One factor that’s been overlooked here is the impact of No Child Left Behind on public education. NCLB and its focus on test scores is driving the entire public school curriculum. The tests no longer serve to measure student learning–student learning has been set aside so that we can drill the kids and make them into little number two pencil and scantron test-taking robots.
I’ve worked 18 years in public and private high schools in California. Here’s one relevant example among many: When Bush and his Ed. secretary introduced NCLB I was teaching a Shakespeare course and my colleague in the classroom next door was teaching a personal finance course. Both courses were soon removed from the schedule. The reasons given? Shakespeare and personal finance will not be on the state standardized tests.
When all you’ve got is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
Kids who have irresponsible parents do not necessarily deserve to share their parents fate when it comes to personal finance, sensible use of credit, etc. Taking a course isn’t going to be a silver bullet but kids deserve a chance to learn something about how to take care of themselves out there. Kids, especially those with parents who don’t model responsible behavior, need to be treated as human beings and future citizens. In the current climate we have been legislated into dealing with kids as if their only use is to be the data on our annual standardized test results.
