(PART THREE, 2024 Campaign Platform)
The PART ONE essay provided a concept of operations for establishing lasting world peace.
PART TWO provided for a simple fix to the illegal immigration crisis.
There are ten current crises that can and should be part of the 2024 Campaign Platform but the Republican National Committee has not published a Platform since 2016 and have no intention of doing so until at least July of this year. Too late, we needed it yesterday!
FACTS BEARING ON THE PROBLEM:
- “Education is the wellspring from which a nation ascends … or the quagmire into which it sinks. Education is everything.” Michael Russell
- The U.S. is becoming increasingly more functionally illiterate. Covid was a setback in terms of the numbers of K-12 students who are not proficient in various disciplines; but results from Covid are an anomaly in an ongoing national education crisis.
- 20% of U.S. students do not graduate high school.
- Almost 2,000 high schools across the US graduate less than 60% of their students.
- In the U.S., high school dropouts commit about 75% of crimes.
- Of those graduating high school, over 20% are unable to pass the test to enter the U.S. military because they are functionally illiterate.
- On average, 7,000 students across the country drop out of school every school day.
- Average U.S. annual spending per public school student is over $14,000 in 2023. That is about 34% higher than the average of the other 37 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development countries.
- Measured results from the National Assessment of Education Progress, NAEP, tell us that more than 50% of 4th, 8th and 12th graders are not proficient in math and reading.
- Education will not get fixed by the federal and state governments’ bureaucratic masses and top-down over-regulation. “If we always do what we have always done we will always get what we always got”
Let’s define the problems and then set down an outline candidates can campaign on to fix these two problems and thereby transform America.
Problem # 1, race relations and education are stuck: There is no definitive measure of where we are with respect to race relations in this country. But, events over the past few years tell us it is not good. In the absence of data to tell us otherwise we can assume we are at least stuck and not getting any better. Additionally, our world rankings in education tell us we are also stuck in a place we do not want to be. We can fix this.
Problem # 2, has to do with the existing culture: Culture is a powerful and pervasive force in every organization and every organization, no matter how large or small, has a culture. Culture is an organization’s personality; caring, hateful, fast, energetic, visionary, risk-taking, vengeful, etc. We can and must fix our nation’s culture of blame and hatred.
Problem #3, is about what kids learn: Babies are not born bigoted, disrespecting or hateful. While growing up they learn it. They learn it at home, in school, on the playground and on the streets. We simply have to change what the children learn.
Problem #4, top-down programs do not work: The federal government has a horrible record in trying to run things. Since the Federal Government established the Department of Education in 1979, we have seen one failed program after another as each succeeding administration tries to “fix” education from the top down with hundreds of billions of dollars and tens of thousands of bureaucrats.
Problem # 5, students get behind: Research tells us that every day 7000 students across this country drop out of school while others are allowed to graduate from high school functionally illiterate. The principal reason they drop out is because they get hopelessly behind. Once behind they get progressively worse every year.
SOLUTIONS: Do two things, provide character education and standards-based education.
CHANGE THE CULTURE WITH CHARACTER EDUCATION.
This proposed concept of operations will be executed in a decentralized manner at the county/city level across the nation. There will be no bureaucracies involved, no Federal or State funding requirements and the character education classes will be taught by volunteers. It’s essentially free.
Over time, this campaign will reestablish a value base in America that supports a culture of ACCOUNTABILITY, TRUST AND RESPECT. Transforming America is within the art of the possible; I lived it day-to-day as it happened in a large organization, the U.S. Army. The concept is directly transferable to the whole of the United States.
This program is called Campaign Home Room. Execution includes all 60 million elementary and secondary students, K-12, participating in a Home Room class at 0800 every day for about 20 minutes for 13 school-years with volunteer instructors. They will discuss values and character and it will be imprinted on the soul of every youngster in the United States.
Question, do you know an Eagle Scout who spent 10 years in the Scout program or someone who spent 6, 8 or 10 years in The First Tee program? Most people know at least one. OK, how many of those Eagle Scouts or First Tee kids that you know also dropped out of school? The answer is probably zero. I have asked these questions of groups during many presentations of this concept. I have yet to get a hand raised on the school dropout issue. Both are character building programs.
