Texans and Education
Milton J. Sweet
Most people that I know would like to be successful in life. Trouble is that not everybody defines success the same way. General consensus, however, seems to be that if you are happy with your station in life, if you like your marriage situation, if you are well fed, if you enjoy your housing arrangement, if your peers respect you, and if you can happily retire, you are successful.
In order to be happily retired most of the above suggestions for success also apply, the possible exception being respect of your peers (jealousy being what it is). Since a retiree is no longer a part of the work force, his dependence on others multiplies drastically, what with social security, retirement checks from his former employer, IRAs and so on. Now that he places so much stock into the competency of others, he likes to have a warm fuzzy feeling about their ability to handle his affairs. He also likes to have confidence in the general populace to be informed, concerned, and able to make intelligent decisions when it comes to voting for the way government will be involved in our lives. It is this last point that is for me the biggest cause for concern.
Most of the time when I talk to people about government, be it local, state, or national, people get a kind of disgusted look on their face. They will start describing how they are over taxed, how most politicians are dishonest, immoral and/or stupid, and how that government is a monolith rolling over the little people down here on the bottom. What they want, most will say, is smaller government that stays out of their lives, keeps roads, schools, police and so on in tip-top shape, and charges little or no taxes. Nice if you can get it.
When I talk to people a little more in-depth about current issues like education, they have opinions, sure. Are they informed opinions? Most often, they are not. If you talk about the school system, the look of disgust gets a little worse. You hear how teachers are boobs, with very few exceptions. They will cite seemingly endless examples of people who graduate from high school and don’t know a thing. Graduates can’t fill out a job application; they can't read a map and so on. In fact these points are, many times, correct.
‘Schools are a good place to get your kids out of your hair.’ ‘Summer time is such a pain when the kids don’t leave for the better part of the day.’ ‘When I get home from work, I don’t have time to go over my kids’ homework. Besides, I’m dead tired.’ ‘It’s the teachers’ job to make sure kids do their work.’ ‘The caliber of teachers in Texas is disgusting.’ ‘We need to tie students test scores to teachers pay; maybe then teachers will do their jobs.’ ‘Those teachers don’t have a real job anyway; they don’t work summers and Christmas like I do.’ ‘Look at where Texas ranks in the nation for education!’ ‘You expect me to vote for higher taxes to pay for this mess?’ ‘It’ll be a cold day in hell before I vote to give away anymore of my hard-earned money.’
If I were a young college graduate, getting started on lifes' road, would I choose teaching as a career? No I wouldn’t. If a company offered to pay me ninety thousand dollars to be a computer network administrator, and a school district offered to pay me thirty thousand dollars to teach computer network administration, which offer would I accept? That would be a no-brainer, I’d go for the bucks. Let someone who is less qualified than me take the teaching position. Do you think that I spent four years of my life and thousands of dollars just to earn $30K? Get real.
Until more Texans start to place a real value on youth, I don’t think that our situation in Texas will change. We can’t expect our school system to be only a baby sitter for our children, and have our children get a quality education. We have to get more involved with our kids’ work at school, join the PTA, coach a team, learn the issues that are facing the school district, and make informed votes on school board candidates. We can’t expect to get the most top-notch people into teaching, and still pay pitiful wages.
I want to know that in my retirement, the generation following mine is well equipped to handle our future. Warm fuzzies are nice.