Our childrens isn’t learneded

Apparently 12th grade public government education-based reading levels are down.

Students scored an average of 288 out of 500 points in reading comprehension, two points better than in 2005 level but four points below the 1992 average of 292, the 2009 National Assessment of Educational Progress said.

Thirty-eight percent of 12th graders scored at or above “proficient” in reading and 26 percent scored that well in math, said the report, known as the Nation’s Report Card.

“Today’s report suggests that high school seniors’ achievement in reading and math isn’t rising fast enough to prepare them to succeed in college and careers,” U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan said in a statement.

And you know what their proposed solution is going to be: throw more money (i.e. your money, via taxes) at the problem. Because throwing more money at the problem all these years so far has of course produced these obviously positive results, so yes, let’s continue to do the same thing and expect different results. *sigh*

 

White and Asian and Pacific Islander students made gains in reading since 2005 but no racial, ethnic or gender group has shown significant changes in scores since 1992. Asian students scored an average of 298 points in reading in 2009, higher than any other group.

 

I’m going to go out on a limb here and make a guess as to why. It’s not because Asians have some sort of genetically-ethnic disposition to being smart. It’s because, culturally, Asians care about education. Asian parents get involved in the education system, get involved with their children, they set high standards for their children and expect them to live up to it.

The same would happen with any ethnic group — because ethnicity has nothing to do with education (but it sure makes for good funding justification and victim stories). It has to do with people caring.

I’d also argue it’s a failure of the government schooling system, because it’s a system that no longer cares about true education. It only cares about keeping itself alive. It needs to measure results, administer tests, use that as justification for more funding, lather, rinse, repeat. There’s no caring about actual education, only test scores and funding.

Just so happens that Arthur’s Hall just printed a nice article about “The Public Education Delusion: Why Centralized Education is not the ‘Foundation of Our Democracy’… Or is it?“. Excellent article.