There are many excellent comments posted here in response to Mr. Colson's "Two-minute Warning." Yes, the problem is so immense that no rhetorical address begins to reach the mark. Although there is much subsequent analysis poignantly demonstrating the shortcomings in Mr. Colson's argument, I did not see any coherent ideas regarding what should presently be DONE. Yes, it is essential to properly identify the problem, but when there is no viable solution then given, a most notable elephant enters the room: What's the point! So, what will we now do? I bring to this conversation a proven starting point... one that has a strategy for changing the prevailing status quo nationwide and ushering in new generation of inspired young people... even like our Founding Fathers. I know; I have witnessed the results with my own eyes having taken my students here for many years. Clearly, if we do not address the prevailing school reality, we are ignoring the primary arenas of thought formation. So, why not a product that can change the heart and soul of school systems everywhere... from within? I'd love for someone to try and challenge me on this point. I am confident such persons will lose this debate. Here's my answer: www.projectamericanlife.com Prove me wrong... make my day.

I agree with Mr. Williams that we all bare some responsibility for the current morass in education. We have, as a nation, decided to settle for second best, the path of least resistance, and the urge to be entertained rather than enlightened. It seems we are doing everything right that leads to social disintegration and very little to stop the rot. In music, drama, and the arts the common denominaor is the crass, the banal, the ugly. We are what we eat and intellectually we are eating garbage.

Waiting for Superman? Really?

After the long-awaited début of this highly anticipated movie, I have to tell you, I was less than impressed and left a little flat. I had hoped that someone would come out with a little more of a reality based portrayal of the educational evils that face our culture, but I am afraid we saw more of the same old excuse for failing schools.

Although the film is filled with lots of accurate and chilling statistical information, that at first glance wants to make you toss your cookies at the prospect of having your kids placed in the hands of the public school system, it doesn’t present anything new to the to the informational spectrum as it relates to the failure of public education. It does set the stage to get a stranglehold on your emotions as you view the rest of the film, which in my opinion, is just another left-wing tactic designed to play on your emotions and avoid looking at the politically incorrect facts of the situation.

Davis Guggenheim, director of An Inconvenient Truth, shows us a number of economically disadvantaged families and their struggle to provide a quality education for their progeny. It is truly heart wrenching to see. He outlines strategies and obstacles of various school districts across the country who “strive” to offer education for our future leaders, but always the subtle underlying message is the lack of quality education is a “social” issue and his primary focus on urban and inner city schools reinforces that message. All but one of the families is a minority, and all the schools were of big city geography. He failed to discuss the fact that even among suburban and rural public schools, there is, and has for some time been, a remarkable decline in achievement as well, thus skirting and failing to put a fine point on the real issues of failing public schools: the teacher’s unions.

While Guggenheim does take a couple of sharply directed swipes at the unions, he fails to drive the message home by his lack of emphasis on their responsibility for the structure of today’s public school system. The unions are completely responsible for our lack of ability to address tenure, and while he does address that in the movie, he fails to look further and more intensely at the larger forest for the trees issues of how the unions have controlled/influenced law makers across the country in shaping legislation which prohibits free Americans from taking their children to schools of their choice to find quality educational services for their kids. He does address the Charter Schools, but again portrays them as an inadequately funded and over burdened system which could work, if only they had more money.

Public education doesn’t work. Lots of bad things have resulted, in our culture, because we have raised generations of uneducated masses. Social issues have escalated, not because of failing pubic schools, but because teacher’s unions have blocked the culture’s ability to address failing public schools. In turn we have an uneducated populace that has contributed to the decline of the culture. If choice and competition were part of education’s equation, there would be no tenure, or geographical restrictions on where children can attend schools. You would also have merit pay for teachers, more parental involvement in curriculums, and higher standards expected for the educational outcomes of our children.

Stagnant ideas that failing schools are of social or economic influence have to give way to intense focus on the real culprit, teacher’s unions. In fairness, Guggenheim did attempt, more that I have seen in any recent portrayals of failing public educational documentaries, to insert some of the teacher union’s influence into the mix of the debate but he danced over and around the real issues that have cemented the decline of public education. I came away with the feeling that he feels is all fixable with more money.

I would like to see Guggenheim make a two-hour documentary on the history and development of teacher’s unions. Many questions and issues could be presented. We all know about the common and popular issues of tenure, lack of merit pay, etc. But a deeper investigation might include probing questions such as, why do organizations who claim to advocate for teachers and education have laundry lists, a mile long, of resolutions that address a variety of political issues such as genocide, the Holocaust, youth camp safety, health care awareness, violence against women and children worldwide, victims of crime, protection of senior citizens, global climate change, and the list goes on.

