Our Future Depends On
How Well-Educated Our Children Are And Will Be

The public noticed 25 years ago that high school graduates who worked operating a cash register, could not make a change or do any mental mathematics if the cash register lost power. Today, most high school graduates cannot read and cannot write but only block letters and cannot ven fill out a job application. In Tennessee, more than 80% of those who receive a diploma are not ready or prepared to learn. Yet we spend more money per student than most of the 20 best-performing countries. We dropped to the bottom of the industrialized nations. Be prepared for a lot more below.

Why has our public education been doing poorly for more than five decades?
Why are we not doing well? WE FOUND OUT. THE PUBLIC IS GIVE FALSE INFORMATION ABOUT THEIR CHILDREN'S EDUCATION UNLESS THE CHILD IS DOING VERY WELL. THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS' EMPHASIS IS ON PUSHING TEACHERS TO GRADUATE 90 OF THE CLASS, WITHOUT ANY SIGNIFICANT EFFORT TO MEET ACADEMIC A.C.T. SCORES. HOW AND WHY? THE STATE OBJECTIVE ACADEMICALLY IS A 21 A.C.T. SCORE THAT REPRESENTS ONLY 23% OF THE GRADUATES WILL BE MINIMALLY PREPARED: VERY LOW EXPECTATION THAT TYPICALLY RESULTS IN NO EFFORT TO CHANGE THE A.C.T. SCORE RESULTS BELOW SHOW WHAT HAS BEEN FOR 19 YEARS, WOULD BE AND IS THE OUTCOME OF SUCH AN UNSOUND POLICY.

If someone wants to become a teacher, the potential future teacher cannot ensure that he is the right type of person for teaching. High performing ountries in education test for this. Beyond 4th grade, successful teach requires a high I.Q., Master's degree in the subject they will teach in 4th - Grade, a personality matching the teaching profession: very open, friendly, and firm, loves the subject he teaches so that he is aware of technical development nd the job possibilities within it. He/she teaches with infectious enthusiasm, keeps learning on his/her own about new teaching methods, knowing first-hand how his job is done in countries that are very successful in education. Uses on his own t new better tools available on the Internet for teaching to improve his results. We all ASSUME that the state sets the standards high enough. They do not. Tennessee, for more than 15 years, set the state goal at an average A.C.T. score of only 21, that equates to 75-85% of graduates NOT BEING READY. WE WONDER WHY WE GRADUATE CHILDREN WITH SUCH A POOR EDUCATION THAT VIRTUALLY GUARANTEES HOMELESSNESS. IT WOULD BE LESS COSTLY TO STATE DURING HIGH SCHOOL IF WE CANNOT EDUCATE THEM PROPERLY, THEN KEEP THEM IN HIGH SCHOOL 1-4 YEARS LONGER UNTIL THEY TEST READY. Unfortunately, we found after years investigating that all the above areas have to be satisfied to create a good teacher, for which the teacher trainee cannot be responsible. To make things worse, the working conditions for many teachers are also not good enough, making a teacher's job unpleasant, because they are being treated like bricklayers...

Today, our teaching colleges ASSUME that teaching will be the righ profession for almost anyone. Many college students give up their original major because it is too hard and change to teaching BECAUSE IT IS EASIER. Those would rarely be the right match for teaching. The teacher candidate has no idea if the teacher's college they attend will do an excellent job teaching them, or not. They ASSUME that they will, after all, they are state-approved to do so. After college graduation, the teacher candidate must pass the state certificatio program to ensure that they are fully qualified to prepare our children successfully for job training. But the certification qualifies to a meager standard which needs to be raised. What is evident is that the state education board and the education department do not care or they have no idea if the standard for teachers is adaquate or not. THIS IS NOT MAGIC! LOOK AT 19 YEARS OF A.C.T. SCORES. THE STATE TEST HAS BEEN DUMBED DOWN. THE A.C.T. HAS NOT!Click here For more information about teacher preparation.

The state department of education's, school districts' and high schools' objective needs to be an A.C.T. score based on what their A.C.T. score was in the prior year, plus 10% minimum. The school districts had a "90% graduation rate" objective that creates pressure on the principals and teachers during the last month of the school year to pass children with low performance so that they graduate. Not because they earned good enough grades. They happen to be too low (to be explained later). Failing. But meeting the 90% graduation rate is more important?!

We have a critical job to do in many areas to improve our public education. Do not blame the front-line troops, the teachers, for the bad results. They have enough bullets aimed at them unfairly. We treat them almost like laborers. But we better put the magnifying glass on the state departments of education to clean up "low expectation" attitudes and not being truthful with the public. The problem is with them AND THE GOVERNORS, who don't ensure the kind of experience that is required to run education in a competitive world and hire the wrong people for the task. THIS IS A HUGE PROBLEM. Something makes it a hazardous practice. The voting public assumes that if someone wins by popular vote and has the title, such a person would know what to do. Look at the A.C.T. results chart for two decades to see how poorly we educate our children. Do you think that it can be improved without the recommended changes within school operation statewide? Unfortunately, the majority of such candidates, don't know what the job will need. Click here if you are interested in learning more now.

