Enough is Enough (Cigar Smoke 4-17-08)

A few weeks ago they came out with the latest assessment of our high schools. You know the one: 80 percent of kids in Detroit don’t graduate, 69 percent in Chicago, 50 percent in LA. Maybe those stats aren’t exactly right. You know me. But the point is that our schools are doing an incredibly bad job of educating and graduating our kids.

And what do the Democrats want to do to fix it? Of course, they want more money. That’s all they ever want, is more money. But more money ain’t gonna do diddly. How do we know this? Because we’ve been giving them more money for more than 50 years. You talk about a poor learning curve. I used to vote to give money for every school bond, but for the past number of years I always vote not to do it any more. Enough is enough.

In California, the Democrats have held power for over 50 years. That’s a half-century to you high school dropouts. Except for those few years when we had Reagan and Deukmejian and Wilson, the Democrats have been in control of our state and our school system, and the school system has gone down faster than Monica Lewinsky. As the guy on Jim Rome says, “Its just unbeevable.”

To me, the answers are relatively simple. But I’ve learned that simple answers are usually the hardest to employ (like our non-graduates). The first obvious problem is the teachers union. Yes, I know there are good teachers, and I sure know they have to work in horrible conditions. And most parents are part of the problem, too. But the teachers union stands out. The definition of a union is that it’s a group of people who are negotiating for their own interests. The teachers’ interests are more important than the interests of the students. To the teachers, that’s not necessarily wrong. It’s just what a union is for.

Of course, the teachers will say, as they have for 50 years, that the students’ interests come first. That’s nuts. Do you think the auto workers union thinks the car buyers interests come first? Hah. Do you think the bus drivers union strikes to help the riders? Double hah. Do you think the restaurant workers are striking to get better meals for us customers? Double hah with a yuck.

It’s a conflict of interest. Even a drop out non-graduating lump of dumbed-down dumbness can figure that one out. And the schools themselves have a similar conflict of interest. They get money based on how many students they have enrolled. Not much of an incentive there to kick out the disruptive students, huh? Fat chance that either the teachers’ union or the schools would even consider a voucher plan. It’s against their interests. Why the hell should they? They would obviously lose students to other schools. Probably better schools.

Everywhere vouchers have been tried they have been successful. Competition just makes things better. Period. It does in every other area of life. Why shouldn’t it in education? It should and it would, but the teachers and schools do NOT want this. Even though a voucher program makes the students better, it does not make things better for teachers and school systems. It’s that simple. Or that hard. Follow the money.

Another obvious problem in the school system is the discipline problem. From what I hear, most high schools have a real problem keeping the little darlings in line. All the students who want to learn are constantly being interrupted by the jerk-offs. And the teachers can’t control them because of our politically correct bullshit that doesn’t allow them to do what has to be done. The ACLU is a major contributor to this craziness with their constant harping about how many rights the students should have. That is nuts.

Why should students have all these supposed rights? They’re just kids. They’re supposed to be learning from the adults who have those rights because they’re older and smarter and have earned them. Hell, kids don’t have the right to drink until they are 21. Kids don’t have the right to drive until they are 16. Etc. Etc. So why in the hell do they have the right to wear obscene T-shirts and disrupt classes and spout off about anything their little uneducated butts want to?

It seems to me that if students disrupt a class they should be expelled. They should be sent to some other school that specializes in giving them an education in some trade like auto mechanics or plumbing or dress making or computer training. It would not be that hard to do. If they behave, they get the privilege of staying in the regular school. If they’re disruptive, they’re sent to a trade school.

The misfits will probably do better and the regular schools will be far better off. Even the teachers would be happier. It’s not that hard, folks. And if the jerk-offs disrupt the trade school, they’re gone. Let them get a job.

And why don’t our high schools just stop teaching all these unnecessary courses about gender politics and global warming and gay marriage and proper condom use and whatever else is the latest pissy social fad. Seems to me teachers and schools (and the parents) should concentrate on the basics: reading, writing, math, science. When they get that graduation rate over 90 percent, then they can add classes on why we should hate oil companies or something.

And I just heard that over 40 percent of our students are illegal aliens. And that we spend more than $10 billion a year on them. To be honest, I’m not 100 percent sure on those exact numbers. Maybe I heard them wrong. But I am sure that they are pretty close, and I am sure that that’s a lot of money. Heck, with that kind of money, maybe the Democrats and the teachers union (sorry, they’re the same organization) wouldn’t keep asking us for more money every election.

I guess that would be too simple.