Politically Funded Education Enshrines Mediocrity

by | Nov 4, 2000 | Education

A new poll claims that a large majority of American parents are very happy with their child’s public school. This is certainly not my experience. I am a family therapist in Montgomery County, Maryland — the location of one of the “best” public school systems in the United States. My phone rings off the hook […]

A new poll claims that a large majority of American parents are very happy with their child’s public school. This is certainly not my experience.

I am a family therapist in Montgomery County, Maryland — the location of one of the “best” public school systems in the United States.

My phone rings off the hook with calls from dismayed parents, nearly all of them with children in public schools. Teachers, according to parents, are labeling their students with so-called mental diseases such as “conduct disorder” and “attention deficit disorder.”

First of all, these labels are psychiatric diagnoses. Teachers are not trained or certified to render psychiatric diagnoses. For another thing, it increasingly looks like teachers are using these labels as a means of passing the buck for the failure of their educational methods. “Your child is not focusing or concentrating in school. He’s not disciplining himself. He must have attention deficit disorder.”

Does it ever occur to these teachers that perhaps children are not being trained to use their minds properly? If huge, ever-increasing numbers of public school children are not focusing, which is what therapists are discovering, then might not the problem be the school system itself?

In fairness to teachers, many of them tell me (confidentially) that the real problem is with the educational methods, not the students. But they dare not say so publicly, because to question the “wisdom” of the federal education establishment in Washington DC (to whom their principals answer) is career suicide.

This illustrates one of the problems with politically funded education in the first place. Politically funded education crushes innovation and merit. Also, we all know that a public school never has been put out of business for poor results. In fact, the worse these schools perform, the more government money they receive. In a free marketplace, many public schools would not last five minutes.

Let’s end this denial-fest now. American public schools are mediocre at best. If most American parents really do feel their children are obtaining a good education, then I shudder to think what it will take for them to face the truth.

Dr. Michael Hurd is a psychotherapist, columnist and author of "Bad Therapy, Good Therapy (And How to Tell the Difference)" and "Grow Up America!" Visit his website at: www.DrHurd.com.

The views expressed above represent those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the editors and publishers of Capitalism Magazine. Capitalism Magazine sometimes publishes articles we disagree with because we think the article provides information, or a contrasting point of view, that may be of value to our readers.

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