A.C.T. College and Career Readiness What Is It? Situation Report The goal of high school education is to satisfy employer or university or vocational training school requirements for a handful . In the chart below, the black numbers are the actual A.C.T. scores. The red percentages below the black A.C.T. scores are the average A.C.T. Readiness percentage/year of graduates. The third group, red percentages again, represents THE AVERAGE PERCENTAGE OF GRADUATES who are NOT A.C.T. READY. Their numbers are shocking. These are students for minimum wage jobs after graduation, who will be jobless in less than five years, replaced by robotics. However, robotics has started already replacing a tiny number of degreed graduate positions before 2019, and will also advance further as cognitive robotics appears in the market by 2022. Let's look at a close to average Tennessee, Knox County high schools' A.C.T. results. The best performing high school's A.C.T. Readiness is only 53%, and the worst performer is close to zero percent. This school district spent two and a half times as much per student for 19 years in the worst performing school than in the others, without any change in 19 years. This kind of extreme spending is common in public school districts: management and elected boards think that money will solve the problems, because they don't know how to solve it. But they keep wasting the money for decades. There are many other wasteful spending examples, for example school district management groups are four to ten times normal. Positions have been created to solve problems that management knowhow could solve without staff additions, and the positions created have been filled with friends or relatives who also cannot solve the problem. As the years went by, they just keep adding staff and the poor performance gets worse. Or a superintendent befriends the principal of a poorly performing high school for six years. The principal's high school performance just kept getting worse. Clearly neither the principal nor the superintendent know what to do. So the superintendent promotes his principal friend to head and improve ALL SCHOOLS' PERFORMANCE. That's 89 schools. That was five years ago and nothing improved. The only thing this level of expertise accomplishes is wasting many millions of dollars EVERY SINGLE YEAR. And no one stands up on the state level to fix such extremely expensive problems because no one knows how to fix them. This kind of spending and delivering of poor results has to stop. For that, they need an excellent superintendent with solid management training and experience, one with an excellent track record for at least five years, one who turned around a poorly performing organization before. The big problem is that more than 13,500 school districts may have only a handful of such superintendents, and a superintendent development program does not exist. But the country has many retired vice presidents, who managed much more than 100 employees. They could be of great help. A.C.T.'s Benchmark for "A.C.T. Readiness" must meet all of the individual benchmark subject scores that are Mathematics/Algebra (score:22), Science/Biology (score:23), Reading/Social Science (score:22), English Composition (score:18). THOSE WHO PASS ALL FOUR SUBJECT TESTS ARE "A.C.T. READY" AND HAVE A 50%-75% CHANCE TO PASS THE FOUR, FIRST-YEAR COLLEGE-LEVEL COURSES, BY THE SAME SUBJECT NAME AS THE A.C.T. BENCHMARKS WERE. U.S. universities require a 26 or higher score in A.C.T. math to be admitted to a mathematics, any science or engineering or economics degree program. Most have an A.C.T. 26-31 ADMISSION REQUIREMENT, as well. The benchmarks are A.C.T. scores that represent the minimum benchmark value in each of the four benchmark subjects. The minimum A.C.T. benchmark target-scores represent a percentage of "A.C.T. Readiness" or prepared students in a high school's graduating class in a specific year. But the minimum benchmark scores also represent the minimum A.C.T. Readiness of an individual student. An A.C.T. score of 22 or 23 represents only that the student is only about 25% prepared in the subject. But in English Composition, the minimum readiness score is only 18, which represents ONLY 10% A.C.T. Readiness. To the best of my knowledge, we are not in African Uganda with 43 tribal languages, we are in the USA and our official language is English and not Swahili or Bantu or 41 other. In our most important subject, English Composition, any student who is 10% prepared is A.C.T. Ready in that subject. IMAGINE NOW THAT WE GRADUATE IN TENNESSEE MORE THAN 80% YEAR AFTER YEAR FOR DECADES WHO ARE NOT A.C.T. READY, AND THERE ARE A FEW STATES THAT ARE WORSE AND A FEW THAT ARE BETTER. Our schools blame poverty that is rapidly increasing, and parents. The truth is that OUR PUBLIC SCHOOLS ARE CREATING POVERTY. The truth is that most inner city parents lack education, and work their fingers to the bone to just survive as single parents. The truth really is that our schools are not as good as they claim and must improve. The truth is that there are education systems, that create outstanding results uniformly, minorities and all, but they select and educate teachers differently, and teach differently (e.g., Finland) but our leaders from the governor on down have zero interest in finding out how they do it. I went there and to other places to find out. I wrote to the previous governor seven times. No reply from anyone. I wrote to the current governor of Tennessee three times about this problem. Again no reply from anyone. Most high schools have only 15-25% A.C.T. Ready students of those graduating. This is a deplorable result, because "THOSE NOT ACT READY" are 75-85% of graduates (95-97% OF AFRICAN AMERICAN STUDENTS!) who can only get minimum wage jobs for a handful of years at best before robots replace them. The sad thing is that the schools do not explain this clearly to parents, who are under the impression that getting a diploma means that their child is prepared well and ready to learn an excellent job. If the child graduates but is not A.C.T. Ready, the schools tell the parent that all children are not made for college by God, but they will do well by learning a profession - falsely reassuring the parent. Note that Success Academy Schools of N.Y.C. achieves 90%+ results beating even several private schools, and do it with poor, inner-city black students. No one visits them to see how they do it from our education management. I did. We could learn a lot about how we could