What we need to do is figure out why those particular youngsters did not drop out and then find a way to give every student in this country a dose of that same medicine. Campaigning candidates need to explain and sell the value added of character education and standards-based education. America is looking for help and this will do it. Transform America one kid at a time.
Why do millions of kids drop out and why do they graduate functionally illiterate? Because they got behind a little bit in fourth grade, more in the fifth, more in sixth. At some point, they are near the bottom of their class, frustrated, embarrassed, ridiculed by their peers and they give up and drop out or get passed on by the system until they “graduate” with no skills and little hope.
In round numbers, here is the audience the candidates will be talking about:
- 142,000 schools
- 180 million adults with children under age 18
- 60 million K-12 students
- 4.5 million teachers
HOME ROOM: Reinstitute Home Room in every school. Home Room is a forgotten piece of Americana. Home Room is the center of gravity for character education. The subject matter will be:
ACCOUNTABILITY, CITIZENSHIP, COMMITMENT, COMPASSION, COURAGE OF CONVICTIONS, COURTESY, CONFIDENCE, HEALTHY HABITS, HONESTY, HONOR, HUMILITY, INTEGRITY, JUDGMENT, LEADERSHIP, MORALITY, PERSEVERANCE, PUNCTUALITY, RESPECT, RESPONSIBILITY, SELF-RESPECT, SELFLESS SERVICE, SPORTSMANSHIP AND TRUST.
That is, teach and talk about values. Call it the Character Curriculum. There will need to be three versions of the curriculum; elementary K-5, middle school 6-8 and high school 9-12. Out of this will come an overpowering culture of ACCOUNTABILITY, RESPECT AND TRUST.
Structure each Home Room with a cross section of the class population. For example, visualize a school that has 75 new kindergarten students entering school in August, twenty-five kids per class. Populate each Home Room with students from each of the three classes. During the following 13 years, some youngsters will move away and some new ones will come in, but for the most part that Home Room group will stay together until graduation. That is part of the power of the Home Room concept.
They will get to know each other like brothers and sisters. They will have deep feelings and respect for their Home Roommates. Over time Home Rooms will have names, mascots, tee-shirts, a website, competition with other Home Rooms, an unshakable identity, peer pressure and peer support. “I have your back” will become an unspoken pledge from each to all. The Home Room will become powerful, effective and it is free. A game changer. Their Home Roommates will become their “gang.”
Bullying has always been a problem for youngsters and seemingly more so today with the availability of social media. Home Room will bring bullying to its knees in two different ways. First of all, every student will now know that their Home Room gang has their back. The students will look after each other and protect one another. Secondly, one of the most powerful subjects in the Home Room Character Curriculum is respect.
Home Room does not require funding. Personnel on the educational payroll will not lead or teach Home Room. It will be done by volunteers and we will need a lot of them. If the average size Home Room is 25 students, we will have about 2.4 million Home Room classes in session every school day.
Just imagine the impact Campaign Home Room can have with 60 million youngsters standing every morning with their hand on their heart saying the Pledge of Allegiance and having a substantive discussion about one of the subjects in the Character Curriculum every school day and then adjourning to their class rooms to live/be/do/demonstrate those values. How powerful is that?
How do we find 2.4 million volunteers? The essence of Campaign Home Room is decentralized execution. Each school Principal will be responsible for finding a handful of volunteers and that should not be a problem. For example, there are approximately 66 million Baby Boomers retiring at a rate of about 11,000 per day and many are looking for something interesting, meaningful, and challenging to do in retirement. Retirees bring a wealth of knowledge and experience for the mentoring of youngsters.
Personal experience: I was asked to give a 20-minute talk on this subject at a Wednesday-evening church dinner. About 80 attendees. Following was an enthusiastic Q & A. A week later the paster called and said there was a lot of discussion around the church and if we had a character education program in our local schools he has, “over 300 volunteers ready to begin.” America will answer the call.
