The march towards Idiocracy continues. On Wednesday the Associated Press reported that only a quarter of last year's high school graduates who took the ACT have the basic skills they need to succeed in college or in the work place. It's a damn good thing that as a society most of these people will be obsolete in the next decade.I know that the knee jerk response to this information will be that we need to better fund education. While I would love to see better schools I really do not believe that this would fix the problem. This is a societal problem that begins at home. If a high school senior cannot score better than a 22 on the reading comprehension portion of the ACT no amount of schooling is going to help that student. An 18 year old should be able to read at that level merely by associating with his or her parents. The education system should turn that 22 into 32 not bring a 12 up to 22.
The fact is that if some level of education does not begin at home there is nothing the schools can do about it. Asking the schools to fix this problem will only drag the other students down as the teachers have to spend more time catching up the underachieving students. At some point the schools have to say enough is enough. The Schools must stop promoting kids to the next grade if they haven't developed the skills to move on and in some cases just tell the kids not to come anymore if they aren't learning.
While I am aware that it is not the kids fault that their parents are horrible people it is the responsibility of those parents to care for their kids. There are just too many kids who are not succeeding and whether or not anyone wants to admit it they are holding back those who might succeed. It's time to worry more about what is fair to those who have a chance to succeed rather than what is fair to those who do not.
Otherwise this will be the future of the medical profession.
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