improve at a fast rate. Don't blame your schools and teachers. The problem is with the state education leadership and the governors. A.C.T. offers a much better test instrument for future readiness for the long term, called STEM ACT. It is not just for engineering and science jobs, as the schools tell you. A.C.T. Readiness is far from College Completion readiness, as many schools will NOT tell you. A.C.T. Readiness ONLY means that the student has a 50-75% CHANCE to pass the four first-year college courses in Mathematics, Biology, Reading/Social Science and English Composition if the student passed the admission and required prerequisite requirements for these courses. The passing benchmark scores represent only a 25% A.C.T. readiness in the course, and the English benchmark score represents only an approximate 10% Readiness. For a graduate to make enough money to be self-supporting, the A.C.T. Readiness would need to be much higher. THINK ABOUT WHAT IT MEANS IF THE HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATE IS NOT A.C.T. READY! THINK ABOUT THE FACT THAT AMONG TENNESSEE GRADUATES WITH A DIPLOMA MORE THAN 80% ARE NOT READY (nationally 74%). LOOK AT THE CHART TO SEE HOW LONG THIS HAS BEEN GOING ON! INVESTIGATE WHAT I AM WRITING HERE, AND IF YOU ARE SATISFIED THAT I AM TELLING YOU THE TRUTH, ASK YOUR GOVERNOR WHY HE/SHE LET THIS HAPPEN! AFTER ALL, WE THE PUBLIC ARE PAYING FOR IT, AND WE EXPECT MUCH BETTER. WHEN WE PAY FOR SOMETHING, WE ALL EXPECT IT TO FUNCTION VERY WELL. LET HIM TELL US WHY PUBLIC EDUCATION IS DIFFERENT. WE ARE 2ND-5TH HIGHEST SPENDERS IN THE WORLD PER STUDENT. The mathematics results dropped to the bottom of the industrialized countries. WE SPENT ENOUGH MONEY PER STUDENT, BUT THE MONEY IS NOT GOING TO THE RIGHT PLACES OR THE RIGHT PEOPLE. Can U.S. public schools keep up in the future? ***** We went from the horse and buggy to the moon in a hundred years. ***** Our public education did not keep pace with technological advances like the high performing countries' education systems do. It starts with the fact that our teacher training programs have not changed enough with the times at our colleges and universities, the teacher training curriculum is the weakest and easiest attracting under performing students. American teachers are coming from the bottom third of their university performance, whereas other nations take them from the top third, and even top 10% (Finland) OF A FULL BS/MS PROGRAM IN THE SUBJECT THEY WILL TEACH above 4th grade, and are matched to the teaching profession before they are hired. This is a huge difference. They are prepared well to be excellent teachers, their teaching performance brings excellent results, and such results create the highest respect from the public. We can see how good our school performance is in the ACT and SAT results and the international tests. Our state tests are weak because the curriculum is weak, and they have been dumbed down to pass students who would otherwise fail. Teachers are not to be blamed for this. It is the state education departments and governors who create and allow this bad situation. New technologies increase employer requirements and that change is not reflected in today's high school education, such as making Algebra II, Geometry, Solid Geometry, and Trigonometry in mathematics, and adding Chemistry and Physics as well at MINIMUM. Those we compete with in an international environment complete a year of Calculus as well as part of education. The choice is not complex. Our results are poor because our teacher training became poor, and mangement training does not exist for principals and superintendents and management knowhow from the state departments of education is lacking and some governors is also absent. WE NEED PROFESSIONAL MANAGEMENT KNOWHOW IN EDUCATION INSTEAD OF POLITICAL BEHAVIOR AND POLITICAL METHODS THAT ARE CAUSING OUR POOR PERFORMANCE. 1. ACTIONS NEEDED: Poorly performing organizations cannot recover without using "Management by Objectives (MBO)." The biggest challenge is that employees who have been in a poorly performing system keep working the same way as for several years in the past. They are afraid of any change, especially a change that measures their performance. However, it is not possible for a poorly performing organization to recover without monthly performance measurement, e.g., with GPA per class, teacher, school and school district. The A.C.T. is available only annually for high school and school didstrict. For growth the monthly performance check is important. The A.C.T. is much more accurate and it is the best tool for calibrating the GPA results. Most people who were part of a poorly performing organization cannot change easily to a much healthier thought of "what do I need to learn to get better results" and view that as a healthy challenge. That is why "MBO" is vitally important. • ACADEMIC FOCUS: VERY IMPORTANT: ELIMINATE "90% graduation objective" and use instead "last year's A.C.T. score plus 10% minimum for the objective, coupled with monthly individual school academic objectives (e.g., G.P.A.) for all supervisory employees that drive A.C.T. achievement. The push for 90% graduation rate with an average A.C.T, 21 goal In Tennessee means that the goal is an unacceptable 25% A.C.T Readiness, with 75% OF THE GRADUATES NOT BEING READY FOR ANY JOB FOR LIFE! In addition the "90% of students graduating" goal, set for almost 20 years now, created pressures during the last month of the school year to dumb down the state test ("Cut Scores"), and to make superintendents and principals push for promoting children who would othertwise fail, by changing the pass/fail point (60% good answers normally) down, below 30% in some courses to pass and graduate many children who are very poorly prepared. That is why we have an extremely high percentage of graduates who are not A.C.T. Ready. Isn't it obvious to all that what we need is an educational objective, an A.C.T. score than is 10% higher than the prior year's score? Very important for teacher success: a test for a psychological match to the teaching profession, raising subject training to Master's level, using Internet-based teaching tools, learning new teaching methodologies, and learning to use the best lectures by the best professors nationally in the subject they teach. Good teachers love their subject enough to keep up with future developments. It would be ideal if they could alternate their jobs between teaching and business where they actually use their subject