Ilsley: A message about education
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TIME TO SEND A MESSAGE
I've written numerous letters over the years about our schools, the curriculum and how it's being taught just to pass certain test and the controls the Teacher's union have of protecting bad teachers with tenure. In almost every case I wrote how America was dropping down in the worldwide education rankings and this has continued to happen. I had recommended looking at Charter schools as a way of changing the direction education was going. It's well known that a bad teacher in a child's formative years in classes K-4 can ruin that child for life. Teacher's unions have fought the testing of teachers and in many cases children have gone on to fail because of this. The dropout rate in this country is 25 percent and much of this is in urban areas. What chance does a child have to succeed in life if they drop out of school.
This week a new movie premiered called "Waiting For Superman," a documentary by filmmaker Davis Guggenheim that explores the tragic ways in which the American public education system is failing our nation's children, and explores the roles that charter schools and education reformers could play in offering hope for the future. This film talks about how bad teachers can affect children and how parents role in being part of the process of their children education is another key that is missing today. This movie is opening the eyes of people who can see this country losing the battle to be anywhere near the