How about we have American educational standards?

It was so frustrating to see one of my favorite students from Morris Brown College screwed by the whole system; I and he again were frustrated. He’s a perfect American leader, other than he couldn't read very well and write at all. And this was after a college degree. Thank goodness his wife could read and write, and she and he could advance ideas and expression together. While I always thought it was his ideas, I suspected many were her ideas, also.

Then he entered the real world, in his case the Marine Corps. He got recycled after the basic officers course process ran, and then called me to suggest his recycling then to transportation as an officer required skill was racially based. So I chewed him out. I reminded him that I had forcefully suggested he take a basic English course, which of course he did not. He could not compete with his real world peers, or lead, since he could not read and write. The Marine Corps let him go. Later he worked for a major retailer in Atlanta. I wished he and his wife luck with the same dilemma.

Here’s another similar story. Having been a recruiter I knew how to manipulate the best I could to pass the tests to be a private in the Marines. Basically it was just having the candidate practice on the parts that counted. Any bookstore had the practice books. And I had one very frustrated Morris Brown College graduate who, even after this coaching, could not pass the test to be a private in the Marines. This is terrible. And we tried three times over 18 months. He got teary on me, then expressed bitterness.

Actually, this article shows we have standards. We just have to start them sooner if we are to advance our young people to the future.

I always assumed the parents who paid the very expensive bills to this private college were also frustrated. They got screwed, too.

Morris Brown specialized in the "diamond in the rough" idea, but at the time it seems the idea was taken too far, to the point of frustrated young people and their parents. Now that is not in our Nation's interest.

Morris Brown later went through a rigorous academic review process, and survived, so hopefully things are more balanced. What prompts this article is hearing too many presidential candidates suggesting going back to this old way of frustrating our young people. Educational standards applied at the beginning are doing our young people a favor in the long run. It seems incredible that so many others see relaxing standards as helping kids in the long run. Of course too many are politicians or hired staffs (local, state, or federal) whose kids do go through rigorous private educations to gain the advantages all Americans deserve, and have to earn.

Now standards are doing kids a favor and promoting our National Interest. Can we apply this idea to all of us? Maybe even parents and local governments will get in step? Call it an "educate and release" plan.