knowledge. THIS IS INCREDIBLE BEHAVIOR BY THE LEADERSHIP. THE PUBLIC'S MONEY VIA TAXES IS PAYING ONE OF THE HIGHEST RATES IN THE WORLD PER STUDENT FOR THE PUBLIC EDUCATION OF THE PUBLIC'S CHILDREN. BUT ONLY 26% OF THE GRADUATES ARE A.C.T. READY NATIONALLY. IS THAT A GOOD RESULT? NO, IT IS A TERRIBLE RESULT FOR THE MONEY WE SPEND PER STUDENT! POLITICAL LEADERSHIP ABOVE EDUCATION HIRES STAFFING FOR THE SCHOOLS AND MANAGEMENT WHO ARE UNPREPARED AT ALL LEVELS TO DO AN ACCEPTABLE JOB. MORE THAN 80% OF HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATES WILL NOT BE ABLE TO GET BUT SHORT-TERM EMPLOYMENT AT MINIMUM WAGE FOLLOWED BY NOTHING AFTER FIVE YEARS. NOTHING! THE AUTOMATION PLANS OF SEVERAL INDUSTRIES FOR 2019 - 2022 WILL ENSURE THAT EXACTLY, BECAUSE THEY CANNOT FIND QUALIFIED HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATES. SUCH CHILDREN WILL NOT BE EARNING ENOUGH TO SUPPORT THEMSELVES WITH LEGAL JOBS, BUT WILL LEARN TO MAKE MONEY ILLEGALLY AND WILL MAKE A LOT OF BABIES. WELCOME TO HELL! WHAT SHOULD OUR HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATES A.C.T. READINESS BE? NOT 17% LIKE IN TENNESSEE! NOT 24% LIKE THE USA AVERAGE! IN THE TOP TEN COUNTRIES IN EDUCATION IT IS MORE THAN 90%. THE ANSWER TO THAT FROM THE EDUCATION ORGANIZATIONS FREQUENTLY IS: "BUT WE ARE SO MUCH BIGGER! AND THEY DO NOT HAVE MINORITIES!" WELCOME TO THE RESULT OF BEING DUMBED DOWN BY OUR EDUCATION SYSTEM FOR MORE THAN 50 YEARS. THEY DON'T EVEN CHECK THE FACTS BEFORE GIVING A DUMB ANSWER. VERY SAD SITUATION. IN MORE THAN 50 YEARS NOT A SINGLE GOVERNOR, NOT A SINGLE EDUCATION SECRETARY OR PRESIDENT TOOK ACTION THAT RAISED THE A.C.T. READINESS. WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR DESTROYING THE LIFE OF THE PUBLIC'S CHILDREN? WHOSE EDUCATION AT ONE OF THE HIGHEST EXPENSES PER CHILD IN THE WORLD WAS PAID BY THE PUBLIC, BUT THE STATE EDUCATION DEPARTMENT WITH A GOVERNOR PICKED LEADER, WHO COULD NOT OR WAS NOT ALLOWED TO DO A GOOD ENOUGH JOB FOR 80-90% OF SUCH CHILDREN, SO THAT THEY COULD GET A LEGAL JOB TO SUPPORT MINIMALLY A FAMILY OF FOUR, OR JUST THEMSELVES? THE GOVERNOR, HAD NO IDEA WHAT TO DO, COULD NOT FIND A PERSON IN THIS HUGE COUNTRY WHO DID, OR WAS THE GOVERNOR RESTRICTED IN DOING A BETTER JOB. WE HAVE WASTED MANY BILLIONS OF DOLLARS AND DECADES, AND WE CERTAINLY SPENT ENOUGH. WE WOULD APPRECIATE GETTING A TRUTHFUL EXPLANATION FROM THE GOVERNOR ABOUT WHY THIS IS HAPPENING AND WHY WE ARE TELLING THE PUBLIC A FALSE STORY ABOUT PUBLIC EDUCATION. WE WOULD LIKE TO SEE THE GOVERNOR'S WRITTEN PLAN TO TURN THIS SAD SITUATION AROUND OR EXPLAIN IN WRITING TO US IF WE ARE INCORRECT. • ELECTED SCHOOL DISTRICT BOARDS', SUPERINTENDENTS' AND PRINCIPALS' TRAINING: Management-by-Objectives, Annual Operating Plans, Zero-based Budgeting training, focus on A.C.T.' “Core Plus 2” plus honors courses, set goal at average 27 A.C.T. for 80% A.C.T. Readiness in five years. If you achieved results with the poor, very old training and with the enormous inefficiency we had to date, the far better results will come with actually less effort if we do things properly. 2. ACTIONS: Poorly performing organizations can't recover without redefining "EXCELLENCE." They claim "excellence for all children" when more than 70% of graduates are not A.C.T. Ready. Any statements or communication in any form by a public education system, especially after our poor history, must communicate the truth and nothing but the truth on all communications to ANY recipient. • In a poorly performing environment, mediocre performance is accepted as EXCELLENT. A.C.T. Readiness is NOT excellence even at 100%, but only "meets requirements" at best, because the curriculum is not competitive. 80% Readiness is a must in 5 years. • To that end, we must have ZERO TOLERANCE for discipline problems. • Our goal of 80% A.C.T. READINESS requires not spending money on other than an excellent education, technology, and maintenance of improving A.C.T. scores 10% per year. Reduce central management staffing to 2% of total school district full-time employees who do a good job. We must keep only those who do a good job. For that, measurable objectives must exist for all employees. If that cannot be defined, why hire them? • Any school district must communicate only the truth and nothing but the truth. Currently this is totally ignored. 3. ACTIONS: Poorly performing organizations can't recover without "GOOD FUNDAMENTALS." • Plan the coming year well, with monthly measurable G.P.A. objectives to deliver much better results by students than in the past. • Provide a financial incentive and recognition plaques to teachers and principals who exceed a 10% higher G.P.A., than last year's, or 3.5 GPA, whichever is lower. • Evaluate together every month which and what teacher-created the best results and how it was done. • Graduate only those who are A.C.T. Ready, keep those who are not, for up to two more years. • Require management training for Superintendents. • Keep a voting-public record of all elected school district board members on all votes that would reduce spending or (or except for those that) increase education results. Locally elected school district boards of education do not and cannot contribute to improving our education system. Their voting majority does not have enough knowhow. Appointed boards can be very helpful (e.g. in a form of US Public schools is one called a “charter school”). WHY MUST WE DO ALL THIS? • For our future citizens: our children's and grandchildren's economic survival. • High school graduates feed the workforces of all industries. • The training of our industries' workforces affects the quality and profitability of the companies in our industries. We compete today with international competitors at home and in most countries. • Poorly prepared high school graduates, like most U.S. graduates today, lower our industries' income, and also our national income. We do not have enough national income, and our national debt skyrocketed. • Our high schools, therefore, must be competitive with the best countries. We are far from them today. Additional considerations for actions • A.C.T. depends on the education community for income. That is likely to influence their test results to show the best possible "picture" with their test results. The purposeful dumbing down of the public unfortunately exists. • U.S. Constitution does not provide any guidelines for education. Individual state constitutions and laws delegate all spending and education-related decisions to locally elected