Blame teachers unions for lowered standards

We read all the hype about what a great idea this school levy appears to be. First let’s discard all the emotional diversions: “It’s for the children,” “It’s an investment in our future,” “Our school system is not broken, it just needs more money.”

If you believe any of these lame excuses, you don’t remember last year and 10 years before and you have done absolutely no research on the record of Idaho or the nation’s failure to educate our children. Public schools started into a continuing decline in the early 1960s with the advent of unionization. There has been a steady and dramatic decline since then. Even with a couple of lowering of test scores, at least one to accommodate minorities, the average graduating grade trend from the ’60s until now has been down, in spite of ever-increasing cost per student adjusted for inflation.

Currently less than half of those students who choose to continue their education can pass the bare minimum SAT score requirement for entry into most universities and are forced to take remedial math or remedial English. These are subjects that were paid for by taxpayers for 13 years. Would you not expect that after 13 years that your student could pass the bare minimum entry score?

On videotape we now can view a American Federation of Teachers official saying, “Public education is not about students, it is about teachers and their union dues and the political power that they can project.” It was nice of him to come clean on the ultimate objective.

Students today must compete on a global basis. More and more companies are hiring internationally because of the unpreparedness of U.S. graduates. Don’t take my word for any of this. Educate yourself. Go to the website of the Third International Mathematics and Science Study and read the summary at the end that says “By grade 4, American student only score in the middle of 26 countries reported. By grade 8 they are in the bottom third, and at the finish line, where it really counts, we’re near dead last.

More money is not the answer. Vote no on this levy.

DALE ROBERTSON

Laclede