Call it ‘The McCain Plan’

Posted on | February 17, 2010 | 20 Comments

Dozens of public high schools in eight states will introduce a program next year allowing 10th graders who pass a battery of tests to get a diploma two years early and immediately enroll in community college.

My daughter was home-schooled through 9th grade, entered a Christian academy as a 14-year-old sophomore, graduated with honors at 16, did her freshman year at community college, turned 18 and did a year in Argentina in a full-immersion Spanish-language program, returned to complete her sophomore year at community college (receiving her associate’s degree with honors), and is now a 20-year-old junior at Frostburg State University. She’s only made one “B” in her entire collegiate career, and she’s engaged to be married in July.

America’s contemporary public-education system is funded on the basis of Average Daily Attendence (ADA), and the bureaucracy strives to maximize ADA in order to maximize revenue. Ergo, no matter how smart a kid is, the system compels them to go through 13 years (K-12) of school. This is accomplished via a dumbed-down curriculum geared toward the learning capacity of the “average” student, which aims to prevent bright children from learning at their own pace and graduating early based upon demonstrated content mastery.

This purposeful inhibition of learning on the part of bright students has a mirror-obverse effect on children with low academic aptitude. Just as the government education bureaucracy strives to retain bright children for all 13 years, so it is with low-achieving students who have no interest in academics and who receive limited benefit from chasing the high-school diploma that has been dumbed-down merely to provide a bonus for staying in school. Such young people would benefit far more from an apprentice program that, starting at age 14 or 15, allowed them to earn wages while being trained in some useful and remunerative trade.

Yet the egalitarian illusion of every 18-year-old receiving the same diploma serves the interests of the bureaucracy, which retains both the dullard and the genius for 13 years of taxpayer-funded public schooling. And the result — as can be seen in the hallways of any large “comprehensive” high school — is an insanely heterodox mixture of students, herded together willy-nilly so that they can all cheer for the same football team every Friday night.

“School spirit.” Go, Team!

Newt Gingrich once called high school “subsidized dating,” which is an apt eptithet for this misguided system organized more on the basis of political or social purposes, rather than for any goal than can truly be called educational.

Every child liberated from the swirling cesspool of public education is a victory. Better a teenager should be in juvenile detention than in a public high school. Not that there is any meaningful difference, but at least the juvenile delinquent has no illusions about being a prisoner of the state.

So if this new program lets smart kids skip two years of high school, that’s a tremendous improvement — a small step toward the abolition of the entire infernal apparatus. A simple plan:

Fire all the teachers.
Sell all the school buildings, buses and other equipment at public auction.
Return the saved revenue to the community in the form of tax cuts.
Pass a constitutional amendment prohibiting any future government involvement in education.
Laissez-faire and best of luck.

If a child turns out to be a complete ignoramus, parents henceforth would have no one to blame but themselves. And hey, the world needs ditch-diggers, too.

Category: Education

Comments

20 Responses to “Call it ‘The McCain Plan’”

Old Rebel
February 17th, 2010 @ 10:37 pm

I’ll endorse this plan! It’d be the best thing ever to happen to American education.
Old Rebel
February 17th, 2010 @ 5:37 pm

I’ll endorse this plan! It’d be the best thing ever to happen to American education.
Bob Belvedere
February 17th, 2010 @ 11:56 pm

That simple plan of yours will warn the cockles of The Classic Liberal’s heart.

Me? It gives me a tingle in my buns.
Bob Belvedere
February 17th, 2010 @ 6:56 pm

That simple plan of yours will warn the cockles of The Classic Liberal’s heart.

Me? It gives me a tingle in my buns.
RightKlik
February 18th, 2010 @ 12:19 am

Bravo!
RightKlik
February 17th, 2010 @ 7:19 pm

Bravo!
Call it 'The McCain Plan' : The Other McCain Help
February 17th, 2010 @ 8:46 pm

[…] the original here: Call it 'The McCain Plan' : The Other McCain YRC Falls 28% on Plan to Issue Stock – Stocks To Watch Today …Unions Are Also Split on […]
DYSPEPSIA GENERATION » Blog Archive » Call it ‘The McCain Plan’
February 17th, 2010 @ 9:00 pm

[…] The Other McCain has a plan. America’s contemporary public-education system is funded on the basis of Average Daily Attendence (ADA), and the bureaucracy strives to maximize ADA in order to maximize revenue. Ergo, no matter how smart a kid is, the system compels them to go through 13 years (K-12) of school. This is accomplished via a dumbed-down curriculum geared toward the learning capacity of the “average” student, which aims to prevent bright children from learning at their own pace and graduating early based upon demonstrated content mastery. […]
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February 17th, 2010 @ 9:16 pm

