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America’s Lost Work Ethic and the Future Fate of the United States – Part 4/5

20 Nov

“What are these jobs that Americans will not do?” Slate.com asked. “Do they exist or are they a figment of the business community’s imagination? It turns out that their claims are largely true—there are plenty of jobs Americans avoid.


Manufacturers Looking for Skilled Workers

Let’s take a tour of them.

“Americans shun pretty much any unskilled labor that requires them to get their hands dirty: landscaping, entry-level construction, picking fruits and vegetables (Reuters reports that “up to 70 percent of U.S. farm workers are estimated to be undocumented, totaling about 500,000 people”), cleaning hotel rooms, busing tables, and prep cooking in urban restaurants,” and “American workers appear to be less interested in some kinds of factory jobs.”

In addition, “Americans, it seems, are also less willing to take stressful jobs that require lots of training and long hours, and that require them to work in unpleasant environments…”

For example, “The American Hospital Association says there are 118,000 nursing vacancies in the United States.”

In fact, the Washington Business Journal reported October 2011, “U.S. manufacturing companies have as many as 600,000 jobs that they cannot find workers with the proper skills to fill, according to a survey by Deloitte and the Manufacturing Institute.”


What the American Self-Esteem Boosting Parenting Movement did to the US – Did your child have fun today by skipping homework and avoid reading a book?

The survey found 5 percent of current manufacturing jobs are unfilled due to lack of qualified candidates, 67 percent of manufacturers have a moderate to severe shortage of qualified workers, and 56 percent expect the shortage to increase in the next three to five years.

What about China? Do the Chinese have a similar attitude?

Continued on November 21, 2011 in America’s Lost Work Ethic and the Future Fate of the United States – Part 5 or return to Part 3

_______________________

Lloyd Lofthouse is a former U.S. Marine and Vietnam Veteran,
who taught in the public schools for thirty years (1975 – 2005).

His third book is Crazy is Normal, a classroom exposé, a memoir. “Lofthouse presents us with grungy classrooms, kids who don’t want to be in school, and the consequences of growing up in a hardscrabble world. While some parents support his efforts, many sabotage them—and isolated administrators make the work of Lofthouse and his peers even more difficult.” – Bruce Reeves

lloydlofthouse_crazyisnormal_web2_5

Lofthouse’s first novel was the award winning historical fiction My Splendid Concubine [3rd edition]. His second novel was the award winning thriller Running with the Enemy. His short story A Night at the “Well of Purity” was named a finalist of the 2007 Chicago Literary Awards. His wife is Anchee Min, the international, best-selling, award winning author of Red Azalea, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year (1992).

To follow this Blog via E-mail see upper right-hand column and click on “Sign me up!”

 
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Posted by on November 20, 2011 in Education, family values, Parenting, Public School

 

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America’s Lost Work Ethic and the Future Fate of the United States – Part 3/5

19 Nov

DailyKos.com says, “American’s won’t work 12 hour days , $5 an hour for seven days a week.”

However, in 1973 after graduating from college on the GI Bill (working nights and weekends), my first job was 12 or more hours a day sometimes six and seven days a week on a salary without overtime.

Change.org says, “Despite high unemployment, Americans won’t work as farmhands. Have you ever read John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, which is about two Caucasian drifters working as farmhands moving from farm to farm to survive? at 112 pages, it is a small book and I recommend it.

I know, I taught Of Mice and Men to my high school age students for more than a decade.

The Center for Immigration Statistics tells us what the are that jobs “educated” Americans won’t work at. CIS says, “Of the 465 civilian occupations, only four are majority immigrant. These four occupations account for less than 1 percent of the total U.S. workforce. Moreover, native-born Americans comprise 47 percent of workers in these occupations.

“These high-immigrant occupations are primarily, but not exclusively, lower-wage jobs that require relatively little formal education.

“In high-immigrant occupations, 57 percent of natives have no more than a high school education. In occupations that are less than 20 percent immigrant, 35 percent of natives have no more than a high school education. And in occupations that are less than 10 percent immigrant, only 26 percent of natives have no more than a high school education.”

With no choice, American born citizens will work jobs most educated Americans refuse to do.

In fact, in October 2011, the New York Times reported about a Colorado farmer that decided to hire locally unemployed Americans instead of immigrant labor.  It took the farmer six hours to learn he had made a mistake.  At lunchtime, the first wave of local workers quit and never came back. Some of the workers said the work was too hard.

