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While I do not believe for a second that schools are solely responsible for the mess public education serves up 10 months out of every year, I believe they have done themselves no favors by participating in the grand hoax—that being that students are receiving anything approaching a quality education. By tolerating/socially promoting the destructive, the non-productive, the uncooperative, public education says with each diploma they hand out, each “promoted” student who did not master anything that, “Yeah, we don’t care about your education much, either.”

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve expressed to my students in the classroom that they’ve been lied to, that those involved in their education have hated, HATED them or been utterly indifferent to them by allowing them to get to high school reading at a 3rd, 4th, 5th grade level. How can those teachers, those administrators, and, yes, those parents have had any other attitude toward them but hate or neglect when they have passed them along to the next class incapable of doing the work, when they’ve not been interested in the least to see if they are keeping up with their studies/demanded to see a report card/disciplined them for failing to excel in school? After I let that sink in to marinade their little skulls full of mush, I say, “If no one else cares, you had better. I assume that, given you have not dropped out, something inside is telling you that this ‘education thing’ matters. And, not to worry. I, too, care. I love you and I assure you that what we will be doing this semester matters to me a great deal.” Most of my students are willing to give it a shot after that.