Lost

So dumb,

he doesn't know it;

So angry,

he can't help show it.

He sees the line

but just can't toe it;

Tic tock;

he's about to blow it.

I wrote this poem a few years ago. Anyone who has taught for as many years as I have begins to develop a sense and can see when a kid just isn't going to make it. No matter how many people invest themselves into him, you can just tell the kid is not wired right and is a time bomb waiting to explode.

The worst thing about a kid like this is not the kid himslef but rather the man power he takes up. From day one in school all the way up to their eventual incarceration, this is the kid who drains the system. However, like marines, as a society we try not to leave anyone behind.

However, in the case of education, in trying not to leave anyone behind, we end up stunting the progress of many others whose only crime is they did not require much attention. Sometimes we need to cut our losses and move forward. Public schools need to be more diligent in telling parents what they do not want to hear rather than telling them what will keep them off of their backs.

No one has the right to interfere with the education of a child. That includes the student who, for a variety of reasons, is not wired right. One look in their eyes and you can see a predator who preys on the weak, the easily manipulated, or a system badly in need of fixing. These are the kids who do the bullying. These are the kids who act out violently. These are the kids who thumb their noses at authority from an early age and have no business in a public school.

Our government has other programs in place better suited for these children. Sure, like any other government program, they are poorly run, mismanaged, and in need of fixing. So what. That is not an excuse to keep a time bomb in a setting where when it decides to go off it ends up hurting the innocent

Education Reflects Our Society

The public school system is a colossal failure and our leaders have no clue how to fix it. Our public schools need to be scrapped all together and a new system needs to be put in place if we really want to see any significant improvement. Instead, the wheel keeps getting reinvented while politicians try to find another use for our schools. Today, our public schools have become nothing more than publicly funded centers for raising children.

As long as we choose to remain a society in which married couples have to work 40 hour weeks just to get by in life our schools will be used to feed, clothe, supervise, and raise our nation's children. The world is not like it was fifty years ago when kids could safely walk to and from school on their own and at the end of the day know a parent, almost always the mother, would be home waiting to talk to them about their day. Now, instead of five channels on the television or a transistor radio for entertainment, kids have unlimited opportunities to be exposed to pornography, violent video games, and useless reality television programs when they arrive to their empty houses. It's why before and after school programs are federally funded so we can limit the mind pollutants we have made so readily available to everyone.

Another problem is we have too many of the wrong people having too many children. Unwed mothers, often mere teenagers who lack a basic education or moral foundation, are bringing in too many children and are ill equiped to raise them. Their absentee fathers who ignore their parental responsibilities compound matters and by the time their kid enters kindergarten, he has been exposed to more social ills than any human should ever have to face. This is a primary reason why you see the push for mandatory preschool programs to be monitored by our public schools. It's okay for anyone to have a baby because the state has decided to raise our kids for us. The problem is, how many government programs are well run and managed? What makes us think the government will raise our children any better than they manage their budget?

By the time these children reach public school, they are not only lacking developmentally, their social skills, impulsiveness, and anger pretty much guarantee they will never succeed in school. Teaching them is not as important as managing and monitoring their behavior with the hope they get through the system without being incarcerated as a youth.

Our public schools can not be fixed until we repair the growing ills of a society caught up in the over consumption of disposable products that saturate our brains with endless advertising designed to brainwash us into thinking happiness comes from owning stuff and not from the satisfaction of doing without in order to raise the people we bring into this world. Grades mean nothing to kids who equate love with how many electronic devices their parents have provided for them because they are never around for them. Life has become a negotiation to a generation of students use to asking , "What do I get if I do this?" rather than being raised to say, "I appreciate all the help you have given me."

So the next time you hear a politician tell you how they support education reform, ask him how he intends to do it. If it is within the current frame work, one run and controlled by the federal government, then all it will do is continue to enable a screwed up society. Real education reform will not happen in this country until there is real social reform. You can't have one without the other.

Feeding The Problem

I am sick and tired of the public school system being used as the state's welfare system. Why is it a school's responsibility to feed our children? We all know breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Without it, it becomes difficult to focus on the most basic tasks. It is true for those of us in the work world and it is true for our kids in school.
My employer, the Hemet Unified School District, does not make sure I eat a nutritious breakfast each day. However, like all other school districts in California, they willingly feed our children. Why? When it comes right down to it, it is all about test scores. Hungry students do not score as well on standardized test as students who are well fed. Based on the girth of or school children, we should have the smartest students in the world but do not come close.
I resent seeing my tax money used to feed our children simply because we have allowed the dysfunctional to continually procreate. And believe me, we have far too many dysfunctional adults pumping out dysfunctional children.
This has nothing to do with living in a low income area. I have seen countless students from low income homes arrive to school fed and focused on learning to think this is a poverty issue. It is not about poverty as much as it is about our priorities. If you can have a kid then you better be able to feed him three square meals a day. If not, you are dysfunctional and have no business raising children.
I admit, I grew up in an affluent community. My parents also raised eight children. We all got up early enough and did not leave the house without having eaten our breakfast. We also arrived to school on time and knew if we could not meet these simple expectations, the privileges of the day were not ours to enjoy. It does not take money to understand and value these concepts. Unfortunately, today we have too many parents unable or unwilling to model these behaviors to their children.
If you are a teen aged parent, chances are you are dysfunctional. If you are a parent living off of the welfare system, chances are you are a dysfunctional parent. If you work and commute such ungodly hours that you rely on schools to raise your kids, you are a dysfunctional parent. And if you can make sure your little Johnny has a new pair of soccer cleats but can't get him to school on time, you are a dysfunctional parent. Quit having kids! Please, I can not afford to raise them anymore.
One school recently reported feeding 911 students free breakfast; over 80 percent of which were delivered to their classroom by student volunteers. At a cost of $1.25 per breakfast, this works out to almost 200 thousand dollars a year. In other words, they pay the equivalent of four teacher salaries to feed students. What economic sense does this make? At a time we are laying off functional tax paying teachers, we are feeding children who will in too many cases become dysfunctional adults like their parents and be unable to hold down a job.
I read a quote from one parent who said, "My son would rather have slept in late than eat a meal." Fine, let him. See how long he makes this choice once he realizes no one cares if he chooses to go hungry. He may change his priorities but do not expect me, and other tax payers, to feed his sleepy butt.
Democracy and welfare do not go well together. To be a democratic state requires citizens to actively participate in the decision making process and accept the will of the majority. In a welfare state, you decide what level of life you want to exist at and rely on hard working tax payers to pay for the rest. It is time to return to a state of democracy and end these ridiculous programs before they turn hard working tax payers like me into welfare recipients because we no longer can afford to meet our own needs after we have paid to meet the needs of others.