[…] And please do take the time to click here and read the full […]
richard mcenroe
February 18th, 2010 @ 3:32 am

You know, if you right-wingers CARED about this country, you’d sacrifice your kids’ futures to keep these government education professionals employed!
richard mcenroe
February 17th, 2010 @ 10:32 pm

You know, if you right-wingers CARED about this country, you’d sacrifice your kids’ futures to keep these government education professionals employed!
RES
February 18th, 2010 @ 4:19 am

Two American institutions determine your process through them on the basis of time served: the public schools and the prisons.

Although, to be fair, I s’pose unions ought be included in that collective.
RES
February 17th, 2010 @ 11:19 pm

Two American institutions determine your process through them on the basis of time served: the public schools and the prisons.

Although, to be fair, I s’pose unions ought be included in that collective.
goddessoftheclassroom
February 18th, 2010 @ 11:55 am

Your valid points are lost in amid your insult to good public schools–yes, there are some. The variations among districts are staggering, sometimes even among schools in a district.

How about more sensible suggestion for reform instead of the hyperbole? Here are some of mine:

1. Secondary teachers earn a BA or BS in their specialties and a professional degree with a year-long internship with a master teacher.

2. Allow parents and students to evaluate teachers with objective and concrete criteria and make these evaluations part of the teacher’s record.

3. Reform the “just cause” clause so truly inadequate teachers are fired.

4. Allow schools to discipline students and expel those who are habitually disruptive.

Now I’ve got to get ready for school myself.
goddessoftheclassroom
February 18th, 2010 @ 6:55 am

Your valid points are lost in amid your insult to good public schools–yes, there are some. The variations among districts are staggering, sometimes even among schools in a district.

How about more sensible suggestion for reform instead of the hyperbole? Here are some of mine:

1. Secondary teachers earn a BA or BS in their specialties and a professional degree with a year-long internship with a master teacher.

2. Allow parents and students to evaluate teachers with objective and concrete criteria and make these evaluations part of the teacher’s record.

3. Reform the “just cause” clause so truly inadequate teachers are fired.

4. Allow schools to discipline students and expel those who are habitually disruptive.

Now I’ve got to get ready for school myself.
Live Free Or Die
February 18th, 2010 @ 2:49 pm

As Ronald Reagan did with PATCO, so should every administator do to a government union if it strikes.
Still waiting for ONE Public Official to stand up to the Teacher’s Extortionist Unions

Do it for the children!
Live Free Or Die
February 18th, 2010 @ 9:49 am

As Ronald Reagan did with PATCO, so should every administator do to a government union if it strikes.
Still waiting for ONE Public Official to stand up to the Teacher’s Extortionist Unions

Do it for the children!
Thursday Wrap-Up « Countenance Blog
February 18th, 2010 @ 7:24 pm

[…] Several zingers from Robert Stacy McCain’s latest musings: Yet the egalitarian illusion of every 18-year-old receiving the same diploma serves the interests […]
rose
February 22nd, 2010 @ 5:41 pm

If there is no central mechanism to control education and make sure country wide standardization is obtained, I would say, the whole system would be like a “circus”….It is the government’s responsibility to provide the best education and it the right of the citizens to get this education. if teachers are not doing their work, then fire them and hire new more energetic efficient ones. many are waiting to be hired. if the US becomes an uneducated country, this will mean the collapse of the nation. We need firm education to rebuild up America. “Little learning is a dangerous thing.” Let educators talk on this issue. and so here I would say to all who have nothing to do with education but still go on talking: “launch not beyond your depth but be discreet; And mark that point where sense and dullness meet.”
rose
February 22nd, 2010 @ 12:41 pm

If there is no central mechanism to control education and make sure country wide standardization is obtained, I would say, the whole system would be like a “circus”….It is the government’s responsibility to provide the best education and it the right of the citizens to get this education. if teachers are not doing their work, then fire them and hire new more energetic efficient ones. many are waiting to be hired. if the US becomes an uneducated country, this will mean the collapse of the nation. We need firm education to rebuild up America. “Little learning is a dangerous thing.” Let educators talk on this issue. and so here I would say to all who have nothing to do with education but still go on talking: “launch not beyond your depth but be discreet; And mark that point where sense and dullness meet.”