school boards. There are more than 13,500 such school boards in the U.S. The decision-making majority of such boards lack the necessary knowhow. The U.S. Constitution not covering public education is not a good reason for no standardization nationally on the most important things in education. For example high school graduation requirements, advancement student requirements to each grade, minimum curriculum in K-12, teacher and superintendent qualification revised, prerequisites for entry into a teaching program in any college or university, single-subject focus with a BS/BA and MS/MA in the subject that a candidate will teach above grade four, with a plan to achieve such a qualification. If that is not possible, expect cognitive robotics with Artificial Intelligence to replace education as we know it, because what we have is destroying our children's ability to make a living. • Politicians believe that if they suggest changes, the education entity will have them voted out. OBSERVATION: Jobs are getting more sophisticated. The fewer demanding jobs are going to robots. It is a tougher world out there. The jobs require more knowledge. When things were easier, both schools and parents were tougher with the children in the school and at home. So, we made everything easier for children, with much less pressure in school and at home, allowing children to misbehave and learn less than before. WE DID THIS FOR OUR CHILDREN, FOR A TOUGHER WORLD THAT REQUIRES MORE KNOWLEDGE IN THE SCIENCES AND MATHEMATICS... Go figure...Have we been dumbed down this much?! THE FUTURE DEPENDS ON OUR CHILDREN WHAT IS YOUR GOAL? WHAT HAVE YOU CHANGED? WHAT IS YOUR GOAL-ACHIEVEMENT HISTORY? HOW IS ACT READINESS DETERMINED? The A.C.T. score range is 1-36. The test is given after 11th Grade, to learn what children learned from grade one to twelve. A.C.T. also offers a test called ASPIRE, for each grade, from grade 3 to grade 10. ASPIRE indicates in each grade what the individual student’s A.C.T. score is likely to be in grade 11 if the student keeps progressing the same way. This is an excellent predictive test for parents as well as school management because, at any grade level, ASPIRE indicates what the final school district’s or individual student’s A.C.T. score is likely to be. Having a tool like ASPIRE, both the parent and the school would see what courses’ performance is weak, starting with third grade. If a parent and the school know that a student’s performance is too weak at any grade from 3 to 10, they can act to correct the situation. Otherwise, the A.C.T. score may come as a big surprise. The A.C.T. score is the average of four A.C.T. subject tests: English, Mathematics, Reading, and Science. The student that meets the target scores of all four benchmark tests qualifies as "A.C.T. READY." A.C.T. Readiness only means that if a student passed the four benchmarks (in English, Mathematics, Reading and Science), then that student has a 50% - 75% CHANCE to pass the college FRESHMAN LEVEL of the same four subjects only (that is the FRESHMAN LEVEL English, Mathematics, Reading and Science courses) and NOTHING ELSE. Verify at https://www.act.org/content/act/en/college-and-career-readiness/ benchmarks.html. Please note that being just "A.C.T. Ready" does not indicate that a child is prepared for the better paying future jobs even on the lowest level, especially jobs that relate to any future science, engineering or economics Courses. It must be obvious that those students who are not A.C.T. Ready, are likely to remain unemployed most of their lives. Let me tell you how fast technologies are moving ahead. Ten years ago a $1,000 computer had the same computing power as a mouse brain. By 2025 a $1,000 computer will be much smaller, but with the same computing power as a human brain. By 2045 the $1,000 computer will be very tiny; it's peripheral devices will change very significantly and brain implants and its computing power will exceed the power of ALL HUMAN BRAINS ON THIS EARTH COMBINED (source is Ray Kurtzweil, Google's V.P. of technology. His forecasts have been 89% accurate for the past 30 years). Today's children will be alive then, and so will be our grandchildren. Robotics is advancing just as fast as computers, along with many other technologies, and will replace the jobs of those students who are not A.C.T. Ready by 2024 or before. Many college education based careers, such as accounting, nursing, teaching, and many more unless such individuals continued an earnest learning effort to stay ahead of robotics for employment. Our high school education is already seriously behind many nations as of 2019, and there is no sign of any improvement. Japan started this serious continuing education 30 Years ago. We do have a couple of hundred high schools with close to 100% A.C.T. Readiness, But some states like Tennessee do not have any, and if one writes to the governors of the low performing states, there will be no answer from anyone. We will see a huge group of new sciences and technologies become very active by 2022: nanotechnology that will change most engineering design and manufacturing activities with major cost-reduction, robotics with nanometer resolution of components in design (nanometer=one millionth of a meter) including invisible and cognitive robotics at a much lower cost, and space science, whose high speed, antigravity engines among other things will create even greater benefits than the automobile industry did - IF WE TURN AROUND OUR PUBLIC SCHOOLS SIGNIFICANTLY. OTHERWISE, OTHER NATIONS WILL BENEFIT, THOSE WHO MAINTAINED AN EXCELLENT K-12 EDUCATION SYSTEM. Technology changes always eliminate low-level jobs with robotics, and bring many jobs with better pay, but requiring much more education. We fell behind in education and that will create a big problem that we are already feeling. A.C.T. already has a new term for READINESS for jobs that will ensure a proper income for a family of four longer-term. It is called STEM A.C.T., it includes Calculus, Chemistry, Biology and Physics and the A.C.T. score must be at or above 26, which will gradually increase. The education systems were teaching all this in the higher-performing international countries and in some Northern US states 40 or more years ago. Our public education has fallen behind starting more than 50 years ago. We became the highest spending country per student. We dropped to the bottom of the industrialized countries by 2016. Our governors and state departments of education leadership did a terrible