A Special Message
from the Governor of the Northeast Region
Good evening.
I'm speaking to you tonight to give you a report on the state of our region's education system. I regret to say we've been on a downward slope for many years. Initially, I decided to plan this address as a mere campaign speech, but I see that this is an issue which all Northeast citizens must be informed.
A few days ago I was presented with a report I asked for from the Department of Education. You won't like it. I didn't like it. But we have to face the truth and then go work to turn things around. But make no mistake about it, we can turn them around.
I'm not going to subject you to a number of charts, graphs, pictures, and all that jargon. But instead, I will explain to you where things are. And as I tell you my plans for the future, I speak not as a campaigner, not as a politician, but as your leader and governor.
To put it simply, grades have been falling. Although the Northeast Region has been accredited for having the best schools and colleges a nation can ask for, we are one of the five regions that have seen a decline in test scores. This, of course, reflects a national crisis. But it is important that we fix this crisis one region at a time, and I believe the Northeast Region is indeed, the best region to take the lead in this education revolution.
In the last Assembly, we saw numerous education reforms considered, and I signed into law the ones that I believed would best serve our students, and vetoed the ones I believed would not. And today I stand by those decisions, for it is not a matter of how much time our students spend in school. It is not a matter of teachers being peer-reviewed. It is a matter of how our education system is structured.
For too long, we have been teaching the wrong things. Instead of teaching life skills, we have been teaching to the tests. The way we teach in this country can be summed up in four words: kill, drill, bubble, fill. This is a crime not only to our children, but to ourselves and to future generations. Our failure to respond to this issue has also resulted in a persistent gap between students of different racial groups, as communities still remain segregated and certain ethnic groups are not being adequately schooled. The gap persists even when we account for income. Some suggest that these problem can be fixed by restructuring the tests themselves, but to those people, I say I very strongly disagree.
In most schools, writing is neglected. Therefore, only about twenty-five percent of high school seniors were able to meet or exceed the proficiency level on the National Writing Achievement exam. This is because the teaching of grammar in schools is mainly overshadowed by repetitive grammar drills. Students know the tricks, and they know the rules, but their writing is simply not up to par.
And why is this? Because students have been trained to cookie-cut four paragraph essays that are bland and are held to a formula that is unimaginative.
Math and science has been reduced to nothing but a game of memorization. Instead of teaching students logic and valuable science skills, we teach them things largely irrelevant to their lives, and much material that is forgotten shortly after the unit test. We must de-emphasize speed and memorization in our curriculum, and help our students have a broader understanding of these subjects and learn multiple ways of solving problems.
I say to our teachers and school administrators, do not teach the way that helps a few. Teach the way that helps all students succeed in their own way. And don't mark them wrong for using the way that helps them best.
The message we shall emphasize from this day forward is: whatever it takes.
In order to make this drastic restructuring of our education possible, we must have complete autonomy. That is why I plan to work the current and, if I am still in this office next month, future administration on this issue. I will request waivers from from federal education requirements, especially standardized tests.
My philosophy is that if it doesn't let our teachers teach and our students learn, do away with it.
Instead, we shall have one exam at the end of students’ senior year in high school, designed by the Northeast Department of Education. All other standardized tests must be thrown out.
We must emphasize less on competition and more on equality. Though I feel my plan will accelerate the Northeast's status as the education capital, we must demonstrate that the way to educate our students is by treating them as equals.
Let us provide three years of maternity leave and subsidized day care to parents, and preschool for all 5-year-olds, where the emphasis shall be on play and socializing. Provide our students food, medical care, counseling and taxi service if needed, but let the parents have the final say on where their children attain these needs.
Let teachers design the unit tests, and give all classrooms complete autonomy over homework.
Do away with letter grades, and instead let all students be promptly analyzed on how they are meeting life requirements -- and if they are not, what shall be done to fix it.
We look no further than Finland to see the success of these reforms, as they exceed the Republic of Atlasia in every field. And they do so not because they blindly throw tax dollars at a broken system, not because they've failed to create a balanced environment between the government and their unions, but because they've done what works. For too long we've been having a conversation over to the influence of our unions or the pay of our teachers, while the elephant in the classroom -- if you will -- has been largely ignored.
It is my belief that we can achieve these reforms without increasing a dime of spending on our education budget or cutting into our surplus, because all we must do is spend those education dollars on a better, more efficient system, so that taxpayer’s hard-earned dollars may go to a system that works and benefits all of us both short-term and long-term. It is time we stopped kicking the can down the road.
I hope my words tonight will help spark a national conversation on how we can fix our broken school system. And we must give every party, every group, ever individual, every teacher, every parent, and every student a seat at the table. Together we can forge a new beginning for the Northeast, and regions abroad.
Thank you, and good night.
