With the advent of the new administration, educational policy is again up for discussion and review.
Randi Weigarten, the new president of the American Federation of Teachers and long-time president of New York's United Federation of teachers recently spoke at the National Press Club and it was reported that "In light of serious budget constraints, Weingarten called for targeted investments and policies that challenge schools, provide them the tools they need and demand they do the very best for all children. 'No cutbacks are as harmful as cutting back on our children's futures,' "
Weingarten is an extreme left-wing self-proclaimed alternative lifestylist whose program has always been to protect her turf by advocating against any competition to public schools, and for teachers' rights to their own comfy fiddle at the expense of almost everyone else including, first and foremost, students.
It therefore seems a bit hypocritical of her to proclaim that budgetary constraints will result in "cutting back on our children's futures," None other than Jonathan Alter, Newsweek's leftest of leftist columnists, has written two columns in the past 6 months lambasting the teachers' union's resistance to proven techniques to improve education in the United States. If someone like that can take on one of liberalism' s most sacred cows, there is hope for America. Column 1 Column 2
I have some suggestions for advancing education even in times of government cutbacks.
1. Eliminate all political indoctrination courses such as black history, environmentalism, political correctness, gay tolerance and the like, subjects of very little educational value and a waste of students' and teachers' most precious possessions, time.
2. Concentrate on the important subjects. English language skills, math, sciences, history and government.
3. Do away with tenure. Tenure, which is unique to the education field, is the number one reason why our children don't learn.
4. Establish metrics in our school systems and use them as standards to promote or demote at all levels of the education system.
It took Richard Nixon to thaw the 25 year chill with China. Wouldn't it be ironic if Obama would preside over the excelling of American education simultaneously with the demise of American trade unions?
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If environmentalists, liberals, etc are the future of the country's direction, then education on their agenda will only help people who are seeking future jobs. These courses give a view of a specific culture which the students of today need to conform to or at least understand, whether to get a job, be correct in how they handle colleagues and customers, or even to get a base of what they're up against if they choose to fight it.
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