Stupid, Sweltering Schools
Here in the South, we’re having the annual “yuckiest weather of the year”. With the temperatures hovering around the 100 degree mark and humidity rates above 90%, who needs to go to a sauna? Just step outdoors.
Interestingly, though the air seems so moist it feels like you could swim in it, we’re actually in the middle of a drought. Horses and other livestock are in the news because they are starving; all the grass has dried-up. Fortunately, rescue operations are under way by people who care (and have the brains to figure out that the animals need help, duh!)
It’s too bad we don’t have rescue operations set-up for our students, as well.
School has already started in the South. Yes, before Labor Day! And, as if anything more was needed to help students hate school, then the weather and ever-present testing are making it a sure thing.
A good friend, Alice, wrote to me about a news report in her hometown, which I thought I’d share.
“Example of the stupidity: The children in Nashville are going to some schools without air conditioning–it was 106 degrees on the school buses and two school bus drivers had to be taken to the emergency rooms because of heat exhaustion. This is our hottest August on record (in 130 years)
The school board’s explanation? “We live and breathe by test scores. They have to go early so we can test them before they get out for Christmas. If not, our scores will go down.”
That’s pitiful.”
Does anyone besides Alice and myself see this as a problem? Testing has not only taken the place of teaching, it has now taken precedence over safety and common sense.
Too many people think that schools are hopeless and that nothing can be done.
Or they live in that dream world that says, “not here; not my school.” This is exactly the same mentality that we old-timers saw at the early stages of what later became a nationwide drug epidemic.
What all those parents who are so complacent about the alleged excellence of their local schools need to remember is: It was our best and brightest students that ranked 24th in global competition. No matter how good you may think your local school is, it still doesn’t stack-up against the rest of the world.
Yes, there are some good programs being instituted on a small scale in a few schools across the country, but until now, there has been no plan that would improve every school across the nation.
The Kingsland Plan offers solutions not only to curriculum problems, but also the social ills that are impacting school quality in such a powerful way.
Where can you learn about The Kingsland Plan?
Just get a copy of “Set Our Teachers FREE! A Plan to Save Public Education” and you can learn all about the problems and how to fix them.
You heard it here first!
Brennan
