Have you ever wondered how many high school graduates are actually unable to read well. I don't mean kids who read below their grade level; you know the 12th graders who read at a 10th grade level. No, I am talking about high school graduates who cannot read at a 7th grade level. The truth is that in some school districts, the numbers of such graduates are staggeringly high. According to the news, fully 80% of the graduates of the New York City public schools who apply to community colleges like the City University of New York, cannot read at a 7th grade level and have to take remedial reading courses before entering college.
How can it be that a school system like the one in New York City that spends huge sums on "education" cannot teach its students to read? And what are the graduates of this school system to do once they leave high school and move on in life? How many of these people will be able to get well paying jobs if they cannot even read well?
The answer to this problem has historically been the one provided by the left. Liberals want more government spending on schools. Liberals want smaller class sizes. Liberals want a modified curriculum to focus more strongly on increasing self-esteem and discussion of social issues. After that is completed, it is fine with the liberals if the graduates then go on welfare.
Improving educational outcomes is a key approach to fighting poverty. That is not a conservative or a liberal viewpoint. Everyone agrees on the goal, just not on the methods. One common conservative plan is to give parents vouchers so that they can send their kids to better private schools. That sort of plan has been adequately discussed and I will not repeat the debate here. Instead, I want to focus on the creation of a corps of teachers who focus only on the basics of education and who are tasked to deal with the weakest students within each school. Imagine a reading specialist who is given a roster of 30 students to teach each week. Each of these students would spend one hour per week with the reading specialist with no one else present. During that intensive one hour session, the only focus would be on improving the student's reading skills. The student would also be given homework in the nature of books to read at home. Any student who failed repeatedly to do the homework would be dropped from the program and another student would take his or her place. Once the student had made sufficient progress, he or she would move on to a second level in which students would meet in groups of four with a reading instructor. The program would continue until the student made sufficient progress to be able to read at the appropriate grade level.
Think about what this program could accomplish. Students who were willing to try would be given the skills to read. Nothing could be more important than this. Further, the students who present discipline problems or who refuse to cooperate would be dropped quickly from the program so that no resources would be wasted on them. This may sound harsh, but in a world of finite resources, we need to focus the effort on those who will actually benefit from it. Just think how many thousands or tens of thousands of children each year will leave school able to function in the modern economy as a result of this program. Each of these children will have the opportunity to avoid poverty instead of being consigned to his or her poor fate.
This program is not one just for the inner city. Many suburban districts need to adopt it as well. In my own town, the school board is building a new auditorium and music instruction space at the high school at a cost of tens of millions of dollars. If, instead of putting another showplace at the high school, the board had used these funds for a reading or a math program as described above, there would be a great many students who would be leaving high school much better prepared for life after graduation.
One of the key aspects of conservatism is that it seeks to empower the individual to help himself or herself rather than having the state step in to take control. What better way to help the individual than to teach him or her to read well or to do the math needed to function in our society!
How can it be that a school system like the one in New York City that spends huge sums on "education" cannot teach its students to read? And what are the graduates of this school system to do once they leave high school and move on in life? How many of these people will be able to get well paying jobs if they cannot even read well?
The answer to this problem has historically been the one provided by the left. Liberals want more government spending on schools. Liberals want smaller class sizes. Liberals want a modified curriculum to focus more strongly on increasing self-esteem and discussion of social issues. After that is completed, it is fine with the liberals if the graduates then go on welfare.
Improving educational outcomes is a key approach to fighting poverty. That is not a conservative or a liberal viewpoint. Everyone agrees on the goal, just not on the methods. One common conservative plan is to give parents vouchers so that they can send their kids to better private schools. That sort of plan has been adequately discussed and I will not repeat the debate here. Instead, I want to focus on the creation of a corps of teachers who focus only on the basics of education and who are tasked to deal with the weakest students within each school. Imagine a reading specialist who is given a roster of 30 students to teach each week. Each of these students would spend one hour per week with the reading specialist with no one else present. During that intensive one hour session, the only focus would be on improving the student's reading skills. The student would also be given homework in the nature of books to read at home. Any student who failed repeatedly to do the homework would be dropped from the program and another student would take his or her place. Once the student had made sufficient progress, he or she would move on to a second level in which students would meet in groups of four with a reading instructor. The program would continue until the student made sufficient progress to be able to read at the appropriate grade level.
Think about what this program could accomplish. Students who were willing to try would be given the skills to read. Nothing could be more important than this. Further, the students who present discipline problems or who refuse to cooperate would be dropped quickly from the program so that no resources would be wasted on them. This may sound harsh, but in a world of finite resources, we need to focus the effort on those who will actually benefit from it. Just think how many thousands or tens of thousands of children each year will leave school able to function in the modern economy as a result of this program. Each of these children will have the opportunity to avoid poverty instead of being consigned to his or her poor fate.
This program is not one just for the inner city. Many suburban districts need to adopt it as well. In my own town, the school board is building a new auditorium and music instruction space at the high school at a cost of tens of millions of dollars. If, instead of putting another showplace at the high school, the board had used these funds for a reading or a math program as described above, there would be a great many students who would be leaving high school much better prepared for life after graduation.
One of the key aspects of conservatism is that it seeks to empower the individual to help himself or herself rather than having the state step in to take control. What better way to help the individual than to teach him or her to read well or to do the math needed to function in our society!
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