OPINION:
For all the social schemes foisted on our children, whether by special interest groups, teachers unions, associations or well-meaning intellectuals, there is scant evidence of any significant progress in U.S. public school systems. Across America, the overriding condition of public education remains dismal, with various rankings of student test scores, by country, exposing the weakness of U.S. students’ grasp of reading comprehension, spelling, math and science.
More discouraging is that these various groups, aided and abetted by Washington politicians and presidents, have decided to focus not on achievement in academics, but on gender studies, critical race theory, “white privilege” and systemic racism, which President Biden himself tells us is reality. While these subjects are always more appropriately addressed by parents, at least through a child’s preteen years, children as young as 5 are being indoctrinated in what can most accurately be described as extreme, unproven and irrational theoretical doctrines.
There are those few private, charter and public school systems that are graduating exceptionally high rates of university- and craft-bound students. In each instance, educators have standards maintained in classical subjects and they teach that every student is able and capable with support and enforcement by parents and/or caregivers. More remarkable, especially to those who subscribe to the theory that schools are littered with victims, is that many of the students who are excelling come from broken or nonexistent homes and are malnourished and underprivileged. Yet they test at rates exceeding those of children in upper-income-area schools.
The problem is not with the students, but rather with the adults who are invested in various ideologies. These are tied to organizations whose first objectives are self-preservation and increased income.
H. LEE LAPOLE
Loveland, Ohio
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