Additionally, there are almost two million retired military men and women across the country. They all have three things in common: they are proven leaders, they are teachers and they have spent their professional lives in a fully integrated and value-based organization in which they operated daily immersed in a culture of ACCOUNTABILITY, TRUST AND RESPECT. They have the perfect skill set to administer the Home Room Character Curriculum.
There is proof of concept that comes from The First Tee, a 30-year-old national program that does character building while teaching the kids how to play golf. In an independent four-year study, 100% of The First Tee participants identified school as a setting in which the character training transferred positively to the classroom.
A school board near where I live embraced the local First Tee program and had all of their 4th grade students attend an hour per week of the First Tee character training. The teachers I later talked to admitted not being supportive until within just two weeks’ time they could sense and see changes; more positive, more attentive, more polite, etc. The teachers asked for the program to be extended and expanded.
IMPROVED RACE RELATIONS:
While our children are currently learning hate and disrespect, Campaign Home Room will supplant that with a positive curriculum of accountability, trust and respect taught and discussed in Home Room and carried forward to the classroom, playground, sports field, streets and home. The kids will transform America.
STANDARDS-BASED INSTRUCTION, the second fix for education:
Millions of students across America are dropping out or graduating functionally illiterate.
An organization without standards is a failed organization. An organization without accountability is a failed organization. Our education system is a failed organization. We can fix it.
Every August a fifth-grade teacher should have a reasonable expectation that his or her new students will have achieved what is expected of a fourth-grade graduate. Without specified standards for end of year grade four, some students will inevitably pass on to the fifth grade deficient in math, for example. Once behind, it is more likely that they will fall further behind each succeeding year until such time, usually in high school, that student will feel so hopelessly behind they will take the only alternative they foresee……drop out of school and statistically become a burden on society.
Falling behind in class is an exponential threat to a successful academic career that most cannot overcome. For example, The National Assessment of Education Progress, NAEP, also referred to as America’s Report Card regularly tests students across the nation to determine their proficiency levels in 4th, 8th and 12th grades. Last years’ results show 67% of 4th graders are not proficient in math and the 8thgraders are 75% nonproficient showing the continued degradation in performance.
But, even if standards are in place, if schools are depending on end-of-year testing to provide feedback on teaching results that creates an enormous almost insoluble problem. Once discovered there is no time to catch up; the student just gets passed on and their deficiency multiplies through the years.
The concept for applying standards and accountability to education is simple and makes the teaching game-plan simple to define. It begins with the identification of an end state standard for a particular time period. For example, there should be a standard for the end of first semester fourth grade math. Given that standard the teacher will then develop a week-by-week lesson plan to achieve that end standard with every student. Teach to a standard, then test. Teach to the next level, then test again. And so it goes week after week for 13 years, K-12. The concept is simple and there will be no need for hundreds of pages of regulations, frequent recurring reports, no need for legions of bureaucrats providing oversight and requirements for national testing.
When a student does poorly on a weekly quiz, he/she is behind. There must be rapid reaction policies in place to get that student caught up before moving on to more difficult material; after school instruction, volunteer tutors standing by, parent help, etc.
ESTABLISHING STANDARDS:
It is not difficult; it can be done quickly and does not require any bureaucrats, regulations or tax dollars to do it. Here are the steps to take, for example, at the State level:
The governor could set up a one-month summer session. He/she will invite selected teachers and Principals to a working session to establish education standards.
On day one there will be a meeting of three experienced outstanding Kindergarten teachers and three equally outstanding elementary school Principles. Their task is to define what every Kindergarten student should achieve academically by school year end; that is, the end state standard. Having done that, they will then outline, in general terms, what to achieve during each of the six-week intervals on the way to the end state. That’s it, they are done. The kindergarten standards are set. Every elementary school Principal and kindergarten teacher in the state will then work to achieve that standard.
Three especially selected first-grade teachers and three elementary Principles will have set in and observed the day-one session with the kindergarten teachers and will have a clear understanding of what the students will have achieved upon graduation from kindergarten. Then on day two, they will follow the same scenario to define the standards for end of year, first grade.
