America on Life Support!

By Michael A. Crist

PUBLIC EDUCATION in America has fallen from its lofty perch as the worlds best to a system that is just barely keeping its head above water. Although educators must accept much of the blame for schools that have lowered expectations, forgotten about discipline and consequences, and given into union pressure, our government must share in the blame for where we are today.

Our federal and state governments have tried to mandate, stipulate, and dictate how schools should be operating. The government over-reach that we have experienced in all areas of our lives has made its way into our schools over the last 50 years. The more schools are mandated to do, the fewer dollars they are given to make it happen.

For our public education system to survive we must adjust to the demands of the 21st Century. We must begin to think out of the box about how we recruit, compensate, and retain quality teachers. At the same time we must return to the basics concerning discipline and expectations. There has been a significant increase in home schooling and charter schools in recent years. Public schools may be destined to becoming vocational centers with lower standards and expectations.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Jun 14, 2012
• ISBN: 9781477212547

Michael A. Crist

Michael Crist is a retired teacher, administrator, and coach who taught elementary through the college level during his forty plus years in education. He was inspired to write this book because of his fears for what is happening to our schools and even more importantly to the country that he loves and hopes will survive for his grandchildren.

Book preview

Contents

Preface

Introduction

Chapter One No Child Left Behind- Political Nonsense

Chapter Two What Happened to Discipline in Our Schools?

Chapter Three Funding Our Schools

Chapter Four Teacher Evaluations, Tenure, and Unions

Chapter Five Government Trends-Negative Influences over Recent History

Chapter Six Administration- Who is leading our schools?

Chapter Seven Athletics and Coaching

Chapter Eight Waiting For Superman

Chapter Nine American Teacher A Documentary Film

Chapter Ten Suggestions for Turning Things Around

Chapter Eleven Needed Education Reform

Chapter Twelve Critical Changes for the Future

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Preface

This book is being written because of my deep concern for what is happening to public education in America and the country as a whole. I will admit that it is written from my limited perspective of a small town mid-western educator. What I see happening in Quincy, Illinois, and the rest of the Midwest, I believe is occurring all across our country. I read the newspapers and watch the morning and nightly news and hear the frustration with our schools from parents, students, teachers, administrators, and from potential employers looking to hire graduates.

Our government has tried to regulate, mandate, and stipulate what public education must do and how to do it. Its latest attempt was the No Child Left Behind law. As usual, the intentions were good, but the enactment and mandates were flawed beyond reason.

I hope to explain what I see as good and bad about education in America and what I think has caused us to be where we are today. I also will attempt to give some suggestions for what needs to happen to turn things around, not only for education, but for our country as a whole.

We as a country must realize that our future lies with educating the next generation of Americans. The qualities that have made this country thrive and prosper are quickly disappearing and we must make every effort to re-focus on them or we will soon be facing our own demise.

I am not sure if public education is a reflection of our American culture’s lack of respect, discipline, and morals, or if it is the other way around. Either way the reflection has become a cloudy and dangerous forecast for our country’s future.

In case you miss it, I will tell you that I am an old-fashioned, conservative, patriotic American. I believe in hard work, I stand when the flag goes by, and I am not afraid to speak out and stand up for what I believe in. Along with that I disdain laziness, excuse-making, and the general belief that we must give, give, give, to those that have no ambition or desire to get off their dead asses and work to improve their lives. With that said, I will give you my view of how we are running the schools and why we are falling short of past expectations. Please understand that I know that what I will say includes many generalizations, but these are based on talking with a number of teachers, coaches, and parents over the last 20 years at dozens of school districts across the Midwest and researching what is happening in schools all across America.

When I began this project, my intent was to concentrate on the issue of public education. However, I kept finding myself getting hung up on other issues such as government waste, our welfare society, and our country’s ongoing march toward socialism. I am not a politician, and God willing, I never will be!

I would like to describe myself as the common man in America. I am not an expert on very many things, but my beliefs are strong and I truly feel that they reflect those of a majority of hard-working Americans. The only difference between me and your neighbor, who is the construction worker, retailer, or farmer, is that I am taking the time to write down my thoughts and frustrations with what is happening in our once proud country. My hope is to encourage people to speak out about what they believe. We need to stop being the silent majority, before it is too late!

Introduction

I began my teaching career in 1970 at South Elementary in the Northwest Chicago suburb of Crystal Lake, Illinois. I returned to my home town of Quincy, Illinois three years later and took a position at the junior high school teaching Physical Education and coaching football. I have spent the last 40-plus years with Quincy Public Schools in a variety of positions including teaching English, math, social studies, and at-risk students. I also worked as a Dean of Students at Quincy Senior High (10th-12th), Manager at the Middle School (4th-6th), and Building Principal at Adams Elementary (K-3rd). I more recently taught part-time at Quincy University and Culver Stockton College, located in Canton, Missouri. I have been able to continue coaching a variety of sports during my career and I still coach junior and senior high volleyball.

Over my 40-plus years in education, I have seen numerous trends come and go. The pendulum seems to swing far right and then far left with very few moments spent in the logical and time-tested middle. Three areas I have observed that fall into this realm are those of finances, teaching methods, and discipline. I do not claim to be an expert on school finance or methods of instruction, but I do have some observations.

I have experienced tough financial times when budgets were cut, supplies were scarce, teachers and support staff were let go, and buildings were closed and sold. Several years later, federal and state grants/programs would not only provide needed funds, but would have administrators scrambling to find ways to spend the extra dollars. School systems have been expected from year to year to adjust to significant swings in budget dollars. They do this over and over-they really have no choice.

What most people do not realize is that programs, personnel, and materials are available and then are gone. It is difficult to consistently be successful educating students and improving test scores when the tools you have to work with change from year to year. Imagine your city’s fire or police department being informed that next year they would have a 20% cut in staff and would lose ½ of their vehicles. They obviously could not do their job as well as before. These brave public servants are protecting our lives from fire and criminals. But in many ways the educator’s job is just as important and almost always more scrutinized than our other public servants.

Another area that has experienced the swinging pendulum is the method of instruction used in our classrooms. My experience as a high school and college student, and later as a beginning teacher was almost entirely teacher-directed with much lecturing, note-taking, and repetition. There was an occasional group project or presentation, but for the most part it was the teacher who initiated and directed classroom learning.

By the mid 1970’s and into the early 80’s, teachers in some innovative programs had become ‘facilitators’ and students were given more and more responsibility for their own education. This worked great for a select group of students and they thrived in this environment. However, the majority of our students could not handle the responsibility and would slide backwards. My experience was that there were not enough ‘checks and balances’ and students would soon fall behind.

Every time a new program would be introduced, the staff would be given a binder with all the information as to how to incorporate this into their classrooms and of course, change the course of American education. I can remember EBC (Education By Choice), PIE (Program for Individualized Education), Madeline Hunter, TESA(Teacher Effectiveness Student Achievement), Math Their Way, Chicago Math, Rebecca Sitton, Handwriting Without Tears, PLC (Professional Learning Communities), Ruby Payne’s Poverty Training, and The 7 Habits. The list goes on and on. All of these programs had some good ideas and strategies. It seems they would quickly lose their newness and the district directors would move on to another program. If it wasn’t new, it must not work, was often the viewpoint of the Central Office directors. If everything about the program was working except for one flaw, we would discard the whole program instead of tweaking it to make it work. I have so many of these binders I have considered selling them to supplement my retirement.

My wife works as a health teacher at a high school. She has been in