So, perhaps the questions about public education are wasted on why are they failing. If we take our politically corrected, brainwashed heads out of the sand we would soon start asking how can we get rid of the NEA and AFT. And while we are at it, lets throw the Department of Education on the fire, too.

As an elected school board director I stand in the swamp trying to sort out the facts from perceptions. Our perceptions are based on our ideas of how it was and why can't we measure up. I agree that we are spending huge sums of money attempting to teach ALL of our children but in 1967, 77% of our population were unskilled laborers today 13% are unskilled laborers which makes the bar for education very high for us today. I am not making excuses but children that come from stable families are better students. Unfortunately, our communities are plagued with failing families. There are three components in education the teacher, supportive community (includes parents) and willing students. To single out only one component is wrong and divisive. In my role as a director I look for the positives that I can give praise for while building an accountability plan with fellow directors, administrators and teachers to make steady improvement in providing the best student learning for the best value. I support Chuck’s comment that we need to do better but we as citizens need to be aware of what is being ask of public education see the attached link http://www.jamievollmer.com/pdf/the-list.pdf which is Jamie Vollmer’s list of how public education’s responsibilities have evolved over the years. I was educated through the public education as were my wife and children and we have benefited from those who taught us. We as a nation will benefit from our investment in public education. Chuck thank you for challenging us and raising the bar. Semper Fidelis.

Chuck, you are right. We need to do something. The challenge is, everyone wants to blame someone else. "waiting for Superman" is NOT about the teachers as they want you to believe. It is about the unions. The "teachers" are the people who are helping. What some fail to realize, is that there are a number of people who are not "teachers" who are taking up space in our schools. They are the challenge. As soon as we are ready to weed these people out, we will see progress

I agree with many points that other contributors have made: the root cause of the problem is the moral collapse of our society. That said, inner city schools can do better. When Texas implemented standardized testing for students, they had the teachers take the same test. Shockingly, a majority of teachers in the Houston ISD failed the very test their students were required to pass. I visited one of these Houston elementary schools to speak to 4th graders in the 1980s. The school was surrounded by a chain-link fence. As I arrived in mid-morning, several men were already drinking from bottles in paper bags outside of that fence. But inside I met some of the greatest schoolkids ever. Regardless of their ethnicity, these kids were sharp, polite and eager to learn. It seems from this admittedly limited experience that the failure occurs for many children after 4th grade, and the responsibility for that failure is shared by the parents and a society that has nurtured dysfunction in families, and the schools.

We are in a conundrum with our educational system and there is much blame to pass around. I agree with Mr. Williams above when he says it is the moral lacking culture we live in that is mostly failing our children which in great part we have all contributed to by remaining silent as you have referred to so eloquently in past commentaries, Chuck. I know there are many good teachers out there who are doing their darn best job day in and day out to teach the basics of reading, writing and arithmetic, but the children in their classes are still not passing tests with quality scores. I have good friends and family members who are teachers in public schools and have heard first hand the "stupid" regulations that are being required of them by the state just so that their school can be guaranteed money or whatever. Just like doctors and nurses who can hardly practice medicine anymore because of the burdensome amount of paperwork (gov't regulation) that is required of them these teachers can hardly even teach anymore. As if the teachers are not already doing enough they are then told they have serve on a committee at the school in order to be considered a valuable asset to the school.

I have also spoken with high school graduates who can hardly put together a sentence in English let alone read the Bible in a church youth group setting. They don't even know how to pronounce a word or where to even begin. These are high school graduates. I know students in public schools who have been passed from grade to grade to grade who still can't read at the third grade level and now they are in jr. high. Why are these kids being passed on to the next grade? Where are the parents?

I grew up in a family of teachers and I know how the parents are in many cases threatening teachers that if you don't pass my "Johnny" I will file a complaint on you and they rant and rave, but yet that parent has never sat down and worked on Johnny's homework with him or even cared to ask him how is day at school went.

I know there are teachers in our public schools who are not doing a good job, but my heart goes out to those that are working their best to educate our students and they send these students home to no supper and sometimes not even a bed to sleep on. How can it be the teachers' fault in such horrible circumstances.

Yes, our schools need to be held accountable, but what about holding the deadbeat parents accountable who don't even so much as send their child to school in the middle of winter with a coat and gloves?

As far as testing goes, I think standardized testing is far overrated especially when the teachers are almost required to teach to the test just so they can guarantee a student passing. Does a student passing the SAT with high scores guarantee that student will be a leader of high moral character in his community? Absolutely not.

Yes, some schools are failing our students as I have seen the lowered standards for passing, but I think in the end it is the state of our society today that has led to the demise in education and the failing of our students.

I believe this (and videos like this from prominent voices within the evangelical community who comment on such matters) is why many well meaning church folk think the way they do about the state of public education and worse, act as if a 3 minute blurb has adequately informed them to comment or hold certain opinions on such matters.

