Make Students Responsible

When education worked, students were responsible for their own education. My grandfather was born in 1886 and worked on the family farm and homeschooled until he was 11 years old.  He continued to homeschool, but also took a job to earn enough money to pay a tutor to prepare him for Medical School. He was 16 when he entered Barnes Medical College in St. Louis. He graduated first in this class at age 19 and was hired as their first Professor of Internal Medicine. He completed his surgical residency at age 21 and opened his medical practice in 1907. He also started his charity practice and traveled every Saturday to family farms in Praire du Rocher Illinois. He bought their medicine and was paid with bushel baskets of produce and live chickens. He practiced medicine until his death in 1962.

Most family farms operating in the late1800s had several children. Some went on to college while others with limited academic interest continued to work on the farm. These siblings ended up operating and then owning the farm. Today we would call them “drop-outs”.  They learned what they needed to learn to improve their farming operations well enough over time. Today’s “drop-outs” often eventually do the same.

Students are still responsible for their own education, but you wouldn’t think so when you hear all the noise coming out of our politicians and “educrats”. They began to take over education in the early 1900s and it got worse and more expensive. Federal and State Governments need to stay out of it. Counties are currently responsible for public education.  Elected school boards should control the content to reflect the values of the parents and the needs of the students. Content should emphasize reading, writing and math tied to everyday use.      

Companies don’t look at the high school graduation rates to determine whether or not to locate in a particular county. They just look to see if they will be able to fill the jobs they have to offer.  This is not a criteria any serious corporation would consider. 

Students who fail to graduate need to know that they will need to learn how to function in real time. This includes getting a job, managing their money and understanding written instructions, tax forms and sales agreements. They may need to do manual work for a while before they are ready to learn more.  They need to learn how to be self-supporting and learn it on their own. Families need to help these slow starters from the beginning.

Slow students need to be able to excel in something else like music, art, dance, gymnastics, sports and other endeavors to keep up their morale.

All students need to discover what the “love” to do and need to have the opportunity to do it. 

The key to helping our kids succeed in school is to make the kids responsible for their own education.  Parents and teachers need to support the student to do the best they can and work as a team to ensure that students are keeping up with their plan. 

Students who cannot keep up or refuse to keep up need to be with their own kind and move at their own pace.  This may be a lower track, trade school, internet school or a work-study program. 

Education costs twice what it should and delivers half of what it should deliver. Reengineering education should move the costs lower and results better.

Self-Serving Misplaced Responsibility

Government has wandered beyond its intended footprint by usurping responsibilities in manipulative, self-serving ways.  The limited list of enumerated powers granted to the federal government in the US Constitution should give you some idea of how out-of-control this is.

Attracting Jobs

Employers will locate their offices and plants to areas where they can function.  Employers will look for infrastructure to support their operations.  This can include ports, rail freight, truck freight, airports, roads, highways and communications.  They look for the availability of employees they will want to hire locally, so they look for Tech Schools, Engineering Universities and a large community of compatible employees.  They look at operating costs for themselves and the cost of living for their employees in these areas.  They look at schools, available housing, the weather and the overall livability of the place.  They look at taxes, electricity rates and property value stability.  Up to this point, the best companies have located in the suburbs in large office parks.

Politically Correct Corporations will need to relax their demands and fit in.  This started decades ago and will be resisted by the citizens until these companies stop imposing their “values”.

Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader