Editors note: This article was contributed by a friend of mine who is a former high school teacher and wishes to remain anonymous, but is available for comments. It comes from a different viewpoint than my own, please leave your feedback! Thanks!
This Fall, as millions of teachers and students make their way back to school, they are returning not only to classrooms but a combat zone as well.
Far-fetched you say? Look carefully. The kind of things that are happening today in American education is every bit as combative and threatening as what is occurring in Iraq and Afghanistan.
When teachers come to work every day, they don't just put their careers and reputations on the line. For some, it's their lives as well.
And students face that sense of peril too.
But this danger is not only physical. There is a war going on, a bitter, full-scale, take-no-prisoners war. And the prize? The minds and spirits of our children.
Aside from the usual apathy and ignorance on the part of the public, there are forces who, for their own personal reasons, are determined to impede the American education system and the intellectual development of our children.
You can see it happening already. Our test scores are slipping. Our intellectual superiority vanishing. Our system is in shreds. And to add to that, the electronic media fills the young mind with junk, undermining education's true value.
And, finally, there are the politicians, who are more interested in self-aggrandizement than the future of the system. Their actions are not only stupid and ill-advised, but obstructive and destructive as well.
Where does that leave us, the parents, citizens, taxpayers and electors? Are we, in the truest sense, victims of that war? Is it then not our duty to stand up for our beliefs, to become active crusaders, to challenge the enemy, to fight the good fight and to restore the American educational system to its true level of esteem?
Oprah: "We view our public schools as babysitting warehouses."
As educator James Pinto wrote, "Bad things are going on in America's public schools. America's cultural condition is not healthy. It is shocking how badly the average American middle class has declined." There is a drop of 80 points in SAT scores. "All signs point to deterioration in the quality of American education."
Even Oprah highlighted the problem on a special Schools in Crisis series. She said, "Another important point is the expectations that our society has of our public schools. We view our public schools as babysitting warehouses in which we house kids until they're old enough to go to prison."
The report further states, "Bill Gates used the word obsolete to describe public schools in the United States. And said he was 'terrified' at the implications of the dismal state of the American education system. You should be concerned, too."
With all these hard to ignore "Plague in Schools" articles, a battle cry resounds. Heed them, and you, too, may become one of the heroes of the "War Against Education."