job. All governors spent more money on education since 1970, but not on things that would increase learning as measured by the A.C.T. scores. Those sciences that are coming in a couple of years, will need even more, far better prepared high school graduates. INTERESTING OBSERVATION: SINCE 1970 WE SPENT MORE EVERY YEAR TO THIS DAY AND BECAME THE HIGHEST SPENDER. BUT THE KNOWLEDGE OF HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATES DECLINED. YET QUITE A FEW GOVERNORS WANTED TO BE REMEMBERED AS THE "EDUCATION GOVERNOR". We wrote to our current and prior Tennessee governors specific questions about our poorly performing public education system during the last ten years. We did not receive a single response from them or anyone else for them. Not a single letter. BUT THERE WAS NOT A SINGLE GOVERNOR IN MORE THAN 50 YEARS, WHO SEEING THIS TREND SINCE 1970 STOOD UP TO INITIATE A FORENSIC AUDIT (THIS IS AN INVESTIGATIVE AUDIT) TO EXAMINE WHERE THE MONEY GOES. WHEN PERFORMANCE IS BAD, YOU HAVE TO CORRECT INTERNAL PROBLEMS WITHIN THE ORGANIZATION, INSTEAD OF SPENDING MORE MONEY AFTER THE CHILDREN GRADUATED FOR SOME FORM OF SUPPLEMENTAL TRAINING. REVERSING A POOR 12-YEAR EDUCATION COSTS A FORTUNE, AND IT DOES NOT MAKE MUCH DIFFERENCE IN THE POOR GRADUATION RECORD. Who is going to “pay” for making such a huge mistake? Why be competitive internationally with high school graduates everywhere in the US? The public is misinformed about public education in order to make education look better than what it was and is today. It has been getting worse. To cover that, the states made the state-tests easier to get "higher" grades. There was no national standard that we could find anywhere to identify what level of minimum knowledge represents qualification for a high school diploma to identify those children who were prepared to learn more to qualify for income that is reasonable for a normal life for a four-member family. NO US STATE HAS SUCH STANDARDS. WHY DOESN'T THE ENTIRE NATION HAVE SUCH A STANDARD THAT IS INTERNATIONALLY COMPETITIVE? Why on earth would individual states require differing standards that create duplication of expensive staff in each state? In some cases, the duplication is at the school district level, and we have more than 13,500 of them in the nation. The states have such standards, but they differ and are not ensuring necessary minimum earnings level and international competitiveness. Why be competitive internationally with high school graduates everywhere? Why have national standards that are uniform and internationally competitive. Without that an excellent education is impossible. In 2006 A.C.T. published that the requirements for job training or college are the same. A HIGH SCHOOL DIPLOMA USED TO BE A "GUARANTEE" FROM THE STATE THAT THE HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATE IS READY FOR UNIVERSITY OR JOB TRAINING. CLICK HERE TO LEARN EXACTLY WHAT A.C.T. READINESS IS. Then the state education departments and and state boards of education decided to graduate children who were not ready, de-emphasizing and practically forgetting the importance of readiness for life after high school. They started using 90% GRADUATION RATE as the REAL target to achieve, with extremely low graduation requirements. So, we started graduating more children who were not ready for further studies, who otherwise would have failed high school. To this day, no one in a political leadership position corrected this situation; a situation that will endanger our children's lives. We think that we all would like to know why our leadership in either party knew what we found and decided decade after decade to do nothing to raise the A.C.T. scores. Why the A.C.T. scores? Because the A.C.T. and S.A.T. scores are national tests, that the state education department cannot change to produce higher student grades. If our schools in Tennessee as an example cannot teach more than 18-20% of all those who graduated and know enough to be ready according to A.C.T., then who would be responsible for 80% of graduates not being ready to learn a job year after year? Who are the people responsible for such a disaster? The Superintendent of state education, the state board of education who are appointed by governors, and the governor? We respectfully request that the state conduct forensic audits, to find out where we are wasting big money (e.g., bloated central management in school districts and state education department, examining both performance and the necessity of each position justified because the really needed decisions are not being made) why we produce dismal results compared to countries who spend less yet produce superior results, while they account for ALL education-related spending in public, and we do not. We also respectfully request that we survey the competitiveness and quality of our teacher selection and training programs, the time demand on teachers, as well as a survey of teacher compensation competitiveness based on classroom education achievement results. What we show for 19 years of A.C.T. results is far from what we need according to employers and college professors, and when schools graduate children who cannot read and write properly and do not even know basic mathematics, it is time to seriously redesign and fix this failing system, instead of telling the public that all is well, so that they can get a big surprise 5-10 years later about their child's employability. Today, more than 80% of those we are graduating from high school in Tennessee ARE NOT READY, AND OUR HIGH SCHOOLS SHOULD BE GOOD ENOUGH TO GRADUATE 90% who should be ready. Someone important must have known and approved such a destructive decision for graduation when the child is not prepared well enough, in which to this day, our children's future became totally unimportant to our leaders. It is time to put aside political correctness. This was an incredibly stupid thing to do. Doesn't anyone realize how much such a huge mistake will cost us?! This is upsetting. Read on to find out what huge percentage of children are not ready, but are graduated from high school and given a diploma instead of keeping them for 1-2 more years to graduate many more prepared children who will be prepared to learn to become self-supporting. We have been ruining our children's ability for decades to earn a living with the poor education they received in public high school. WHY DID WE DO THAT? WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR OUR EDUCATION QUALITY IN EACH STATE?

