November 7, 2010

Rethinking Secondary Education

By James W. Mulholland
Everyone is aware that our public system of education, especially at the secondary level, is failing. To function well, our system of government requires an educated and intelligent populace. When 40 percent of our children are unable to successfully complete a high school education, the failure becomes a national crisis marked by high unemployment and growth of a welfare state. Here is a proposal for an entirely different method of delivering an education.As a once-hopeful high school science teacher, I discovered that the primary cause of school failure (at least where I practiced) was the high percentage of students in school who had no interest in learning, no respect for teachers, and no intention to graduate. For various reasons, traditional education did not relate to their lives in any useful way. Many of them were simply putting in seat time until they could legally drop out at the age of 16.Clearly, the issue was lack of motivation (which is another long subject) from many...(Read Full Article)