I like Chuck Colson. I like him a lot. I own and have read many of his books and have even taught some of his curriculum. He has done so much for the Christian faith, especially when it comes to cultural engagement, but videos like this this always cause me to pause and wonder:

Where are the videos from actual teachers who are committed Christians in the public schools?

Where are the videos from actual administrators who have made the public schools their mission field?

Why are they silent? Do they even care?

I think I can answer that in part: they aren't making internet videos. Why not? Because they're in the trenches, working 60+ hour weeks, dealing with children who come from homes that are deeply fractured and broken, spending the prime years of their lives trying to make a difference in the lives of kids-one child at a time. Children who are-and this is never mentioned in the 'schools are failing our kids' rants-in fact, victims of a society that has experienced a moral and ethical erosion the likes of which our nation has never known. They are the ones that wake up every morning at 4:30 am, teach/counsel/administrate/coach until 5-6 pm and head home exhausted to grade papers, analyze data and somewhere in the middle of all of that, try to be a parent (or grandparent) to their own children.

Men like Chuck Colson, along with a cadre of cultural analysts, commentators, and right-wing media gurus, many of whom live in nice houses in nice communities and send their own children to expensive private schools, need to realize (or be told with conviction) that there is so much more to the story than they care to admit. They need to remember that schools are a microcosm, a 'thin slice' of the larger community they are a part of, and as such, the problems we see in schools are in fact, a reflection of the larger problems in society itself.

Maybe an everyday example would help.

I can virtually guarantee and could easily produce data that would show that a barely literate woman of six children, who dropped out of high school herself and is collecting welfare checks along with scraping together a few bucks here and there from one of the many men she welcomes into her bed is sending to her local public school six children who are practically destined to fail whatever flavor-of-the-year standardized test is placed in front of them.

-Guess what charter schools do not have to do? Accept these children.

-Guess what private school do not have to do? Accept these children.

-(!)Guess what every public school in America does do? Accept these children.

They never mention this part, do they?

No matter how ill-equipped they are and unsupported their home life is, public schools accept these children and others (many of whom don't even speak English). And it shouldn't take a whole lot of mental gymnastics to figure out how children from circumstances like the one from the aforementioned scenario will most likely end up as the result of their mother's (and father's) indiscretions and lack of a moral compass. All you have to do is little exponential math over the course of decade or two to see where this cycle goes.

Simply, to attack schools for 'failing our kids' is akin to a doctor blaming a patient's high fever on a hand that has gangrene, when in fact, the hand is attached to an entire arm with gangrene. No doctor in her right mind would amputate just the hand, yet this is exactly what pundits are doing when they attack schools, often holding important legislative sessions that are 'open to the public' during school hours and vilifying teachers with 30 second spots on the evening news. It's beyond sickening-it's morally bankrupt, and Christians (yes, Christians) shouldn't stand for it any longer.

I'll finish my rant with this and if you read nothing else, read this:

No, Mr. Colson, while schools do need to improve (as any teacher or administrator worth his salt would agree), you are wrong: it's not the schools who are failing our children. Schools are 'downstream' from families or family 'units' who are themselves 'downstream' from our society and thus, its values. So then, it's our society-all of it-that is failing our children.

-It's broken families.
-It's lazy welfare-check collecting moms enabled by a broken social care system.
-It's absentee fathers (read: biological fathers).
-It's communities that value sporting events over education.
-It's self-interested get elected at all costs politicians.
-It's inward-focused churches and spiritual leaders.
-It's businesses who are more interested in branding our children than looking out for their futures.
-It's you. It's me.

All schools can do at this point is to play, in essence, the janitor of society: cleaning up the messes that are handed to them by society while toiling under the heavy burden of legislation that has made it all but impossible to have success in the eye of the ever-present media spotlight.

Mr. Colson, we, including those of us who buy and read your books, expect better from you on this topic. Please step up and use your incredible God-given platform to fight the right battles.

Jason R. Williams

Indianapolis, IN

The problem is deeper than just teachers and administrators not having the student's best interest as paramount. The culture of poverty not only does not place a premium on education, it views education as something to be avoided. Parents and community often discourage and ridicule students that want to learn because if that child succeeds, it highlights that it is possible and that highlights their own failure to get out of the poverty cycle/culture. They want their kids to be "like them". Which is not that different from a doctor wanting his/her children to be like him/her.

If a child does not want to learn (whether it is a personal decision or something their family/culture has pushed onto them), they will not learn. Education now spends a whole lot of money making the water sweet to entice the horse to drink but the saying is still true that you can lead a horse to water but you cannot make it drink (even if you sweeten the water).