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From the Far Eastern Shore of Maryland
There are no do overs in life, why are we teaching or kids to expect that there will be?
What the hell is going on with education in America?
In a recent story in The Week, a New York high school student complained that she was awarded a diploma despite failing grades so the school could boost its graduation rate. Melissa says she was given a passing grade in here government class even though she had not done the work. Her teacher admitted to being “under tremendous pressure” to meet academic goals and said “that it was in the best interest of the school to pass her”.
What message are we sending our young up and comers by passing them and not allowing them to suffer the consequences of their actions.
What will happen when they botch an important project worth thousands or perhaps millions to An employer?
Do you really think the boss is going to say “hey you really fouled up that project and cost me a ton of dough, now I am going to promote you because society says I should“.
Life is full of consequences. Why not start by having our younguns experience that where they will not cause irreparable harm to someone else. School is the perfect place.
Can you imagine the heart surgeon who failed in heart surgery school, but was passed because the school thought it was in their best interest ?
My middle son came home recently from school, where he is an eighth grader with some of the academic requirements to pass classes. I was shocked to see, in writing, that our school system supports giving the kids do overs if they fail a test. Yep, they can retake a test or re do homework that received a failing grade and have the opportunity to make corrections and get a passing grade.
What.?.?? Huh???
All this not to the betterment of the student, but to make some arbitrary quota set forth by the mamby pamby knuckleheads in charge of our nanny state, I mean government. To make the administrators look good and keep their funding.
And if that is not enough, another son, Camden, is a junior in high school. He is enrolled in, get this, an SAT class.
Yep he is getting instructed by our school system on how to pass a test. No new knowledge is imparted. No lessons learned, except how to pass a test. I thought that the SAT was designed to measure a students aptitude, not be something to be studied for, as a class, in school.
His time would be better invested in a history, music or arts class. But not wasting a full 22% of his school day on this fools errand that will have no lasting positive impact on his life.
How is any of this making the American worker stronger and better?
Oh wait, they can get a job in a restaurant and be guaranteed a living wage by the socialists in charge. My thoughts on this are in another article. But I digress…..
When I was at Disney as a resort executive, the mentality was about the same in the early 90s. Employees were coddled and promoted based on longevity and tenure as opposed to skill and depth of knowledge. Consequently, the financial performance of the company was in the toilet.
That all changed with Eisner and the new management team. It took us years to weed out, cultivate and re-purpose thousands of miss-cast employees. But weed them out we did. And look at Disney’s performance today. Multiple years of tremendous financial growth.
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