A national disgrace especially when you consider that we have spent more and more on public education in this country over the years and have seen no improvement of positive return on that spending. This embarrassment was captured by the following graph from the Cato Institute, using California as an example:
It is not as if the American political class has not tried to fix the problem, they have just proven they do not know how to fix the problem, as witnessed by the graph above. Their solution always involves spending more money which in turn has gotten us nothing. Their latest attempt, via the so-called Common Core effort, has also proven to be a disaster. Where Common Core has been instituted, in states like Massachusetts and Maryland, the results have been a disaster.
It is not as if the American political class has not tried to fix the problem, they have just proven they do not know how to fix the problem, as witnessed by the graph above. Their solution always involves spending more money which in turn has gotten us nothing. Their latest attempt, via the so-called Common Core effort, has also proven to be a disaster. Where Common Core has been instituted, in states like Massachusetts and Maryland, the results have been a disaster.
At one time, Massachusetts turned out the smartest kids in the country. Under Common Core, they have slipped to seventh place. Several years after Common Core was established in Maryland, test scores have plummeted:
Step 27 proposed a solution to this problem that did not include any input from the American political class. Over the past several decades they have proven themselves incapable of not injecting politics, greed, and their lack of knowledge of education principles and strategies into the education process. As a result, we have wasted hundreds of billions of dollars funding the Federal Department of Education and lord knows how many billions of dollars developing Common Core, of which both investments have failed horribly and disgracefully.
Step 27 proposed a solution to this problem that did not include any input from the American political class. Over the past several decades they have proven themselves incapable of not injecting politics, greed, and their lack of knowledge of education principles and strategies into the education process. As a result, we have wasted hundreds of billions of dollars funding the Federal Department of Education and lord knows how many billions of dollars developing Common Core, of which both investments have failed horribly and disgracefully.
But that does not mean that we cannot heal our education processes and start turning out smart kids again. In fact, there are success stories in this field all across the country, a few of which we will discuss over the next two days. One of the common themes underlying these success stories is that the political class has been cut out of the education process, resulting in tremendous successes without tremendous costs.
1) An ABC TV News out of Los Angeles reported back in June, 2015 that an all boys high school in Watts has a 100% college acceptance rate. Yes, a school in Watts, one of the roughest and poorest sections of any American city actually has a high school where all of the graduating students got into college. I doubt there are many schools anywhere in any socio-economic class that can make that same boast.
Details of the story include the following:
- The school is called Verbum Del School and has been successfully run by the Jesuits for the past 50 years.
- This past year, every senior at the all boys school has been accepted to college.
- And I am assuming these are not only community college acceptances, given the goals of some of the students quoted in the article: "I want to be an orthopedic surgeon or an oral surgeon," said Zachary Byrge, the salutatorian for Verbum Dei's class of 2015. And, "Most immediately, I want to major in mathematics and do a program with Georgetown and Columbia, where I can become an engineer," valedictorian Nicholas Spates said.
- All of the school’s students come from low income families and are in fact academically lagging one to two years when they start at the school, making the college acceptance story even more amazing.
- Juan Perez, Jr. is the first in his family to go to college, having been accepted to St. John's University in Minnesota: "They always tell me every single day -- since I'm going to be the first person in my family to be going -- they're extremely proud of me."
is there a mention of Common Core, teachers unions, politicians, etc. Just dedicated teachers, families, and students proving that you can still get a good education in this country WITHOUT any “help” from Washington politicians.
2) This is a somewhat older story but it still applies to what we are talking about today. An article on the www.sfbayview.com website from June 28, 2013 talked about “10 Black Child Geniuses You Should Know.” Writer Amir Shaw started off his article with the following, pretty accurate stereotype descriptions: “If you only watched the evening news or depended on pop culture to paint a picture of young Blacks, you would probably think that the majority of Black youngsters were only ambitious about sports and music – or caught up in crime and debauchery.”
But he goes onto to describe the amazing educational accomplishments in a variety of fields of ten young black people who are achieving success “at a high level in science, math, classical music, chess and other knowledge-based areas and preparing to change society.” Mr. Shaw's profiles follow:
Stephen R. Stafford II - Stephen entered Morehouse College at the age of 11 and picked up three majors. Now 16, he is currently studying computer science and mathematics. He will likely graduate at 17.
Mabou Loiseau- By the age of 7, Mabou spoke French, Creole, Spanish, Mandarin, Arabic and Russian. Additionally, she plays the harp, clarinet, violin, drums, guitar and piano.
Andrew Koonce - Andrew is a master violinist based in Atlanta. He was named concertmaster, the most skilled musician, of the Georgia Music Association’s All-State Middle School Orchestra.
