The volume of response from readers on how to “fix” public education was surprising. In fact, I need another week to do justice to the quality and variety of community responses. I’ll continue sharing those comments in a Sept. 5 column.
It is hard to find anyone who doesn’t believe the education of our young people is important. The problem becomes one of degree and relates to what are we willing to sacrifice today for the future of America. The key issue seems to be setting financial priorities.
Some South Carolina lawmakers are calling for us to go to a four-day week in our schools to conserve costs. I find this counterproductive, especially when we know that children in many other countries go to school longer each day, more days of the week and more months of the year than do our students. The discrepancy between our students’ “time on task” versus the rest of the industrialized world is too great now. We must hope that saner heads prevail when the South Carolina General Assembly meets.
In the past few weeks, Anderson residents have voiced their opinions about what we should do to improve our education system. Here is a sampling of those opinions with some additional comments:
- “Parental involvement is a key component in the education of our young people. Without it, students tend to underachieve.” (Parental involvement programs seem an inexpensive approach to significant improvement.)
- “Elimination of the property tax as a funding source for schools in South Carolina and substituting sales tax revenues was a bad idea that should be repealed. Sales tax revenues are too erratic to be used for school funding.” (Every school leader I talked to agreed.)
- “Moral and religious training is significantly lacking in our schools. To improve public education we need to get back to our Christian roots.” (Few would disagree that our young people should be taught morals, ethics and religious tenants. The first question is simple: “Whose morals, ethics and religious tenants?” The second relates to where that responsibility lies. Is it with the schools or with the parents?)
Many books have been written on the subject of improving our national approach to education. Debate goes on constantly in our schools, colleges and universities around the country on how to do “it” better.
Next month, tune in one more time and see what your neighbors have to say.