The Greek Symbol of Knowledge and Wisdom
Athena, ~ 480 BC



High Schools' Focus:

Vocational Or General Education On A Much Higher Level Than Today?

It is very obvious in the graph that we have done a terrible job of educating our children in public schools, that will hurt them badly when they are trying to get a better job. The education community recognizes the problem, they cannot solve the problem, they have no idea what to do or purposefully DO NOT WANT TO SOLVE THE PROBLEM, AND THEY PURPOSEFULLY MISINFORM THE PUBLIC ABOUT SCHOOL PERFORMANCE. THAT IS CALLED LYING TO THE PUBLIC WHO PAY FOR EVERYTHING THEY HAVE BECAUSE WE PAY PER STUDENT THE HIGHEST RATE PER STUDENT. Our results should be much better, but instead, we dropped to the bottom of the industrialized countries.

I met with the heads of pediatric neurology and pediatric psychiatry at the Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland, Ohio, to discuss brain development issues, and specifically at what age can one determine the specific vocational direction for a child and can that brain development be altered for vocational preference through what the child hears, reads, sees on T.V. The answer is "no". If anyone disagrees with what I am writing here, speak with a neurologist. If you have a different opinion from a neurologist, please let us know his name and number.

We need to consider two things: general education for high school students and vocational decisions in high school.

There are many vocations and many of the better universities that require a 30 or higher A.C.T. score to be accepted, to show that the student can complete the degree for such programs.