Since most Asian-Americans value education and work harder than most to earn one, they tend to stay in school longer.  In fact, Asian-Americans  had the lowest unemployment rate of all ethnicities. In 2010, 12.5% of Hispanic or Latino, 10% of African-Americans , 8.7% of Whites but only 7.5% of Asian-Americans were unemployed.

Continued on November 19, 2011 in America’s Lost Work Ethic and the Future Fate of the United States – Part 4 or return to Part 2

_______________________

Lloyd Lofthouse is a former U.S. Marine and Vietnam Veteran,
who taught in the public schools for thirty years (1975 – 2005).

His third book is Crazy is Normal, a classroom exposé, a memoir. “Lofthouse presents us with grungy classrooms, kids who don’t want to be in school, and the consequences of growing up in a hardscrabble world. While some parents support his efforts, many sabotage them—and isolated administrators make the work of Lofthouse and his peers even more difficult.” – Bruce Reeves

lloydlofthouse_crazyisnormal_web2_5

Lofthouse’s first novel was the award winning historical fiction My Splendid Concubine [3rd edition]. His second novel was the award winning thriller Running with the Enemy. His short story A Night at the “Well of Purity” was named a finalist of the 2007 Chicago Literary Awards. His wife is Anchee Min, the international, best-selling, award winning author of Red Azalea, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year (1992).

To follow this Blog via E-mail see upper right-hand column and click on “Sign me up!”

 
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Posted by on November 19, 2011 in Education, family values, Parenting, Public School

 

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America’s Lost Work Ethic and the Future Fate of the United States – Part 2/5

18 Nov

My parents generation is the one John Steinbeck wrote of in Cannery Row. One review says, “The novel depicts the characters as survivors, and being a survivor is essentially what life is all about.” The same theme permeates Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath and Of Mice and Men.

However, today, many Americans have forgotten the sacrifice it takes to survive and expects government to bail them out. In addition, many only give lip service to education but do not instill the value of education and hard work in their children.

My father, at 14, was mucking out horse stalls at Santa Anita Race Track in Arcadia, California—the sort of work immigrants do today.


It started in America and swept around the globe!

My mother worked in a laundry and at home, she baked and decorated cakes for special occasions that she sold to neighbors, co-workers, friends and family.

My older brother worked most of his life until the day he died at 64 in 1999 working the jobs that immigrants do.  When he didn’t have work, he spent his days going to dumpsters looking for cardboard and searching the roadsides for empty soda cans and beer bottles to sell at the local recycling place.

Richard, my brother, “once” told me shortly before his death that he was proud he never collected a welfare check or depended on government handouts. The Latinos he worked with called him The Horse, “El Caballo”, due to his strength.

When I was fifteen, I went to school during the day and worked nights and weekends [30 hours a week] washing dishes in a coffee shop often until 11:00 PM only to be at high school the next day by 8 AM.

After a few years in the US Marines and a tour in Vietnam, I washed cars, swept floors and bagged groceries in a super market while I attended college on the GI Bill.

One summer job before my fourth year of college had me cleaning empty 50,000 gallon stainless-steel tanks at the Gallo Winery in Modesto, California. It was a dangerous job cleaning out the tanks where the wine was fermented, and I witnessed fellow workers injured and rushed to the hospital.

However, the generation that won World War II and made American strong and powerful is mostly gone or retired. Today, the work ethic in America has changed.  The reason it changed has a lot to do with the way children have been raised since the 1960s by parents obsessed with their children’s self-esteem and happiness, while making sure these children never face a boring day and blaming teachers for the child’s bad grades instead of holding the child responsible.


Unfilled jobs due to skills gap

Since 1960, the US has not won a single war.  After more than a decade and about 50,000 dead, we lost in Vietnam. Today, after another decade at war, we are still fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan with no victory in sight.

It’s as if today’s younger generation is incapable of making the sacrifices the Great Depression (1929 – 1942) generation did when 25% of all workers were completely out of work. Some people starved and many lost farms and homes.

Continued on November 18, 2011 in America’s Lost Work Ethic and the Future Fate of the United States – Part 3 or return to Part 1

_______________________

Lloyd Lofthouse is a former U.S. Marine and Vietnam Veteran,
who taught in the public schools for thirty years (1975 – 2005).

