A True Tale Of Socialized Education.

Why It Doesn't Work, And How To Fix It:

I pulled my eldest son out of Public School at age seven, two months into second grade. He was a late talker, a trifle lazy, but intelligent none the less.

He had been read to by us since infancy. He is the product of a warm, caring, loving, tranquil intact environment.

When we enrolled him in Kindergarten two years earlier we immediately sought to become active in his school. My wife and I were one of the few parents who attended PTSA meetings, and for that we were treated as interlopers by the 'T' faction which ran the show. My wife took the additional step of becoming a member of SCBM (School Community Based Mgt.) where her good deeds were greeted similarly by humoring neglect. Still, via her position my wife was regaled by tales of student, parent, and educator misconduct, malfeasance, and even criminal acts that would curl the hair of anyone, save the professionals who had become hardened to the institution. But I digress.

In the two years and two months that had elapsed since we had enrolled our son in his Elementary School, he had learned virtually nothing, at least not at school. He could read, cause my wife had taught him. He was bringing home books from school that were preschool level, well below his abilities. When his teacher was queried why he wasn't bringing home more challenging assignments, we were more or less greeted by shrugs. The last straw came when I asked my boy if he could name any of our Presidents, he couldn't, but he did know that Martin Luther King had been killed by a 'white guy'. He did not return to school the next day, but instead we all learned the joy and success of homeschooling, as are his two younger siblings.

Now I have heard it said that much of the reason for failed schooling, lies with parents and the communities in which failed schools are situated. I'm sure there is some truth to that, it is certainly the case that my kids school is in a marginal neighborhood, where large portions of the households are dysfunctional, and large percentages of the parentage do not appreciate or are disinterested in the benefits of education for their children. That however, was not the case for my kid, and lots of other children whom I believe futures were sacrificed upon the altar of institutional apathy. I believe there was nothing standing in the way of their education but a bloated Govt. bureaucracy which was more interested in meeting its own needs, than the needs of its charges. Those kids were there and they were able and willing to learn, the least the system could have done is teach them something in the interval... apart from sociological and cultural PC bullshit they always did manage to squeeze in.

Now let me tell you why I think Hawaiian and public schools in general are so bad. Public education is socialized education, and nowhere is that more true than in Hawaii. Socialized systems are typified by centralization which means huge unwieldy bureaucracies. Hawaii's school system is I believe unique in the country in that our schools are run centrally by the state, when you are running for school board you are in fact running for state office. It is a highly sought after position for the huge budget it commands. Large bureaucracies take on a self-sustaining life of their own, with an instinct towards growth and self preservation which eclipses the needs of the service they are supposed to provide so that they become a secondary, or perhaps an even lower priority. Ever larger calls for funding that is supposed to go to classrooms, instead go into the maw of the ravening beast, to grow it more. One thing the beast does guarantee is uniformity, and Hawaii's schools are uniformly terrible.

Add to the host organism Teachers Unions which give lip service to quality teaching, but whose very function again outside of promoting its own organic and political interests, is to stifle the kind of incentive which allows teachers to excel in favor of a system which encourages mediocrity and rewards only longevity. A system whereby even the worst most apathetic of teachers are guaranteed reward.

Add to that a growing Federal Bureaucracy in the DOE upon whose largesse our schools have become dependent, and which requires an even larger bureaucracy with which to digest those funds. You can see where this is going.

The Elementary I attended when I was a kid, was roughly the same size as my sons. The office staff consisted of two ladies, whom I presume were secretaries, and a principal. Everything seemed to function pretty well. The office staff at my sons school consisted of about six to eight office workers, two counselors, a vice-principal, and a principal. I thought that a typical Hawaiian aberration, until I checked out my old schools web page, and found their office staff had grown to similar proportions. Apparently the beast needs feeding all over.

The last I checked Hawaii was spending about $8,600 dollars a year per student. Thats about a quarter of a million per year per classroom. Tell me you can't rent a classroom, and get a first-rate teacher for that kind of scratch.

To me the obvious solution, is to divest the public school system, turn that cash over to parents in the form of vouchers, and let them find a good private school. I'm sure there are some qualified enterprising teachers willing to start their own schools for that sort of guaranteed income. The fact is, there is nothing socialized systems can do, that capitalism can't cure or do better.

Oh yeah, my eldest just finished his freshman year in college, and he's carrying a 3.6 GPA.