I have taught for 20 years . . . in private schools. I gave up writing letters to the editor about government schools (they are not “public”) long ago. They have been “reforming” themselves for decades, and they just get worse and worse. The problem is four-fold, as I see it: (1) teachers unions (which have no place in education); (2) education schools graduating idiots with degrees in certified inferiority (schools which would be entirely abolished in my kingdom except for special ed); and (3) “centralization” of local schools, which, along with busing, has for a long time been destroying the neighborhood concept of schooling (and removing schools that much further from parental control); and (4) Democrats keeping black people on their plantation, thereby destroying the black family. Sorry, but I gave up on “public” schools long, long ago. Their problems are too deeply rooted, and they are not worth the efffort.
Thankfully I moved to TX, got married (a bit less thankfully) and had a child (very thankfully). The schools in Austin have been surprisingly excellent. I also lived in Baton Rouge and my son's kindergarten and 1st grade were as good as any private school in the area.
My only problem at this point is feeding the union beast. Where I've lived so far, the teachers and schools have been light years ahead of what I suffered through, but the trajectory is not healthy.
As a programmer, I became dismayed that my replacements were from India, Pakistan and China so I became a science teacher.
I soon found that perfectly bright high school students could not perform the most basic of mathematical functions. Now I teach basic math to the children of the wealthy.
I feel a little guilty but at least the kids have a chance in life.
Nowadays, being able to do math in your head is kind of like having super powers.
This was probably an extension lesson from Channel One News. I am appalled at what airs on this mandatory news program that is pumped into govt. school classrooms across America. I complained (to no avail) after this aired in May as part of a week long segment on Islam, the religion of peace:
http://www.channelone.com/news/islam/
I countered with my own lesson on Sharia law so that my students could make their own decisions about the definition of “peaceful religion.”
1) Parents that don't get involved and then just whine about the system that they refuse to take an active role in.
2) Good Conservative teachers (Yes, there is such a beast.) that remove themselves from the equation rather than staying to fight the good fight.
Wintertime, feel free to make an irrelevant comment about "government functionaries" and "Useful idiots" or one of your other thinly veiled insults.
Metmom, feel free to defend him/her when he/she is actually during your cause more harm than good presenting the case for home schooling as part of the "fringe kook" segment of society.