His third book is Crazy is Normal, a classroom exposé, a memoir. “Lofthouse presents us with grungy classrooms, kids who don’t want to be in school, and the consequences of growing up in a hardscrabble world. While some parents support his efforts, many sabotage them—and isolated administrators make the work of Lofthouse and his peers even more difficult.” – Bruce Reeves

lloydlofthouse_crazyisnormal_web2_5

Lofthouse’s first novel was the award winning historical fiction My Splendid Concubine [3rd edition]. His second novel was the award winning thriller Running with the Enemy. His short story A Night at the “Well of Purity” was named a finalist of the 2007 Chicago Literary Awards. His wife is Anchee Min, the international, best-selling, award winning author of Red Azalea, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year (1992).

To follow this Blog via E-mail see upper right-hand column and click on “Sign me up!”

 
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Posted by on November 18, 2011 in Education, family values, Parenting, Public School

 

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America’s Lost Work Ethic and the Future Fate of the United States – Part 1/5

17 Nov

Unless many Americans change their attitudes toward parenting, education and work, the United States will cease to be a super power.

With about 14 million Americans unemployed, millions of illegal aliens still find work in the US.

In February 2011, the New York Times reported, “Despite continuing high unemployment among American workers, record deportations by the Obama administration and expanding efforts by states to crack down, the number of unauthorized immigrants in the work force — about eight million — was also unchanged, the Pew report found. Those workers were about 5 percent of the American work force.”

Then on November 4, 2011, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported, “Both the number of unemployed persons (13.9 million) and the unemployment rate (9.0 percent) changed little over the month. The unemployment rate has remained in a narrow range from 9.0 to 9.2 percent since April.”


Unskilled immigrants are competing with unskilled Americans–mostly high school dropouts.

Imagine, if the government told unemployed Americans, “Work or starve! If you need a job, we will educate you and/or transport you to where that job is even if it is a job that only illegal immigrants have worked before.” If that happened, the unemployment rate in the US would drop from 13.9 million to less than six million and hover around 4%.

If these shunned jobs were the only choice after the standard unemployed “benefit year” [which is 52 weeks] ran out and the benefit checks stopped coming, the choice would be to go back to school and then work where there is a job, any job, anywhere or become homeless unless a friend or family member is willing to support you.

However, taking jobs away from illegal immigrants and giving them to unemployed American citizens is not why I’m writing this series. I wanted to know why Americans spurn jobs millions of illegal immigrants are paid to work at in the US.

Continued on November 18, 2011 in America’s Lost Work Ethic and the Future Fate of the United States – Part 2

_______________________

Lloyd Lofthouse is a former U.S. Marine and Vietnam Veteran,
who taught in the public schools for thirty years (1975 – 2005).

His third book is Crazy is Normal, a classroom exposé, a memoir. “Lofthouse presents us with grungy classrooms, kids who don’t want to be in school, and the consequences of growing up in a hardscrabble world. While some parents support his efforts, many sabotage them—and isolated administrators make the work of Lofthouse and his peers even more difficult.” – Bruce Reeves

lloydlofthouse_crazyisnormal_web2_5

Lofthouse’s first novel was the award winning historical fiction My Splendid Concubine [3rd edition]. His second novel was the award winning thriller Running with the Enemy. His short story A Night at the “Well of Purity” was named a finalist of the 2007 Chicago Literary Awards. His wife is Anchee Min, the international, best-selling, award winning author of Red Azalea, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year (1992).

To follow this Blog via E-mail see upper right-hand column and click on “Sign me up!”

 
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Posted by on November 17, 2011 in Education, family values, Parenting, Public School

 

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The US Federal Government — How BIG is “big”? – Part 4/4

10 Nov

Are you still thinking of that $548 billion that goes to the Department of Defense (DOD) with its 652,000 non-military employees paid from federal funds that come from taxes (that’s 32.6% of the Federal Government workforce), while the Department of Education (DOE) has only two-tenths [2/10] of one percent of the federal work force.

One thing we can bet on for sure, we will seldom hear complaints or these facts from a conservative source such as the Tea Party or conservative talk radio hosts such as Dennis Prager.

One example would be what Dennis Prager wrote at Townhall.com in “The Welfare State and the Selfish Society”.

In Prager’s essay, nowhere does he mention the number of people in the federal government that work for the DOD, the Department of Homeland Security or the Department of Justice that combined add up to almost half of the federal work force and the largest combined slice of the federal budget pie dwarfing any so-called entitlement programs that help America’s most needy citizens to survive and thrive.


Entitlement Epidemic, Spoiled Rotten, People and Government

It appears that supporting wars, prisons and death is more important to conservatives such as Dennis Prager than offering help to Americans that need it to survive and live another day without hunger or shelter.

