing to let their children go to government mandated schools where they are taught by government employees a curriculum mandated by government officials?

The reason schools are failing is because students have no choice about what to learn, where to learn, who to learn it from, or to even learn it at all. The number one way to kill the desire to learn is to force it upon unwilling students. The solution to failing public schools does not lie in an improved school system; it lies in private schools, paid for by parents or private charity, not mandated or funded by the government. When the government gives parents and children a choice, they will see a new rise of brilliance and productivity where before there were simply failing grades and a disinterest in anything intellectual."

[Eiuol]

They can’t be expected to pass those classes when they don’t even like them, and many are given such a horrible learning experience that it’s ridiculous to expect them to ever want to spend even more time at another school, college, learning new subjects, even if those subjects are ones they choose.

I'm not sure if that is an important point to make, as it seems that most kids go to college anyway, in spite of their dissatisfaction with school. However, their emphasis does not seem to be on education, at least at my college. I would approach this point more like "Taking classes one is not particularly enthused about or interested in is not conducive to a learning environment."

Public schools even manage to stifle the children who want to be there. By forcing the bright students to learn at the same pace as the lowest among them on the same curriculum, the government is hindering the development of what could be great minds. By chaining individual students to their failing classmates, the government effectively sterilizes ability and rewards inability, corrupting brilliant minds at their roots.

Why are people today, people who still fear the Orwellian vision of a government brainwashing individuals and telling them what to think, so willing to let their children go to government mandated schools where they are taught by government employees a curriculum mandated by government officials?

I would approach this portion of the article in a different way. Given the scope and audience, more emphasis on how private schools make for a better learning environment would give reason to support such schools, rather than someone coming off with ideas like "the government just needs to do even better!" A government could mandate policies that would be present at a private school, but the point is, the government shouldn't even do that.

The reason schools are failing is because students have no choice about what to learn, where to learn, who to learn it from, or to even learn it at all. The number one way to kill the desire to learn is to force it upon unwilling students. The solution to failing public schools does not lie in an improved school system; it lies in private schools, paid for by parents or private charity, not mandated or funded by the government. When the government gives parents and children a choice, they will see a new rise of brilliance and productivity where before there were simply failing grades and a disinterest in anything intellectual."

I think this is a good way to end the article. It summarizes what you wrote and ends with a positive note.

[DavidOdden]

The reason schools are failing is because students have no choice about what to learn, where to learn, who to learn it from, or to even learn it at all. The number one way to kill the desire to learn is to force it upon unwilling students.

I agree, but you conspicuously fail to say anything about the role of parents in this business. That fact which you identify is still there even if it's just the parents who tell the child to go to school, and what school to go to. At the end, you switch from the children having a choice to the parents and the children having a choice. In reality, it is the parents who are being forced by the government and who are the ones with reduced choice as to what their child will be taught. The problem of killing students' desire to learn by forcing them to be in class still exists even without government interference.

If a child does not want to be in school, how would it help matters if the source of funding switches from taxes to parents or charity? The child only has incidental knowledge of how school is paid for, and only has incidental knowledge of the law requiring parents to send their children to school.

The solution to failing public schools does not lie in an improved school system; it lies in private schools, paid for by parents or private charity, not mandated or funded by the government.

This comes close to making the right identification, but just misses it. There is no solution to failing public schools -- that presupposes that having public schools is a good idea and that there's some problem with achieving that goal. The real problem is, how can parents effectively educate their children? Certainly not via "public schools". The public school propaganda machine has managed to distract people from seeing what the real goal should be: they conflate the means and the end.