This scenario will be repeated through grade five so that in just six days the elementary standards can be set for K-5.
The middle school standards for individual subjects (math, science, English, history, etc.) will be worked the same way, each beginning by understanding the end state from the previous grade.
The standards for high school will be determined using the same procedures.
This work should be easily accomplished within 4-6 weeks. Contrast this with a scenario if the federal or state Department of Education was tasked to define the standards. There would undoubtedly be a contract let for a comprehensive multi-year study that would cost tens of millions of dollars and would result in a thousand-page document of bureaucratic nonsense. That is just the way big government does business, making them habitually part of the problem rather than part of the solution.
The United States will no longer be ranked 20th, 30th or 40th in education in the world.
In order to achieve the standards every year, every class, every teacher the teaching methodology is a simple one; teach/test, teach/test, teach/test. In any other system, how are you going to know when a student gets behind? Remember, the solution to the drop-out problem is to not let students get behind.
EDUCATION ACCOUNTABILITY:
Education without accountability is a failed system. So where does accountability fit into this equation?
The Principal must be held accountable for aligning every school year start point with the end state standard from the previous year. The Principal will have to review, in detail, the lesson plan for every teacher, every class, every grade. After all, isn’t that what the Principal is supposed to do?
Every teacher must be held accountable for building a lesson plan to achieve the standard and not let the students fall behind in route to the end state.
Every teacher must be held accountable for using the weekly teach/test methodology and then following up with parents of a student who has fallen behind.
Parents are advised that they are going to be held accountable for weekend work if their son or daughter gets behind.
Finally, the students. They are going to get a heavy dose of accountability during their Home Room character instruction. As accountability begins to be a way of life for them, the entire process become easy and second nature.
What will happen with this process is a complete transition of the education culture in America. A culture of accountability will supplant that of blame which exists today and restricts all possibilities of moving forward.
THE POWER OF THE CHARACTER CURRICULUM:
Here is what results from each of the Character Curriculum subjects:
Accountability: Accountable students do not resort to blame.
Students steeped in commitment, confidence, perseverance, punctuality and responsibility do not skip school, fall behind or drop out.
Trust and respect: Students who are deeply rooted in trust and respect will strike down bullying and are unlikely to become racially bigoted adults.
Students who are compassionate, courteous, honorable, good citizens and demonstrate the courage of their convictions do not join street gangs.
Honesty, morality and integrity will guide students to become life-long upstanding citizens.
Selfless service: Students who understand, live and accept a life of selfless service are unlikely to become self-serving adults.
Humility: Students who have an understanding that there is a lot they don’t yet know and even part of what they believe they know might be incorrect, have the quality of humility.
Self-respect and morality: Students who understand self-respect recognize that they are now better than they used to be and can be counted on in times of temptation because they are morally dependable.
Leadership and judgment: With this value base, students across the nation are more likely to exercise good judgment and become great leaders.
CONCLUSIONS:
Education in America has become a disgrace.
The education system can be fixed with two simple initiatives, character education and standards-based instructions. And it is free.
BOTTOM LINE:
The Department of Education with its bureaucratic mass, rules, regulations and billions in spending should be eliminated.
Implementing the above concept of operations will fix education and race relations for generations to come.
Just for a moment imagine, across this country, 60 million K-12 youngsters in 2.4 million Home Room classes at 8 o’clock every morning in every school in America being taught and mentored by 2.4 million volunteers on the subject of character. Campaign Home Room is within the art of the possible and “we-the-people”, not we the government, can make it happen and change America.
See Chapter 1 of FIX THE SYSTEMS, TRANSFORM AMERICA for a few more details on how to implement this education and race relations reform concept.
If you know of a candidate for office, please pass this on to them. Thank you.
Marvin L. Covault, Lt Gen US Army, retired, is the author of two books, Vision to Execution and Fix the Systems, Transform America as well as the author of a blog, WeThePeopleSpeaking.com