There is definitely something wrong when a state has the resources to allocate at least $400,000 worth of funds to a single classroom yet the educational capability of its students is dismally low. Is it some sort of educational cartel? Seems like it.
The statistics themselves are enough to dishearten anyone… nearly 80% of graduates from high school who actually manage to take up further schooling in college need some form of remedial lessons. Students who enter college should already be capable enough already academically as long as their fundamentals are sound. If that was not bad enough, the current educational system is the main culprit for this shortcoming.
It has been said that the youth have always been the hope for the nation. But what future can there be for any nation if the authorities in power are not responsible enough in educating the next generation properly? Failing this responsibility is a recipe for disaster.
Take for example The New Jersey Education Association, whose responsibility it is to ensure quality education for the students of New Jersey. This group is a teachers union with lots of political clout and influence. Unfortunately, the union has gained a notorious reputation for merely enriching its members over properly educating the students under their care. Allegations of misusing state funds for personal enrichment is just one of the numerous problems attributed to this group. This is a group, which acts more like a cartel than a respectable body of educators.
What follows is a short detail of one of the recently discovered exposes involving one of its members. One school district secretary was found to have been making more than what she should be receiving. The sum amounts to a staggering $180,000 annually. How did this happen? It is quite simple. Closeness to the education cartel is to blame.
Sacrificing the minds and opportunities for growth of the students cannot be acceptable under any circumstance. It has reached the point that unqualified and underperforming teachers are still on the payroll because of their association with this education cartel. Those who are qualified and actually have the guts to speak out against the group find themselves in a very difficult position. Their very act of doing so can even cost them their careers.
Disheartening isn’t it? When educators who stand for what is right for the students are systematically removed what hope can there be for the existing educational system? It is a type of corruption that prioritizes personal profit over nation-building and improving lives.
However, not all is lost. There are charter schools whose mission is to uplift the quality of education and they have done a consistently good job in outperforming the state-run district schools. One would think they would be receiving better state or government support for their efforts but the sad case is the opposite. The very same educational bureaucrats make it hard for these charter schools to progress any further simply because they are a threat to their well-entrenched positions. At this rate, more young minds will continue to languish in substandard education unless the tax-paying public does something about this.
Houston Chronicle story of The Cartel, a film by Bob Bowdon.
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