This is my application to President Bush to be appointed his Education Czar thereby solving the massive problems in the nation’s public schools. I will work without pay since I would not plan to have the job very long. The public schools have been kicked around a great deal in recent years, and I plan to kick them even more. I contend that public education gets far more respect than it deserves. If taxpayers really knew what was going on in most classrooms they would storm the schools and tar and feather the teachers and staff.  

Full disclosure: I am a lifetime critic of public education. Most of my education was in Christian colleges and universities. All of my children were educated in Christian schools through the university level. Same with my grandchildren. I would not be saddened if public schools fell to the ground like a rotten piece of fruit. I believe in separation of school and state since there is not a word in the U. S. Constitution about education!

If I were the Education Czar, I would make major changes that would restore sanity, safety, and scholarship to schools:

*All principals and administrators would be required to have classroom experience. I would cut the number of administrators by 20%. They really aren’t that necessary to a quality school. I would not be concerned about their college training but their know-ledge, experience, and common sense.

*Each student would be tested to ascertain his grade level in math and reading then an educational prescription would be written followed by a personalized curriculum designed for his specific needs. It is educational folly to assume that all ten-year-olds are working at the same level in all subjects! To place all students in the same grade determined by their age is an administrative convenience. It is one of the biggest mistakes made in all schools.

*All students would be tested for their knowledge in hard core subjects: math, English, history, geography, spelling, and science. If funding is available, music and art would also be taught. All “frill” subjects would be scrapped and sports would be limited to the upper grades.     

*Repeal all compulsory attendance laws. If a kid wants to be a bum, let him be a bum. After all, the attendance laws are seldom enforced anyway.

*All security guards would be fired and each school would boast at least two armed teachers. It would be commonly known that at least two anonymous teachers with proper gun training would be in the school. Those teachers would be paid an extra $1000 per year. Students would be told that the armed teachers would be expected to shoot any student who seeks his “fifteen minutes of fame” by killing others.

*I would hire teachers regardless of their degree. In fact, I would prefer teachers not educated in teachers’ colleges–hotbeds of incompetence. I would hire teachers who have character and would fire any teacher who boozed, used illegal drugs and slept around. Those teachers would stay fired.

*There would be no smoking on school grounds by anyone at any time.

*All teachers and staff would dress up not down. All men would wear dress shirts and ties and women would wear dresses or skirts and blouses.

*Teachers would receive merit pay depending on the progress of their students. I would also pay them an extra $1000 if they agreed not to join the NEA!        

*Schools would be a place of education not to make kids feel better about themselves. Those elementary students who disobey would be paddled on the rear, a place provided by a designing God for that purpose. Any disobedient, disruptive, or disorderly high school student would be led to the front door and told to never return.

*Each student would be expected to read by the end of the first grade. If not, he would not be passed to the second grade. Any normal child can be taught to read if the teacher knows how to teach. It is commonly known that children in Christian  kindergartens learn to read before the end of that year.

*No student would be promoted without a passing grade.

*All students would be assigned a seat and no one would be permitted move around the room or to speak without permission. The teacher would rule the room like a tin horn dictator of a Banana Republic!

*All students would be taught the Ten Commandments each year and when caught in a lie would be required to write on the board 100 times, “Thou shalt not lie.” When caught stealing, they would write, “Thou shalt not steal.”

*Any student who brings weapons to school, is involved in violence, uses booze or illegal drugs would be expelled permanently.

*Any student, teacher, administrator, or school board member suggesting that sex ed, death ed, etc., be added to the curriculum would be tarred and feathered!

My last act in office would be to close down the Department of Education putting thousands of federal workers back into productive work and off the backs of taxpayers.

Then I might consider becoming Bush’s Energy Czar!

Tags: christian schools, education, government, guns, public schools