THE ELECTION IS ON THE HORIZON

It doesn’t take a scholar to know that the election is on the horizon, because the politicians are paving the potholes, and throwing earmark money around like drunken sailors. With only two weeks before the November 2010 election, the politicians are almost frantic to impress the voters with proclamations that they and they alone can solve all the problems of the world. Hopefully you will look closely at each candidate and evaluate just who is the best qualified person for each elected position. Obviously the current batch of politicians is not getting the job done to our satisfaction.

With the economy the big issue, the War on Terror has taken a back-seat in the voters’ attention spans, and don’t you find it most interesting that education is being utilized as a diversion by the Administration. Let me draw your attention to an interesting article on Time.com by using the link below:

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2022407,00.html

All of a sudden President Obama announces a $41 billion educational initiative. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s big donation to Newark, New Jersey schools is most generous, but comes at a rather suspect time. Your Commander continues to be concerned that we persist in throwing vast sums of money at improving education, but little actual improvement occurs. Why not have a Blue Ribbon Commission formed that is instructed to draw up a plan that establishes best-practices that have achieved actual positive results?

Why are students in charter schools, private schools, and catholic schools achieving significantly better educational experiences than our public schools? I believe it is due to an issue that I have been preaching against for several years, and that is restrictive Union contracts and teacher tenure. Your Commander is buoyed to see strong indications for improvements are on the horizon from the likes of New Jersey Governor Chris Christy who tells it like it is and has achieved the support of his fellow New Jersey constituents.

Until we get honest with ourselves and place some responsibility within the homes of the students and demand accountability from the teaching professionals, American students will continue to fall behind the rest of the world. If Finland can deliver the best students in the world certainly the United States of America can do as well. It is past the time that we must and should awaken to this urgent failure of our educational institutions. The failure to properly educate our children will generate a price we cannot afford to ultimately pay. Failures are not acceptable, but let’s establish a proven course of action before throwing additional endless amounts of money at a failed system.

Do you even know who is on your local school board? Our educational system has failed, because politicians have been using education to buy votes disregarding accountability and achievement. Money does not buy happiness and it does not buy automatic results either.

COMMANDER GRANGER