Public eduction problems a result of system's design

Here are some headlines that could be found in local papers in just the past two weeks: "D-11 plans go beyond closures" (article dealing with School District 11's continued student exodus), "Judge fines D-11 for campaign flier"(article dealing with D-11's violation of the law regarding its most recent and wildly unsuccessful attempt to get more money from taxpayers), "1 in 3 new college students need remedial classes" (article dealing with the high number of illiterate and innumerate high school graduates).
Coloradans spend more than $10,000 per student per year. Multiply that by 12 years in school and it comes out to $120,000 per student. Or think of it another way.
In your average D-11 classroom there are 23 students. That is almost $250,000 worth of resources being allocated to that classroom each year! So for this and about 16,000 hours of instruction time, what do we as a state and country get in return? Thirty percent of our incoming college freshman are illiterate and/or innumerate. The real number of high school grads who fit into this category is of course much higher as only 40 percent of those who graduate even go on to college.
This does not even count the number of students (50 percent) who do not graduate from high school in the first place. Seven percent of our black 10th graders test proficient in math, while less than 20 percent are literate.
The news is hardly better for white students who come out at 33 percent and 60 percent respectively in these categories.
As for their understanding of the Bill of Rights and why Israel and Hamas are at war, please. And if you think your students in D-12 or D-20 schools are any better off than the poor souls stuck in D-11 or D-2 schools, see how they compare on international tests like PISA and TIMSS (Google them) and have your eyes opened.
Each year we spend about $500 billion on K-12 government education in America, more than we will spend on national defense (something actually found in the Constitution that allows for government's role). Yet each year we get the same results, read the same headlines, and listen to our leaders (local, state, federal, union, business) feign outrage while promising us "change we can believe in" then offering us nothing but the same.
It would be easy to lay the blame solely at the footsteps of the collectivists in the teacher unions who run this system (just look at campaign finance reports to see who owns the D-11 school board).
It would be easy to castigate the looters who fill our administration buildings and school boards and who offer up nothing but uninspired leadership, illegal schemes to get more money, and empty platitudes.
It would be easy to scream at the business community that knows about and often comments on the terrible state of our education system yet when push comes to shove, prefers comfort and the status quo to the pain required to bring about real change.
And it would be easy to denounce parents (though fewer and fewer of them each year) who allow their kids to be used like guinea pigs in some mad science experiment while remaining as ignorant of what is being taught in the classroom as they are of what it's costing us each year to "teach" it. But in the end it is each of us as individuals who are to blame for allowing this national disgrace to fester and continue while shielding our eyes to it and pretending it isn't really happening.
But as a former government school teacher, former D-11 school board member, and father of three, one of whom is school age and attends the highest performing school in Colorado (Cheyenne Mountain Charter Academy), please, don't take my word for it. Take Bill Gates':
"America's high schools are obsolete. By obsolete, I don't mean that our high schools are broken, flawed, and under-funded. By obsolete, I mean that our high schools - even when they're working exactly as designed - cannot teach our kids what they need to know today. Today, only one-third of our students graduate from high school ready for college, work, and citizenship. The other two-thirds, most of them low-income and minority students, are tracked into courses that won't ever get them ready for college or prepare them for a family-wage job - no matter how well the students learn or the teachers teach. This isn't an accident or a flaw in the system; it is the system."
If "public" education were an American car company it would be getting a bailout from the federal government. Then again, it already is, and therein lies part of the problem.
At some point a free people must put a stop to this immoral travesty and demand better.
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Christen, of Colorado Springs, is a proponent of education reform and a former member of the District 11 school board.