Immediate Solution Needed, By Roger Behra

SHORT COMMUNICATION 257

Immediate Solution Needed

By

Roger Behra

In many places-parents in homes, the U.S. Military, colleges, universities, and most businesses-the loud voices are screaming, “fix America’s elementary and high schools”. And that is exactly what needs to be done. How and when the fixing begins is the $64,000,000 million dollar question. Research reveals the sooner it happens the better it will be for all concerned, especially the students.

Recently, President Barack Obama asked South Korean President, Lee Myung-bak “What is the biggest challenge to education do you have?” Lee answered: “Parents are far too demanding”. They want their children to learn English in first grade rather than second grade.

Now, let’s see what is happening in the United States. Far too many American parents think their elementary and secondary schools are doing “just fine”. That has been the recipe for nothing has to be done, and sadly to say nothing has been, and nothing is being done. Meanwhile, the results of research and the latest survey are being made known, and they are unbelievably negative and depressing.

Here are some survey results which are not “just fine”. Of all the eligible, 75 percent of young Americans are unable to enlist in the military for physical, moral or academic reasons because they cannot pass the written and/or physical exam. That greatly worries the military. The 25 percent of current ninth-graders will not graduate. That’s troublesome and depressing.

Fifty-percent of high school seniors in Washington, D.C. will not graduate. That is the highest percentage of non-graduates in all of America. Only Mexico, Spain, Turkey, and New Zealand have higher non-graduate rates. America’s 15-year-olds ranked 23rd in math and 25th in science in 2006 in international testing. Fifty-percent of high school graduates who apply for entrance to state colleges and universities in America need remedial English classes for reasons of grammar, spelling, punctuation, sentence, and paragraph construction. How “just fine” is all of this?

Since 1995 the average mathematics score fourth-graders jumped 11 points. At this rate we catch up with Singapore in a little over 80 years if Singapore does not improve meanwhile.

America’s clueless parents have to become aware of just how dysfunctional their “just fine” schools really are. Then America’s parents have to copy South Korean parent’s behavior and become and become just as demanding. America’s parents have to become completely aware that the deficiencies are in all areas of school education, because deficiencies have existed for a very long time. America’s parents have to realize that they have been a great part of the problem because of their cluelessness. America’s parents must constantly demand that U.S. students catch up with the rest of the world. Please, all Americans reading this communication stand up and loudly scream: FIX AMERICA’S DYSFCUNCTIONAL SCHOOLS-NOW!!!

R. B.
4-21-11