The school tax goes up, property values go down and school performance remains poor. This growing crisis is hurting everyone.
Public education should be preserved but the single greatest mistake we are making is to process students like objects on an assembly line, forcing them through the system without regard for their readiness to learn. This policy is causing student indifference and even defiance towards school, and transforming the system into an enormously overpriced daycare. The hard truth is that there is simply no amount of money that can educate teenage students who aren’t ready to learn, and it’s time to accept that compulsory education and truancy law have backfired. If we don’t restore public education as an honor and privilege that must be earned, this crisis will continue to get worse by the day. In addition to the soaring cost, students who are not ready to learn put those who are ready at risk.
I suggest raising academic and behavioral standards and use them to dismiss unprepared teenagers until they demonstrate their readiness. Dismissed students will then have a choice: they can attend trade school or daycare, be home schooled, mentored (described below), or pursue success in their own way.
Readiness to learn starts with caring and that starts with family and community, not school. Instead of forcing an education onto teens, I suggest providing a mentoring campaign of community volunteers who continually sell the message that our children are our future and that caring about self and others is the key to success.
Join me in seeking a school board who will fight for this agenda today.
—Gary Spinello
