Back to Steinman for
Governor.
Steinman for
Governor:
Part
009, Education:
By
William E. Steinman:
In
the fourth issue in my list I said, in conjunction with the crime issue, we
must spend whatever it takes to educate our kids. I also said ignorance is the
largest single cause of crime in
So,
let’s begin in the home with the father. All kids need a strong person in
their life. They need a rock. They need someone who can say no and mean it.
They need someone who will be tough and firm, but also dependable. They may say
I hate you, but they will be secretly glad the rock is there, a rock they
cannot move that will be there every day, no matter what! They need a real full
time father. A father who abandons or betrays his kids is a floating turd. He belongs
in a
Along
with this, I must look honestly at the so-called liberated people who believe
they can birth and raise a child by themselves. This is another case of a
missing father, by choice of the mother. It’s crap and we all know it. A
kid needs a complete family to feel that he is normal. Without that, the kid
will be sort changed on too many things and he will know it. He will feel
different in a negative way. I don’t think we can legally do anything
about this, but it’s wrong and we should actively discourage that life
style. I am not saying this on some phony religious grounds, but on the real
needs of the children. A kid needs a family to have the sense of completeness
necessary to mental health.
I
believe the most important element in the degeneration of our culture may well
be the missing father. Although this problem knows no racial boundaries we must
acknowledge that Blacks and Hispanics are the two ethnic groups who are the
most likely to create this problem in their communities. So, the inner cities
are where the missing father problem has its largest impact. The burden then
falls very unjustly on the mother or even on the grandmother.
For
sure, we are talking about a cyclic pattern that continues from generation to
generation. Kids grow up without a father. They are reared in a situation where
poverty and despair are considered to be the norm. They are cared for, if at
all, by a struggling woman who has no resources and no help. They have little
hope for a good life. Their options are limited to being lucky in sports or
pushing drugs. Being lucky in sports is less likely than hitting the power ball
lotto. The drug trade beckons every day.
Finally,
the kid gets to his peak hormone level and begins impregnating women. He feels
no more responsibility for the issue of his loins than an animal in the wild.
The kids along with the mother are quickly abandon and forgotten. And the cycle
continues. The wheel of pain and suffering rolls slowly onward crushing one
generation after another. Each generation we get more school dropouts and the
level of ignorance continues to rise. Crime continues to rise in proportion.
The most important thing we can do in pre-education is to interrupt that cycle.
To
interrupt this cycle, I will propose a cooperative venture between the
Essential
to managing this burden is to have volunteers from the community who would act
as mentors and positive role models. We will need a lot of volunteers of all
ages. There is no reason at all to disallow a ten-year-old kid from mentoring a
five-year-old kid. I see it as becoming a big rush for both kids. The little
kid would say, “Wow, a big kid is paying attention to me.” The big
kid might say, “Wow, I’m responsible for another person.”
I’ll get more into this general idea of using volunteers in another
essay. I have a plan for volunteers to be recruited for work in many problem
situations.
If
we do this right, the cycle of abandonment and resultant ignorance will be
interrupted. As more of our kids are mentored in a positive way, we will see
learning improve and dropout rates decrease. The kids with hope and models to show them what is
possible will try harder. The mean street life will not look so inviting.
Education will look like a viable choice. More kids will graduate and more will
go on to higher education. The level of ignorance will decrease with a
corresponding decrease in crime. The tax base will increase as we produce more
and more working people and fewer criminals. Is this a long-term plan? You bet
it is. Haven’t you had enough of short-term patch it up fixes yet?
Isn’t it time to bite the bullet, hitch up our drawers, and do
what’s right for our kids and their future? I think it’s way past
time.
Concerning
schools, more money is not a solution, it’s a copout. Throwing money at a
problem without a plan is just crazy. It’s a hack politician’s
solution that has never worked. We do need to improve education and there are
tools we can use to make that possible. When we look at the facts, we find the
schools are overburdened with ridiculous administrative overhead. Too much of
this money goes to pay overpaid assistants who are doing what clerks used to
do. That takes money away from its primary purpose, which is to pay teachers and
pay for the tools of education, plant and equipment.
Evidence
indicates there is enough money to educate our kids. What is lacking is
accountability. Recently the TV show 20/20 aired a one-hour presentation by
John Stossel. The name of the show was “Stupid in
There is another
issue involved however, that Stossel neatly sidesteps. This is the
responsibility of the parents in the equation. Education of kids demands the
informed participation of the parents in the educational process. They must get
involved and make good choices for their kids. I believe if the parents had
actually been doing that this bureaucratic bungling could not have gone on. So
we probably need voucher or some kind of plan for giving viable choices to the
parents for their kids. We also need informed parental participation to make it
work. I will continue with this discussion of education next time.
Back to Steinman for Governor.