In fact, are minimum-wage jobs without health care benefits enough to survive on?

Poverty is defined as the state of one who lacks a usual or socially acceptable amount of money or material possessions.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau data released Tuesday September 13, 2011, the nation’s poverty rate rose to 15.1% in 2010, up from 14.3% (approximately 43.6 million) in 2009 and to its highest level since 1993.

Entitlement programs that people such as Prager complain about mostly help the unemployed and those living in poverty but do not offer to support these Americans without any effort from the individual who needs help.

In many cases, those people may be working low-paying jobs such as companies like Wal-Mart or fast-food outlets offer. In fact, many fast-food outlets works its people twenty or less hours a week to avoid funding federal entitlement programs such as money used for unemployment benefits.

In other words, in a purely capitalist society without any social programs or safety net (what conservatives have tagged as selfish entitlement programs), if you cannot pay your own way, starve and die but do it out of sight and don’t bother us.

Return to The US Federal Government – How BIG is “big”? – Part 3 or start with Part 1

______________

Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of The Concubine Saga. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.

To subscribe to “Crazy Normal”, look for the “E-mail Subscription” link in the top-right column.

 
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Posted by on November 10, 2011 in child abuse, family values, government, media, politics

 

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The US Federal Government — How BIG is “big”? – Part 3/4

09 Nov

Another sore point among conservatives is entitlement programs such as food stamps and any form of welfare or unemployment benefits.

Many conservatives also see Social Security [SS] as an entitlement program, but Social Security by law [like the US Postal Service] must not be supported by federal taxes collected by the IRS.

Social Security must support itself with funds collected from employees and employers as part of the SS program and regardless of the popular conservative politically correct opinion that Social Security is broke, SS has more than $2.6 trillion in its trust fund as of December 2010 and collected $781.1 billion in 2010 while paying out only $712.5 billion. Source: Social Security Online – Trust Fund Data


Kids to be denied Health Care

Is it the fault of Social Security that both houses of Congress borrowed all that money that was meant by law to fund the SS Trust Fund and spent it? The facts are that the US Government owes SS and better pay up or risk millions of wrinkled, gray haired seniors limping to Washington D.C. to mob both houses of Congress.

Another federal agency that handles so-called entitlement programs is the Department of Health and Human Services [HHS] , which is the principal federal agency charged with protecting the health of all Americans and providing essential human services. The Federal Budget includes $81.3 billion to support HHS’s mission.

However, the Department of Education, with its 4,000 federal employees, has a total authorized budget for 2011 of less than $50 billion — less than one-tenth the budget for the Department of Defense, which is $548.0 billion.  Source: Budget of the U.S. Government – Fiscal Year 2011

Another comparison that directly affects Americans and includes more of those evil entitlement programs (according to most conservatives) is the The Department of Labor’s 16,000 federally paid employees that enforce laws guaranteeing fair pay, workplace safety, and equal job opportunity, administers unemployment insurance (UI) to State UI agencies, regulates pension funds; and collects and analyzes economic data. The budget for this department is $14 billion, which is 2.5% (two “point” five percent) of the budget for the Department of Defense.

Continued on November 10, 2011 in The US Federal Government – How BIG is “big”? – Part 4 or return to Part 2

______________

Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of The Concubine Saga. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.

To subscribe to “Crazy Normal”, look for the “E-mail Subscription” link in the top-right column.

 
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Posted by on November 9, 2011 in child abuse, family values, government, media, politics

 

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The US Federal Government — How BIG is “big”? – Part 2/4

08 Nov

In September 2011, the conservative newsletter of Hillsdale College, Imprimis, pointed out that it isn’t the number of employees that count or the amount of money spent that defines “BIG” government.

The author of the Imprimis piece, Edward J. Erler, Professor of Political Science, California State University, San Bernardino, says, “The task today is not to weaken the power of government — it is to confine the government to the exercise of its delegated powers [according to the Constitution] and to restore to its full vigor the partly national, partly federal form of government that was the legacy of the Founders.”

I recommend clicking on the above link to Imprimis and read Erler’s essay for a better understanding of what he means — it’s educational and may open your eyes to another truth and another reality than what is currently politically correct thinking among many Americans.


Response to Entitlement Programs – Michele Bachmann

As for the actual number of people that work for the federal government and are paid by the taxpayers [The US Postal Service does not count, as it must pay for itself (according to the law) through postal fees such as first class stamps or bulk mail for advertisers], according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), that number is two million.

