An interesting push in the past several years for so-called "standardized" testing and bench-marking of child performance has some disturbing attributes to me as a father. It all seems to revolve around having each child end up the same as all the rest - which is incoherent at best.
Child Standard 1.1M (male child with average IQ) vs Child Standard 2.0F (female child with high IQ)
First off, anyone with more than one child will tell you that there is no "standard" for learning - every child is unique in how he develops from infancy to childhood to adulthood. This is expected given the concept of a soul - a simple concept that science cannot reason away.
But, there seems to always be the emotionally inept calls from so-called do-gooder's, "but how do I know if my child is advancing well enough?" Really? Last I checked, using other people as a measurement of self is a bad concept. The greater question is: does your child understand how to read, write and the other basic communications requirements to enable him to interact with the community at large? Then, does he possess the ability to reason and quantify the principles he is exposed to?
Anything beyond that, he will learn as he develops and explores the world - try to force something else on him and he will suffer through it until it is no longer required and frankly forget it. Don't believe me, ask any adult what they remember from chemistry, physics or even the difference of "there, their, and they're".
We really over-think this education thing when it comes to our children - the ability to regurgitate facts does not make them capable. The more rules and regulations we train them to as a child, the more they will expect it as adults. Which, leads to a complicit generation not as capable in individual thought.
Standards or Control Metrics?
So why have the standards? Yes, the emotionally inept parent seeking external validation of their offspring will always cling to societal set standards and will always produce viable worker bees. They will cling to archaic class systems, where the state or society will provide them a checklist of requirements to consider them-self fulfilled and successful. Clearly, I have no intent in reaching such people.
For the few that desire to make something of them-self or inspire their children to do so, the question must be asked: what is the point of federal standards then? Could it be to close the gap between education and the workplace? Sure, you know, we led the world in education back in the 1960's, identified an issue in the 1980's and now have some of the highest unemployed college graduate statistics in the history of the US. Add to that, the same issue for under-employed. About 1 in 4 graduates that are either unemployed or under-employed.
The drop in our educational capacities as a nation is estimated to have costed us over $1 Trillion in GDP.
So again, why the standards? Standards have been reviewed and bolstered for decades and the performance of our educational construct has continually declined. Truth be told, I don't have an answer here, but I am certain that more standards and more tests will not end this slog into failure.
Yup, Parenting
Regardless, it has been clearly proven that the solution for our children's success is not found within the "community" or the state - it is within the most basic social structure: the family. Time and time again, it has been proven that positive, parental involvement has the most singular influence on a child's development. It is irrelevant if the child is in public, private, charter or home school.
Of course, this is a problem to those that believe in the class system and care more about unification as opposed to celebrating the diversity of God's children. Ever since Plato, there have been fraudulent and supposed "intelligent" people that claim societal ills can be resolved with the abolition of the family unit. Well, that is not totally true, they have compromised to just mediating the parental actions by the state...
I think the terrifying truth is this: there are those that are so emotionally incapable of allowing someone to fail due to their own poor choices, that they will bring down an entire society to try and save the one already lost. I don't think there is some demonic conspiracy to remove traditional families and the values associated with it - but I do think there are plenty of people who are incapable of accepting consequence.
If you look at all the philosophers and public figures that claim the family is the source of inequality - they are all trying to solve the issue of suffering. As well intentioned as they may be, they could not be more wrong and morally off-base.
By the very studies they cite, they should find ways to promote and sustain the family as opposed to remove it. It is clearly a positive force in society as children from stable, traditional homes outperform other children in every category. It is a race to the bottom - they wish to remove the very source of the populace that can sustain society.
It does NOT take a community
No, it does not take a community to raise a child. It takes two dedicated parents and our Savior, Jesus Christ. No more, no less. Yes, others can help and assist, and yes, they often do - but no, their help is not required. The sacred mantel of a parent is the closest we can come to understand God in this life - beginning with the miracle of bridging the spiritual realm with this broken world in the sacred act of creating life.
Then begins the true commitment of guiding the newly created life through the perils of life - duty that never ends and there is no greater source of joy. Contrast that with this:
“When an opponent declares, ‘I will not come over to your side,’ [Hitler] said in a speech on November 6, 1933, “I calmly say, ‘Your child belongs to us already. . . . What are you? You will pass on. Your descendants, however, now stand in the new camp. In a short time they will know nothing else but this new community.’” And on May 1, 1937, [Hitler] declared, “This new Reich will give its youth to no one, but will itself take youth and give to youth its own education and its own upbringing.” William Shirer, Rise and Fall of the Third Reich New York: Simon and Schuster, 1960), 249.
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