Are They REALLY Trying to Fix a Broken School System?

By Linda Dobson

I was only two paragraphs into the article and, boom: “I think there is a general belief that anybody can teach… teaching is complex a highly skilled, highly nuanced task. It actually is rocket science to teach a third grader to read on grade level.”

There it was, that familiar knot I get in my stomach every time I read hog wash about the school system. This, in yet another article about the recent second Education Nation gathering where “Corporate Leaders Weigh In.” This little tidbit was from Los Angeles Unified School District Superintendent John Deasy, perhaps considered a corporate leader as more and more big business partners with the government to control the school system.

Much Ado About the Broken School System

Education Nation, as with so many meetings of this sort, spend an incredible amount of time, money and energy yakking about fixing a system that is broken down to its core. Due to its compulsory nature, it’s a system that depends on parents believing that it takes rocket science to teach a third grader to read on grade level. Due to its providing so many jobs, this broken system must be kept on life support, continually propped up with ever-greater amounts of money.

That’s where the corporate leaders come in. Why shouldn’t some of that money become profit for them as it is for others? Take, for example, Pearson: “The Assessment and Information component of Pearson’s North American Education division brought in over $1 billion in business in 2009, accounting for 12 percent of the entire company’s worldwide sales. If this aspect of Pearson’s business enjoyed a profit margin comparable to that of the rest of the North American Education division (17.8 percent in 2010), that would mean the company likely made over $150 million in profit off of standardized testing and information services to schools in 2009. Pearson has achieved this growth despite repeated instances of mistakes in their test scoring business.” (According to “The Libyan Dictatorship Partially Owns the Company Scoring Your Kids’ Standardized Tests,” March 9, 2011)

Holding up a study called, “Life In The 21st Century Workforce,” Williams said most employers are looking for three traits in a new hire: the ability to learn new skills, critical thinking/problem solving and team work.Panelist Lynda Resnick, who heads POM Wonderful, Teleflora, Paramount Farms and FIJI Water, said Californian students — and American students in general — just aren’t competitive when it comes to the job market. When she surveyed her companies’ presidents on the subject, Resnick said they all agreed on one thing: “We go offshore not because we want to save money. We can’t hire qualified people” in the United States.

Everyone’s favorite criminal, Michael Milken (of Milken Institute), chimed in, too.

He decried the fact that middle class Americans spend about 50 percent of their income on a house and car to the detriment of extracurricular study for their kids, noting that even the average working class Korean family spends about $5,000 a year on extra tutoring.”

Exposing the Truth About the School System with Homeschooling

Here’s a brief look at what homeschoolers across the country and around the world have discovered. The school system focuses on perpetuating the school system. The school system focuses on teaching. The school system breaks learning down into pieces and parts to be doled out to children systematically.

See also “To Allow and Help People to Shape Themselves“

In direct contrast, homeschooling focuses on the learner’s success. In order to that, homeschooling focuses on the learner. Homeschoolers know that learning is not something doled out to a child, but rather an action that is born in and rises up within the learner.

The truth is…children are natural born scientists; curious, inquisitive, full of wonder.

The truth is…homeschooling children are acquiring “the ability to learn new skills, critical thinking/problem solving and team work,” not because they’re “being taught” these things, but because they are part of living life free of the school system.

The truth is…I taught three children how to read above grade level. It actually isn’t rocket science to teach a third grader to read on grade level. It is easy and enjoyable and magnificently inexpensive when a broken school system isn’t getting in the way.

 Link to this page

 Link to this page