The Number Four Problem We must Fix  -- Our School System

(This is an abbreviated version, the full text is in our Book.)

Our objective is to Restore order and excellence to our school system, which has gone from number one in the world to third world status. We must bring it back as quickly as possible. We will emphasize science and technology, not the arts. People with degrees in science and technology can make a good living for themselves and their families and they can create products that make jobs for our entire population. -- The arts will be taught, but they will not dominate our school system as they do today. ---  Our government officials should study history. When the leaders of the ancient Roman Empire started painting pictures and playing fiddles, the Barbarians came in and stomped them out of existence.

Today we are paying about 4 times as much as our worldwide competition to educate our children but we are getting less than 50% of the educational value. Our only solutions to date have been to make the tests easier and put more money into the educational system. This is obviously not the solution.

It is a crime to put our children out into the world with such a poor education. They are our future, the only future our country has, and they are often not equipped to lead a dog, much less this nation. The children of wealthy families have an edge because their families can afford to send them to excellent schools. The children of average income families are stuck with the public school system, and they are simply not learning enough to make a good life for themselves, or to contribute to their communities.  (But they can paint "real pretty" pictures.)

Lets evaluate the situation. Our home schooled children are getting a better education than those in public schools, despite the fact that they spend less time in class and their teacher (usually Mom) is not even qualified (by the current school system guidelines) to get a job in our school system, except maybe as a janitor. Something is dramatically wrong here. This tells us that we must make it easier for more home schooling parents to teach their children at home. This is what we will do.

We will develop an educational system by means of the  Internet. We will set it up so it will broadcast educational videos for every grade level.  You can log in and run  any program at any time of the day or night.     We will work with the History Channel and the Science Channel as well as others to provide videos we can use and we will also produce a lot of new videos.  We will recruit our best teachers to make these videos.  We will cover every subject in an entertaining manner.  Without entertainment, it will be boring, and no one can learn anything from them.  These videos will take our kids through high school and even college for the advanced students.

Yes, any child can get a college education at no cost, a truly free education.  We will use the existing school buildings as some of the worlds finest laboratories for our new technical school system.  Every student will have access to them.

Our existing educational standards are not acceptable, not in high school and not in college.  Your degree will carry more meaning (with our new system) than it would if you attended an existing public school system.  It will also give you a better education than most of our colleges, so the college degree you get by working at home will carry more weight than the degree you can get from most of our colleges.  You just have to learn the material in the videos, so if you do not learn it the first time, then run it again.  The material will be there; it is just up to you to go as far as you can go and move as fast as you can move, just by watching entertaining videos.

This same system will give anyone who wants to advance their educational level a chance to do it by just working at home.  Get that college degree you need to advance you in your job.  If you want to be a computer programmer, everything will be available for you at no charge.  Just sign up and go to work and work at your own pace.

These videos will provide the parents everything they need, they just have to set the schedule and see that the kids watch them.

This educational system will give us a chance to catch up with Germany, Japan, China, India, and dozens of other countries who have far exceeded our educational level in high  school and in many cases in college.  I have noticed that our new engineering college graduates are getting less than one half of the education I received many years ago in our "old, outdated" school system.  Even though I have forgotten more than 50% of everything I learned in college, I still know more than new graduates.

With this new educational system, we will no longer have to bring engineers from India, China, Cuba, and many other countries to do our engineering work.  We are even bringing over people to take our government jobs even though they speak very little English.  Surely, we can educate enough people to take these secure, lifetime,  government jobs.  I have never heard of any country bringing in new immigrants to take government jobs.  This is absurd.  These jobs should go to native born Americans.  (Don't ever again try to tell me that new immigrants are not taking jobs away from existing American Citizens.)

We will still have public schools for those who need them, but the number of public schools will be determined by  how many families want to utilize home schooling.

We will have no more of this "leave no  child behind" philosophy. We will encourage our  children to move as fast as possible, while also making it possible for them to move at what-ever pace they can manage. We must give the most gifted the opportunity to do everything they are capability of doing rather than make them march in step with the slowest in the system.

We will pay home schooling parents $3,000 a year for each child educated in the home. If your kid is smart enough to do 2 years of work in one year, then you will be paid  $6,000 a year. One parent can teach his/her children and the neighbors' children at home and make a little income as well as help the other children and parents in their group.

Our existing teachers can even set up private "small school houses" where a small number of teachers can run their own private business teaching maybe a 100 or more local kids. They will also be paid $3,000 (or more) per kid depending on how fast the kid moves through the system.  They will be given all the teaching material they need; they just need to supply the building, the computers, and supervise the kids.  They could take the kids all the way though college.

We will broadcast all subjects with credit given for passing a test. We will have many central testing centers.  We will pick the best teachers we have to make the videos and supervise the system. Every video must be entertaining as well as educational; we want the kids to enjoy their school. 

We will even teach our children the history of our country and the importance of loyalty to our nation. If the teacher wants to do it, she can even have a prayer before school and even give the Pledge of Allegiance. This will not be a public, politically correct school system such as our present day schools. The teacher will also be totally free to punish any kid who will not behave in the class room.

The kids will learn discipline without the use of drugs, just like back in the "old days" when we had the finest school system in the entire world. They will even be taught to say "please," "thank you," and to use "Mr. and Mrs." to address adults (My assistant just told me that this was just something they do in the South.). Maybe there are some good things we can learn from the South. There will be no liberal indoctrination, no racist teachings, and no hate America education inside our new school system. 

If home-educated children want to play football, tennis, or any other sport, we will recruit small private companies to put the sports packages together and they will also be paid by our educational system. One football coach, and his staff, will be paid to set up and train his team, as well as compete with others. We will even pay a bonus based on how high they rank at the end of the year just like we are paying a bonus for how fast a teacher can move a child through the system. We will even have martial arts classes set up by private companies, so the children will have more opportunities available to them than they have today. They can graduate from high school with a black belt. There will also be music and art departments.

We will guarantee, through a testing system, that all students meet certain requirements or they do not move forward. You keep studying it until you learn it.

We will also add a craftsman or technical section to our school system, so, at the age of 16, some students can start learning a craft rather than waste their time studying to go to college. I saw this at work in Ireland and they were graduating some of greatest craftsmen I have ever seen at the tender age of 18. They were fully qualified to go out in the world and make a good living for their family. They were producing piping fabrication that looked like art work and electrical systems that were sleek and beautiful. The concrete masons could do things I have never seen done before or since. They even had cooks who cooked us a meal that was the greatest meal I have ever eaten. And it was all done by 16 and 17 year old kids. We will put a lot of existing craftsmen to work teaching our kids to perform the craft they prefer. These teachers will also be compensated by our school system.

Actually churches can set up a school system and get compensated in the same way as the Mothers do.  The only "regulations administered by the government" will be the passing of the test at the testing centers.

Over a few years, we should have our entire school system moved up to the level  that we can compete with other countries.  This system will make the kids learn what they need to know to take care of themselves or they keep doing it over and over until they do learn it.

The Flag Waving Patriot