Volume 7, Issue 20
The new reforms just implemented are to account for a student’s environment and challenges growing up. The adjustment provides a weighted average for the student’s score to reflect hardships that may have impeded his or her academic standing to date. These new procedures may, in fact, be meritable. However, any standardized test which treats students differently in scoring is subjective and anything but standardized.
The goal should be to eliminate the adverse environmental effects restricting students from reaching their full potential.
Let us be clear about this point. Weighted averages, affirmative action, quotas, and means-based scholarships all have a role in equalizing societal opportunity. It is critical that we cultivate the potential in every young citizen in America to reach his or her destiny for the good of the overall. But to only treat the result of inequitable forces misses the point of reaching the ultimate solution.
The government and all leaders, conservative or liberal, should state and stand on the moral principles that advance society. They are clear. They are not in dispute. The evidence is documented and overwhelming. The true standard is unquestioned.
A two-parent household, providing discipline and accountability for children, provides the best environment for a child to thrive. Early childhood development is critical as a first start. There can be no better early education than a parent reading to their children. Nutritious meals three times a day are a necessity. A safe place to sleep and feel secure at night is essential to self-confidence. Respect for teachers, institutions, elders, and the rule of law are the fundamental elements of character to be taught to a child.
The discipline of a household that requires a child to attend class and respect a standard school curriculum provides that child with the necessary instruction to become a healthy adult psychologically. Extra curricular activity is vital. Whether the activity is sports, orchestra, or the chess club, team work is learned. One realizes the role of their particular talent in the overall success of the main objective. School work, homework, and extra chosen work, produces balancing skills of priorities, deadlines, and peer respect.
This may appear so obvious that one might say such determinations are not worth stating. Particularly this is true, progressives argue, if you were born and raised in a broken home. Again, this is not the point. The point is that we should be encouraging accountability from adults to provide such oversight for every child in America. Weighted averages are but an interim bridge until the ultimate solution is achieved.
I was born blue collar in a small town in Oklahoma. Times were occasionally tough economically for my parents. Yet, I had no knowledge whatsoever of any fear or concern about our economic status. I had the greatest blessing, two parents and a sister whose absolute priority was my security and well-being. I always felt safe, loved, and directed.
Education was instilled in me as a duty and an obligation of becoming a fully functioning citizen. It was not preached to me to do well in school so that I could go to college. Getting an education was taught as a necessary requirement to becoming a contributing adult.
My parents were not particularly religious. Yet their standards mirrored the Ten Commandments. They were then, and now upon my reflection as an adult, two of the most moral people in my life. They were concerned about right and wrong in every decision they made. And it was important to them that they gave more than they took. This was not just a tenet of their generation. It was a commitment to eternal principles proven to be the moral basis of an efficient society.
Yes, I was born white. Was I given benefit, privilege, or leniency on mistakes made? Maybe. Regardless of the circumstances of my classmates, the resulting leadership in our school was not coerced by racism or bigotry. As far as the education we received, we sat in the same classroom, received the same instruction, and had access to the same textbooks and resources. The home environment and the attitudes of the society of the times may have been different for the student body. But when the above principles of a two-parent household demanding accountability were present, students in that environment thrived, regardless of race.
How is the vicious cycle of poverty, drugs, single-parent households and abandoned children broken? Again, government efforts as outlined above may be part of the formula. What is missing is a definition of a call to action for accountability for adults to be committed to the children they sire. Not everyone on drugs, in poverty, or without a spouse, is a victim. History of oppression may have played a role. But, there are ways out for those who are determined to help themselves.
Public education, health care, food, clothing and shelter are available, without prejudice, for every American. Yes, it may be harder for some than others to realize the full benefit of a primary education, but it is available.
The valedictorians of high school classes all over America in 2019 will be representative of America in general, by race, creed, color and sex. Why? Because each student who achieves such success was encouraged and nurtured in some way or another by a familial environment. That is what government and society should, in union, be vociferously advocating.
It is an often-quoted adage that it is impossible to legislate morality. As a society, we can codify evil through criminal statutes. But we cannot make people do the right thing by law. At the same time, it is impossible to bend society through social engineering if, in fact, that society’s moral standards are lacking. Such an effort is simply treating the symptoms without addressing the underlying cause.
If we have learned nothing else throughout history, we must recognize and apply the lessons learned that are intrinsic in their moral evidence. Government cannot legislate morality, and neither can government legislate social outcomes in the absence of moral principles.
My name is Marc Nuttle and this is what I believe.
What do you believe?