Since the US population is about 312 million, that means 0.64% of the population is paid by taxpayers to work for the federal government.

In addition, on November 4, 2011, according to the BLS, The employed civilian labor force numbers 139,960,000, which does not include the 14,876,000 that are unemployed. Even if we subtract two million from the total number employed, we are left with about 138 million people or 58.3% of the population — a far cry from that 0.64% [“point” six four] that works for the federal, so-called “big” government.

In fact, of the 2 million federal employees paid out of taxpayer dollars, the often-maligned Department of Education (DOE) has about 4,000 employees, while the Department of Defense has 652,000, Veterans Affairs 280,000, the Department of Homeland Security 171,000 and the Department of Justice 108,000 — the rest have less than 100,000 employees with the DOE one of the smallest.

Continued on November 9, 2011 in The US Federal Government – How BIG is “big”? – Part 3 or return to Part 1

______________

Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of The Concubine Saga. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.

To subscribe to “Crazy Normal”, look for the “E-mail Subscription” link in the top-right column.

 
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Posted by on November 8, 2011 in child abuse, family values, government, media, politics

 

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The US Federal Government — How BIG is “big”? – Part 1/4

07 Nov

It is a conservative battle cry that the Federal Government is too big and must be smaller. Another battle cry to solve America’s budget crises is to abolish or cut what is known as entitlement programs.

One example could be the National School Lunch Program, an entitlement program that supports student nutrition in over 101,000 schools and residential facilities. It provides free and reduced priced meals to low-income children before school, during school, after school, and over the summer.

In fiscal year 2009, federal school nutrition programs underwrote more than five billion meals served to over 31 million students. Total funding for all nutrition programs adds up to about $12 billion in both cash and commodity payments. School nutrition programs are one of the largest federal funding streams to schools. Source: New America Foundation


The TEA BAG Party’s spin on what is wrong with America

In fact, in an October Jobs Report, Daniel Gross reported, “Since May 2010, government has cut one million jobs (under President Obama — the so-called flaming liberal that wants to grow the federal government according to the scare tactics and Yellow Journalism of conservative pundits and talk radio) while the private sector added 2.28 million positions.”

I’m sure members of the far-right conservative “Tea Party” will jump to their feet and cheer believing they are the cause of government job losses.

However, just how large is the US Federal government?

What I discovered might surprise you — about one-half of one percent of the total population of the United States works as an employee of the federal government paid for by taxpayer dollars.

Continued on November 8, 2011 in The US Federal Government – How BIG is “big”? – Part 2

______________

Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of The Concubine Saga. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.

To subscribe to “Crazy Normal”, look for the “E-mail Subscription” link in the top-right column.

 
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Posted by on November 7, 2011 in child abuse, family values, government, media, politics

 

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Substitute Teaching is not a “Tea Party”

05 Nov

During the 1976-77 school year, I subbed daily in a half-dozen school districts during the first semester.

Substitute teaching is not easy.

Whoever called first at five in the morning — that would be the school district where I taught.

I taught in Arcadia, Monrovia, San Dimas, Rowland and a few other Southern California school districts I’ve forgotten. Most of the time, I worked in Rowland Unified in La Puente, where I interned the previous year.

When some of the teachers in Rowland knew they were going to be out, they requested me in advance and my calendar quickly filled up.

After the Winter Break, I was called to sub at Romier Elementary for a fifth-grade class.


Watch the video and discover what it is like from another substitute teacher more than thirty years later.

The teacher had a heart attack and was in the hospital. Two weeks later, the principal offered me a long-term position for the rest of the year when the regular teacher died.

I consider that fifth-grade class as the one from Dante’s Inferno, and I worried that this would end in me losing my teaching credential while landing in jail for murder and mayhem.

I asked, “Why me?”

After all, there were many substitute teachers with more experience. This was my first year. However, I needed the job.

That’s when I learned that I had been the thirteenth substitute teacher for that class — not a good omen. The other twelve left after the first day and refused to return.

However, I survived two weeks and discovered why the regular teacher probably had his heart attack and died — a rather drastic way to escape those kids.  He should have quit or retired.

In addition, I knew why I had survived — a combat tour in Vietnam as a United States Marine had prepared me for this teaching job.


This video shows a substitute teacher that lost control. With students like these, I cannot blame her. Do you know that half of new teachers quit within three years and never return to education? This is one example that explains why.

