From the 1787 National Committee blog:
The success or failure of our educational system is the prime determinate in our ability to preserve supremacy within the international power structure. Our best hope for the future is to create a culture of accomplishment in our schools that equals the optimism and ambition of this nation. We must build a school structure that encourages children to thrive and convinces every child that success is possible – a place that makes us believe again.
At a time when many of our children’s futures are in jeopardy, politicians on every level treat their primary lifeline as a political football, tossing the challenges of education policy around like they are holding explosive dynamite. Republicans literally choke at the faintest hint of anything that even remotely resembles a social safety net, while most Democrats would never dream of compromising their own personal ATM machine, otherwise known as the teachers’ unions.
Yet another generation of Americans is receiving substandard education and that is completely unacceptable in a nation as prosperous as ours. It’s not only unacceptable, it’s downright embarrassing. In the latest test results released by the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) – administered to 15-year-olds in 65 countries and school systems by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development – 29 educational systems scored higher than the United States in math, 22 did better than Americans in science, and 19 scored higher in reading. These statistics are all the more frustrating given that expenditures for public elementary and secondary schools are estimated to be $571 billion for the 2012-13 school year, an average of $11,467 per student.
1787 is developing groundbreaking, sustainable policy to fully and fundamentally reform the American educational system. The policy, America’s Best Chance, is a model of educational excellence to be implemented in existing American public schools. The policy addresses the structure, culture, and leadership of public schools from pre-kindergarten through high school. America’s Best Chance covers every aspect of the school experience, from the material taught in the classroom to what is served in the cafeteria. All academic and non-academic areas are clearly defined – curriculum, standards, assessment, accountability, expectations, governance, budgets, school culture, teacher quality and training, technology, counseling/guidance, the length of the school day, nutrition, the size of classes, discipline, child safety, community involvement, and the partnership between parents, students, and teachers.
Going forward, our two goals should be: 1) Improve our national graduation rate to 90%, and 2) Ensure that every graduate has acquired the skills necessary to either attend higher education or be successful within the American enterprise (meaning they graduate with a marketable skill that can immediately earn them money). This may sound like common sense – and it most certainly is – but this nation has lost sight of these very simplistic ideas.
For the edification of those who may not know……”The first compulsory education law in this country was enacted in 1642 in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. The Puritan notion of education as a moral, social obligation was thus given the sanction of law.
To the Puritans, the education of children was uppermost in their minds. If a Christian civilization was to flourish in the wilderness, institutions would have to be created to make that happen. Thus it was that in 1636, the Massachusetts legislature, known as the General Court, began laying the groundwork for the colony’s education system. Four hundred pounds were appropriated toward the establishment of what was to become Harvard College.
Considering that there were less than 5,000 persons in the entire colony at the time and that the grant was larger than all of the taxes levied on the colony in a single year, it indicated how important education was considered in the infant Bible commonwealth.
This pattern was later followed by nineteenth century crusaders for free public “education”.
“The success or failure of our educational system is the prime determinate in our ability to preserve supremacy within the international power structure.”
Right from the git-go, the educrats were very clear in their fascist proclivities for public indoctrination in our state churches…..er, I mean schools.