Our high schools are struggling with low A.C.T. scores in public education. High schools are at an average A.C.T. score of 15-22, with 30-90% of the students not ready or prepared of those graduates for any job above minimum wage. At this A.C.T. range, the primary and high school education of the child is inferior. Most graduates are not prepared well enough, but we give them a diploma. BIG MISTAKE. Having a vocational desire is worthless if the child graduates poorly prepared. That is why more than 80% of the graduates in Tennessee are not ready for more than minimum wage jobs. The highest priority task for public schools SHOULD BE to become as good as the best ten countries in education became. THAT MEANS HAVING AN OBJECTIVE PER SCHOOL DISTRICT OF AN AVERAGE ACT SCORE THAT IS MINIMUM 10% HIGHER THAN THE AVERAGE ACT SCORE ACHIEVED THE YEAR BEFORE. But the Departments of Education in the states is focusing on graduation ONLY, with extremely low graduation requirements, focusing parents on graduation only as if that was a reasonable goal. IF OUR STATE DEPARTMENTS OF EDUCATION IGNORE ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT AS WE HAVE BEEN DOING FOR YEARS, with most schools telling the parents that all is fine, they are lying to the public. MOST OF OUR CHILDREN WILL BE UNEMPLOYED. It is vital to raise math and science scores higher than A.C.T. 26. Schools must focus on getting much better performance and not waste time with more than academic course achievement when their performance is so poor. But the next point is even a better reason.

Teachers believe that vocational suitability depends on what the child sees or reads or movies or parental opinion, the teachers, or any other information source. THAT IS INCORRECT. Brain development is ready between 18-20 years from a vocational perspective. Intelligence appears to be defined by birth (amygdala). Genetics have some influence. The child's image may be distracted by others favoring some profession, but this is a very specialized development in the brain. The objective is for the child to be in a vocation where the child will be happy, enjoying the job because that is where he/she will be most successful. What we are doing is misleading the student. He may complete required education based on the schools' pushing them so that he will discover that he hates that job that the school "sold" him. So, schools could be most helpful if they improve the ACT-measured academic education of the children at a much higher level than they do currently and stop pushing them toward a vocation.

Vocational testing can be very accurate with the right test. We used it in my division with about 700 people we hired, and these two tests were precise. One is called the Strong Interest Inventory, and the other is the Myers-Briggs Intelligence Inventory. Download both from the Internet for about $130 for both. But have the child take it after 19 years of age. And the two tests must be correlated by a vocational psychologist with a PhD.

Unfortunately, the subjects we were and are teaching in public schools in the U.S., did not change much in 50 years. School books are 6-10 years behind in a fast-moving world. Many other countries, after WWII, improved the matching of teacher candidates to the teaching profession. They improved teacher education at their universities, making sure that the curricula in their primary and secondary schools were increased as needed. All to fully support the needs of their advancing industries to produce the best high-quality products and services in the world. They have been doing this annually. They know where we stand annually. But our state departments of education and school districts don't know anything about what the better countries are doing. We compare school performance in the U.S. only against the average of ALL countries, that include many low performing countries from Africa and other underdeveloped countries. THAT WAY WE SHOW BETTER OR EQUAL RESULTS COMPARED TO "INTERNATIONALS" AS WE TRY TO SELL IDEAS TO THE PUBLIC ABOUT OUR PUBLIC EDUCATION THAT ARE NOT TRUE. THAT INCLUDES THE NATIONAL DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION IN WASHINGTON AS WELL. THAT UNFORTUNATELY SHOWS OUR EXTREMELY LOW EXPECTATIONS, NOT CARING AT ALL ABOUT THE SUCCESS OF OUR COUNTRY AND OUR CHILDREN IN A COMPETITIVE MARKET. AND NOW, THE DUMBING DOWN OF THE PUBLIC SINCE 1970 MAKES PERFECT SENSE. WHY? BECAUSE BY KNOWING LESS THE PUBLIC DOES NOT RECOGNIZE THE EVIL PLAN SOME MEN COOKED UP MORE THAN A HUNDRED YEARS AGO, IT APPEARS, TO DUMB DOWN THE AMERICAN PUBLIC. IT IS EASIER TO CONTROL US THAT WAY. We did not do what about 40 other nations did after WWII, which is focusing on the best three countries in education to learn how to do better. We did not improve, and they passed us. We spent the most money per child in education in the world, but we dropped to the bottom of the industrialized countries to 40th in high school mathematics by 2016. The money has not been spent on the right people in the right places in public education. That is a big problem because it has impacted our children's education and future employability, as well as our employers who needed many better-educated employees to survive.

It is not possible to turn around bad performance without ALL OF THE ABOVE STEPS. In 2016 we were the highest spenders per student in the world. We dropped to 40th in mathematics internationally that year, among 15-year-old high school children and that is very bad news. We spent and kept spending the people's money for public education, our hard-earned tax dollars. But the poor job we did and do in public education will result in massive joblessness for our children and grandchildren for life. Whose job was it and is it to deliver one of the highest results for the high spending in education? The money was enough, but where did it go? Certainly not for the right people in the right places in education districts. The remedy would be a forensic audit of medium to large school districts, and changing people and projects that have not been productive.