Autum Ashante - Raised by a single father, Autum was ridiculed by conservatives at the age of 7 for writing a poem that highlighted the travesty of slavery. Autum never wavered and mastered languages such as Arabic, Swahili and Spanish. She scored 149 on the standard IQ test. At age 13, she was accepted into the University of Connecticut.
Imafidon family - The Imafidon family is known as the smartest family in the U.K. The youngest siblings, Peter and Paula, made history by becoming the youngest students to enroll in secondary school. Their older sister, Anne-Marie, was the youngest student to pass A-level computing at the age of 13.
Rochelle Ballantyne - At 17, Rochelle is one of the top chess players in the world. She is currently on the verge of becoming the first Black American female to earn the title of chess master.
Ginger Howard - Ginger is the youngest Black American woman to become a pro golfer. Howard is competing to become the fifth Black American woman to join the LPGA Tour.
Tony Hansberry II - After Tony didn’t place in the eighth grade science fair, Tony interned at Shands Hospital and developed a method of reducing the amount of time it takes to perform hysterectomies and potentially reducing the risk of complications after the procedure. He was honored for his contributions.
Chelsea Dock - Chelsea has been an accomplished pianist since the age of 5. Now 13, Chelsea has performed at Madison Square Garden, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Steinway Hall. She’s also an artist and straight A student.
Daquan Chisholm - Daquan created a walkie-talkie, bulletproof helmet at the age of 12. He’s currently working with Johns Hopkins University to gather funding to patent the idea.
Stephen R. Stafford II - Stephen entered Morehouse College at the age of 11 and picked up three majors. Now 16, he is currently studying computer science and mathematics. He will likely graduate at 17.
Mabou Loiseau- By the age of 7, Mabou spoke French, Creole, Spanish, Mandarin, Arabic and Russian. Additionally, she plays the harp, clarinet, violin, drums, guitar and piano.
Andrew Koonce - Andrew is a master violinist based in Atlanta. He was named concertmaster, the most skilled musician, of the Georgia Music Association’s All-State Middle School Orchestra.
Autum Ashante - Raised by a single father, Autum was ridiculed by conservatives at the age of 7 for writing a poem that highlighted the travesty of slavery. Autum never wavered and mastered languages such as Arabic, Swahili and Spanish. She scored 149 on the standard IQ test. At age 13, she was accepted into the University of Connecticut.
Imafidon family - The Imafidon family is known as the smartest family in the U.K. The youngest siblings, Peter and Paula, made history by becoming the youngest students to enroll in secondary school. Their older sister, Anne-Marie, was the youngest student to pass A-level computing at the age of 13.
Rochelle Ballantyne - At 17, Rochelle is one of the top chess players in the world. She is currently on the verge of becoming the first Black American female to earn the title of chess master.
Ginger Howard - Ginger is the youngest Black American woman to become a pro golfer. Howard is competing to become the fifth Black American woman to join the LPGA Tour.
Tony Hansberry II - After Tony didn’t place in the eighth grade science fair, Tony interned at Shands Hospital and developed a method of reducing the amount of time it takes to perform hysterectomies and potentially reducing the risk of complications after the procedure. He was honored for his contributions.
Chelsea Dock - Chelsea has been an accomplished pianist since the age of 5. Now 13, Chelsea has performed at Madison Square Garden, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Steinway Hall. She’s also an artist and straight A student.
Daquan Chisholm - Daquan created a walkie-talkie, bulletproof helmet at the age of 12. He’s currently working with Johns Hopkins University to gather funding to patent the idea.
Unbelievable, great accomplishments in a variety of fields at such young ages. It is possible to to educate our kids to high levels of attainment, these ten kids in this article prove that reality as do the kids in Watts.
But despite having spent trillions of dollars via the Federal government to educate our kids, the vast majority of them get their butts and brains kicked when the are tested against kids from around the world. That is why we need the politics and the politicians out of the process, they have already proven they are incapable of attaining high education results despite high levels of funding.
Let’s find out what the educators of these fine young people were doing right, and as proposed in Step 27 in "Love My Country, Loathe My Government,” let’s apply those successful education approaches to the rest of the kids in this country. They deserve better than what the Department of Education, Common Core, and today’s politicians have been giving them.
More successful education stories tomorrow.
Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:www.loathemygovernment.comIt is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.Please visit the following sites for freedom:http://www.reason.com/http://www.cato.org/http://www.robertringer.com/
http://realpolichick.blogspot.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w
More successful education stories tomorrow.
Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:www.loathemygovernment.comIt is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.Please visit the following sites for freedom:http://www.reason.com/http://www.cato.org/http://www.robertringer.com/
http://realpolichick.blogspot.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w
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