Spring Break
We're not as smart as we used to was
Elisha Maldonado
Issue date: 4/14/08 Section: Opinion
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Last week's disappointing education statistics attest to what we already should know: We don't know as much as we should. And because of it, I have missed out - and even more so, the children growing up today have an even worse education than I got.
A report published April 3 by the National Assessment of Educational Process found that 33 percent of eighth-grade students are considered at or above proficient and that 2 percent are considered to be at an advanced level. Those numbers dropped when they examined students in 12th grade, students whose numbers were 24 and 1 percent respectively.
Richard Bavaria, a senior vice president of education outreach for Sylvan Learning was quoted as saying: "Even though students have improved, there appears to be a lack of writing preparation before students enter college. It's time we challenged America's students to develop their writing skills outside of the classroom, to move beyond IMing and texting."
Today, education panders to differences without teaching facts. We learn all about diversity - differences of religion, of gender, of sexual preference, of culture. (No, we will not be reciting the Pledge of Allegiance because those two words "under God" are so offensive. Beside that, most people couldn't recite the pledge for you anyway.)
And the goodness installed in young children at school has dissolved into a list of dos and don'ts without explanation. (And please don't say God's name in school; it upsets the parents who also think it is offensive to sing "Happy Birthday" to their children because they don't want them to develop a complex about getting old.)
Presently, school is a series of hoops. The critical thinkers or the smart-but-lazy have figured out that if they jump through them properly, they can move up a grade or receive a degree without ever really learning the material.
Test scores back the degeneration of education, but it's more accessibly exemplified in Jay Leno's "Jaywalking" segment, which shows a good portion of our adults cannot tell you who Richard Cheney is, or tell you who fought in the Civil War, or even sing the lyrics to the national anthem.
It's not because this important knowledge is too difficult for most of our adult population to grasp. Instead, it's because our schooling is too easy and too fluffy. If, while in school, our minds are not continually pushed, anyone intelligent will just mentally check out. And perhaps our daydreams will touch on more intellectually stimulating material.
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