I often wonder how our public education system got to be so bad and why the various State Government's don't invest much more in their primary and secondary schools and associated education systems as a priority. And I don't mean new buildings Virginia ;-)
There is no comparison between the various health and education systems. One is working effectively with it's limited resources and the other is barely working with its. It's been like that for a generation or more.
I see the result of this failure almost every day. Young (and not so young) adults who dropped out of the system early and who now have a menial job and a bad attitude - or no job at all and the same bad attitude.
Drug and alcohol abuse, mental illness and domestic violence - and other dysfunctional behaviour seem to be rife in communities with low levels of education.
Our usual response is to blame the victim and if that doesn't work then we ignore them. Surely a much better approach would be to fix the problem at it's source?
And it occurs to me that a large part of the problem is that our education system has a one-size-fits-all approach. We try to educate our kids on the basis of an *average* student - and the ones who don't fit that definition tend to miss out. That could be an over-generalisation I know.
It's a bit like if we attempted to treat every hospital patient as if they had a broken leg. So you turn up at Casualty with pneumonia and you get sent home with your leg in a splint. Doesn't make a lot of sense does it?
I have huge respect for the various state health systems - they are all very capable - often with limited resources. We should celebrate their success. Perhaps we could learn a bit from that success and use it to *beef-up* the state education systems?
But beware state governments who attempt to build new *facilities* and to claim that as *evidence* of their commitment to this or that service. In my experience there is an inverse relationship between the number of new buildings and the quality of service delivered. Usually because the people budget has been raided to fund the bricks and mortar - all in an attempt to *stimulate* a particular industry.
There is no comparison between the various health and education systems. One is working effectively with it's limited resources and the other is barely working with its. It's been like that for a generation or more.
I see the result of this failure almost every day. Young (and not so young) adults who dropped out of the system early and who now have a menial job and a bad attitude - or no job at all and the same bad attitude.
Drug and alcohol abuse, mental illness and domestic violence - and other dysfunctional behaviour seem to be rife in communities with low levels of education.
Our usual response is to blame the victim and if that doesn't work then we ignore them. Surely a much better approach would be to fix the problem at it's source?
And it occurs to me that a large part of the problem is that our education system has a one-size-fits-all approach. We try to educate our kids on the basis of an *average* student - and the ones who don't fit that definition tend to miss out. That could be an over-generalisation I know.
It's a bit like if we attempted to treat every hospital patient as if they had a broken leg. So you turn up at Casualty with pneumonia and you get sent home with your leg in a splint. Doesn't make a lot of sense does it?
I have huge respect for the various state health systems - they are all very capable - often with limited resources. We should celebrate their success. Perhaps we could learn a bit from that success and use it to *beef-up* the state education systems?
But beware state governments who attempt to build new *facilities* and to claim that as *evidence* of their commitment to this or that service. In my experience there is an inverse relationship between the number of new buildings and the quality of service delivered. Usually because the people budget has been raided to fund the bricks and mortar - all in an attempt to *stimulate* a particular industry.
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