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News regarding public education is a staple in the diet of those who follow current events. Rarely does a day go by without yet another foul-smelling bowl of stew from the education front. Toothsome dishes they are not; they reek of futility and failure.

Scattered before me are several newspaper clippings of recent vintage, which we will review in chronological order. The first article is from July 22, when we learned that only 29 local schools met “Adequate Yearly Progress” in 2011. In 2010, 47 met AYP.

But don’t be alarmed: Educators stress that the decline in performance came about because “the passing rate for reading,” for instance, “jumped from 43.2 percent (last year) to 71.6 percent” this year, for grades 3 through 8. Besides, as any professional educator will tell you, standardized tests are meaningless relics of a bygone era.

On Aug. 15 came news that students from Guilford and Rockingham counties scored below state and national averages on SAT exams. In addition, the state average in math and reading declined by three points. Obligatory in all articles of this nature are denouncements of academic standards from establishment insiders. Hence, according to Rodney Shotwell, superintendent of Rockingham County Schools, “The SAT is a good measure of academics, but this is not the total picture of a child’s academic ability.”

North Carolina students, we discovered on Nov. 2, are “about average.” This we learned from the most recent National Assessment of Educational Progress, which is also known as “the nation’s report card.” In the realm of public education, what does “about average” mean? Should we celebrate the fact that our kids are average?

Well, no. “Average” in this case means “about one-third of the students taking the test were proficient in reading.” In other words, two-thirds of our students either struggle to read or are functionally illiterate.

On Nov. 10 came a glimmer of “good news.” That is, even though one-third of Guilford County’s third- through eighth-graders fail the state reading test, “the district only holds back 2 to 4 percent of those students.” In the public schools, then, mere illiteracy is no impediment to Little Johnny’s progress! We learned from the same article that 60 percent of high school graduates who enroll at GTCC have to take remedial math or English.

The same day’s paper featured an op-ed by Margaret Arbuckle and Skip Moore, of the Guilford Education Alliance and the Weaver Foundation, respectively. Their opinion piece champions a new initiative called AchieveGuilford, which is essentially an increase in collaboration among local organizations. Their objective is to improve the academic performance of our children, and surely their intentions are good.

One suspects, however, that Arbuckle and Moore underestimate the magnitude of the problem. For instance, the authors write that our students’ careers will require “sophisticated thinking” and “advanced levels of knowledge,” but two-thirds of our kids can barely read. I am not a professional educator, but I’m willing to wager that, among the illiterate, “sophisticated thinking” is a rarity. AchieveGuilford is likely to become another in a long line of well-meaning but failed initiatives. It is far too timid.

Public education’s failure is systemic, its problems deeply rooted, and its bureaucracy stubbornly resistant to reform. Some of the measures most likely to improve the system are necessarily draconian. A few to consider:

-- Abolish the Department of Education, a colossal waste of taxpayer funds. The federal government has no constitutional authority over education, and the DOE has achieved absolutely nothing. If the DOE were a private-sector entity, it would have been bankrupt and shuttered decades ago.

-- Eliminate education degrees, and require aspiring teachers to major in an academic field.

-- Abolish teacher certification requirements, which are ineffective, and aggressively recruit teachers from other fields. Several studies demonstrate that individuals with no educational training perform equally well in the classroom.

-- Link teacher compensation to student achievement: Increase the salaries of the most successful teachers; fire the incompetent.

-- Restore order in the classroom: Establish and enforce a strict code of conduct.

-- Get back to basics: Place a renewed emphasis on reading, writing and arithmetic.

-- Increase vocational training: Despite our best efforts, not every student is Yale-bound. Some students are incapable of college-level work; others are simply not interested. But every student should have viable options.

There are, of course, societal ills that contribute to the failure of public education. The illegitimacy rate is foremost among them, but apathetic parents are another. Alas, public policy has its limitations.

Charles Davenport Jr. (cdavenportjr@hotmail.com) writes on the first and third Sundays of each month.