That fifth-grade class had thirty students in it. Half the boys were hyperactive, which probably isn’t the politically correct term to call them but too bad since over the years, political correctness has become a language bully.

One boy, James, would attack anyone that stared at him for more than a few seconds. It didn’t matter if the student staring at him was a girl or a boy. He jumped the other students and his fists started flying.

James should have been America’s secret weapon in Vietnam.

Another example why it is so challenging to teach in America’s public schools may be found at Narcissism at its Best.

As a substitute teacher, it would have been nice to have a black belt in judo or karate. I knew one sub that did, and he started every a class with a demonstration of his skills to tame the wild beasts.

Once the class from Dante’s Inferno was mine, I moved the desks around to create a better arrangement for controlling the hyperactive gang.

I moved the teacher’s desk and placed two bookshelves behind it to form a space in a corner large enough to hold one desk so no one could make eye contact with James.


Another recent substitute experience.

The problem was, James wouldn’t sit still, and I had to keep my sonar turned on. When I sensed he was moving, I’d throw my arm up as if it were one of those arms at a railroad crossing to keep James from getting out and causing a train wreck with the other students he attacked.

At times, when it was too quiet in that cubbyhole hemmed in with bookshelves, I’d discover James on top of his desk spinning on his head like a top with his feet in the air.

If I saw any child from that wild bunch lifting a fanny off a chair, I’d fling myself across the room twisting my face into a Marine Corps drill sergeant‘s evil, killer mask.

“Don’t move another inch,” I’d say in a menacing tone that threatened bodily harm. There was never a dull moment. It was in that class that I perfected the killer sociopathic stare that would serve me well until 2005 when I was paroled from the classroom after thirty years.

______________

Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too.

To subscribe to “Crazy Normal”, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

  Note: This revised and edited post first appeared as a three part series on January 31, 2010 in Substitute Teaching is not a “Tea Party” – Part 1

 
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Posted by on November 5, 2011 in American Public Schools, Education, Public School, student behavior, substitute teaching

 

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Blind, Deaf, and Dumber to the facts and doomed to fail — Part 4/4

30 Oct

Since so many Hispanic/Latinos and African-Americans live in poverty, you may believe poverty is the problem, and the facts support this progressive politically correct opinion. After all, in 2010, the National Poverty Center reported, “27.4% of blacks and 26.6% of Hispanics/Latinos were poor, compared to 9.9% of non-Hispanic whites [caucasions] and 12.1% of Asians.”

If you support  this “politically correct” opinion, think again as we visit one “tiny” rural Kansas school district.

Liz Goodwin writes in The Lookout, “The average student at the Waconda school district of 385 kids scores better than 90 percent of students in 20 developed countries on math and reading tests, according to The Global Report Card, published in the journal Education Next.

In Waconda school district, “Most of the students are white, and no kids need English language learning classes.”

However, 65% of these white students qualify for free or reduced federal lunches, which is an indication that they live in poverty.

The formula for success in the Kansas Waconda school district is that “almost every parent shows up for parent-teacher conferences at the elementary school level and participation stays high in the older grades as well.

[Note—the public school where I taught (1975 – 2005) always had more than 70% Hispanic/Latino students, and less than 10% of parents came to parent-teacher conferences annually]

In addition, the district keeps its pre-kindergarten to third grade classes “very” small so the teachers may deal with a lot of problems quickly and early in child development.

A third difference is that the district keeps an assessment card of each student and that card follows the child from grade to grade. The card lists skills the state expects each child to master in each subject and teachers update the cards continuously.

Another factor is that this small Kansas district does not follow education trends. “We don’t believe in the next biggest thing or the next biggest theory,” the superintendent, Jeff Travis, said, “We’ve not made any major changes.”

[Note: the public schools where I taught in Southern California implemented many of the biggest theories and these education trends often made my job as a teacher more difficult and the situation worse]

In conclusion, according to Robert Weissberg, “Regardless of geography, everybody, white, black, and brown, knows what a bad school is — a school dominated by poor black and Hispanic students.”

However, it doesn’t matter if one is an American conservative, moderate or liberal, few muster the courage to speak this truth even when that truth is supported with solid facts.

Return to Blind, Deaf and Dumber to the facts and doomed to fail – Part 3 or start with Part 1

______________

Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of The Concubine Saga. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.

To subscribe to “Crazy Normal”, look for the “E-mail Subscription” link in the top-right column.

 
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Posted by on October 30, 2011 in American Public Schools, Education, family values, media, Parenting, politics, Public School

 

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