Thursday, December 20, 2018

Dumb And Dumber

It has been a bad couple of weeks for the local education industry. DeKalb schools, attempting to evade any accountability for hiring a suicidal teacher with questionable sexual predilections, confesses ignorance of a fairly common industry practice: teacher certification. Was their hire really a teacher? A REAL teacher? And yet sans certification? The district claims they thought the certification he acquired, after the start of school, was somehow magically backdated to 1 July. Such flexibility with reality certainly explains other recent actions.

In an expansive riff on the "You Breed 'em, We Feed 'em" educrat anthem,  the Green Machine is now going to feed 'em two squares and a snack three hundred sixty five a year. Actually even the Green Machine takes the weekends off and dinner is off the plate as a fully comprehensive program would infringe on SNAP. This is the same old fig leaf, "hungry kids don't learn," used to mask the fact that "public schools don't teach" all the while maintaining unfettered access to our purses.

Deflection and deceit have been key tools for some decades. Look no further than the Ritalin epidemic-allegedly a therapeutic remedy for a "disease." A disease for which there is no clinical, repeatable test. No MRI or CAT scan evidence can be obtained. There is no blood test. No DNA evidence. But all you need to do is ask a teacher who gets the chemical handcuffs and on they go. Is this part of the Green Machine's "wrap around" service or just another way of saying the failure to teach shouldn't be held against the schools?

Regardless, it is an epidemic. Recent media reports indicate that twenty percent, one-in-five, of college freshmen arrive on campus under the influence of psychotropic drugs. And what is the media response? Colleges should provide more support services, mimicking the disaster that public schools have wrought, with Georgia Tech squarely in their sights. In their world, folks suffering from mental illness who readily fold under the stress of an actual, rigorous eduction should be given every possible concession on their way to a not-so-well-earned diploma. For those not in the know, most schools already have a "disability resource center" and the most fragile and delicate "scholars" get time and a half on all evaluations without any supporting research suggesting this does anything but appease whiners.

Perhaps Ma Tech should do an analysis and address the root of the problem-that students are being admitted who are not prepared to compete at Tech. Tech should take necessary steps to ensure that students are prepared mentally and emotionally for a Tech experience and that those who are not will take other opportunities--just as they always have when examining academic preparedness. The career of a typical Tech grad isn't littered with time-and-a-half handouts because someone is just too stressed out. To emulate the failures of the DeKalb school system would destroy Ga Tech and be a great disservice to tax payers.