Less than a third of NY's public school students passed math, reading exams last year

Well, then, if the parents have failed the children, why aren’t the children getting an education?

Excuse me? Half of all marriages end in divorce, leading to single parent households. Fatherless households among blacks is even higher. Parents failing their children.

Asians including children of immigrants from India stress education for their children. Many of these parents do not speak English very well but their kids excel at school. My wife is from China and we have a 4th and 5th grader. My kids watch NO tv during the week and only a few hours per day on the weekend. Most kids left unsupervised lack the motivation and discipline to practice a healthy routine of learning thereby leaving themselves at a serious disadvantage (look at what is being discussed in the metro Charlotte, NC area as an answer to black males failing in the system). Once again parents failing their children.

All politics are local. School boards. PTA. Parents vote for local political offices and the majority of their property tax is contributed towards the public school. If the parents aren’t involved and active in local politics particularly if their local schools are not making the grade then the parents have failed their children.

Children are the victims, victims of the system and in some cases victims of their parent(s) lack of involvement and not establishing standards, routines and expectations for their kids.

I question your "documentation". Lies and misinformation can also be "widespread, "well known" and "well documented".

I am speaking from my personal experience of having been in several schools over years. I never saw anyone telling their students to go out and have sex and I never saw anyone advocating their students to have abortions. Perhaps other school systems have that sort of thing going on, but kids would have gotten back to the administration about teachers saying stuff like that and word would have gotten around. In the hundreds of faculty meetings I've attended, no mention of "do not suggest having an abortion in class" was made, nor "do not tell your students it's OK to go out and have sex". Perhaps some of the new young amoral teachers they're hiring now would say stuff like that, but no one that I personally know would. Matter of fact, the people that I know would most assuredly tell the students quite the opposite, in an effort for them to develop some self-esteem. "Don't feel like you have to give in when your boyfriend tells you that if you loved him, you'd let him have sex with you" or any of those other oldie but goodie lines. "Have some respect for yourself and tell a guy like that to hit the road" would be more in line with what my colleagues would say.

I hate to sound prejudiced, but some (probably many) kids just aren’t academic material. They belong in farms or factories.

The real problem is the ongoing social revolution, which seems to favor the creative or analytical over the manual or physical. While college is obsessively pushed as the path to a higher-paying job, not everyone has the level intelligence or ability.

I don’t disagree with anything in either of your posts.

My main point is that the system doesn’t work as purported by the eduction establishment. Which does not include those elements, like you, who are trying to do something about it.

Absolutely.

And some kids can earn some pretty good money at some of those more *menial* tasks.

I had a car mechanic tell me that a good mechanic can earn a six figure salary and there is no shortage of work.

There’s a world of difference between what an individual teacher may tell some students and what official policy is.

Given that we know how important ideas are, why aren’t we doing whatever we can in trying to “infiltrate” and overthrow liberalism in this stronghold?
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The best action would be to shut these abominations DOWN!

In many counties and a fair number of states, if conservatives and Christians removed their children from the government schools, the entire evil system would immediately collapse! That is what needs to be done. Then education should be rebuilt on a non-Prussian model that is private and conservative.

If Christians and conservatives teachers are truly conservative and Christian they are warning every parent they meet about the danger government K-12 schooling poses for their child and our nation’s continuing freedom. They are urging these parents to remove their precious children...immediately!

Hopefully, you are doing the right thing.

The problem with Christians and conservatives working in the government schools is that naive parents are beguilled. Hey! If Mrs. Honey Bun, the minister’s wife,( who loves her cat and directs the church’s bell choir), teaches in the godless and Marxist driven government schools, they can’t be **that** bad.. Yes! it is **that* bad to send a child into Marxist controlled schools where they **will** learn to think and reason godlessly just to cooperate in the godless school.

Personally, throughout my two careers I have likely had contact with thousands of families.

Anecdotal observation:

There is **NO** difference between the amount of time spent IN THE HOME studying between academically successful institutionalized children and successful homeschoolers.

There is **NO** difference in home habits, either regarding sleep, exercise, and control of electronic entertainment.

My conclusion;

Successful institutionalized kids are being **AFTERSCHOOLED**. This is true even if their parents are immigrants. Someone in the family has been recruited as a tutor.

My conclusion:

Metmom is absolutely correct. If government schools were effective they would work **regardless** of parental imput!

MY conclusion:

The **only ** thing government schools do is send home curriculum for the parents and child to follow IN THE HOME ( at great expense to the taxpayer.)

I do not think that ANY official entity would sanction teachers to advocate going out and having sex or having an abortion. Unless they have very deep pockets to pay for lawsuits.

“The best action would be to shut these abominations DOWN!”

Sure. Now, let’s deal in reality. Millions and millions of families are sending their kids to public schools. That includes all kinds of Christian parents. Many, many people simply do not have the means or opportunity to either homeschool or send their kids to private schools. While there are all sorts of reasons for that, the fact of the matter is, their kids, along with the millions and millions of non-religious students are in the public schools...and that’s where they will be. We don’t have to like it, but it is reality.

And what that means is that millions and millions of kids are being indoctrinated/saturated with liberalism for 13 of the most important years of their lives...with virtually no exposure whatsoever to the alternative of conservative thought (and we know the power and persuasiveness of group-think—especially on the young.) Well, what kind of voters do you think will emerge from such an education? Will these students be more or less likely to challenge, say, a college professor as they seek further education? What about the ideas they receive from the MSM—will they be looking sideways at the TV when they hear the folks at MSNBC spout the liberal line...or will they give a loud “Amen” and a strong nod of approval? And all for want of a nail, so to speak, the nail being a sufficient number of conservative voices/teachers to temper the liberal line with an equal measure of truth, common sense, wisdom.

Wintertime, you can wish and dream and hope all you want that these schools will shut down. Fact of the matter is, they aren’t about to and this hoped-for expectation, however right-headed in goal, achieves nothing in reality. The education system of America will not die because too many have come to rely on it (however misguided that might be). Conservatives need to look at this as the first step in the ground campaign of any election (I assure you, the liberals view it that way—or no?) Christians need to realize that this is where the sinners are, where the sin is being papered over made to look like reasonable choices (or whatever), and recognize that if you want a society that more strongly reflects Godly values, you had better make sure that those Godly values are properly introduced at an early age into the “conversation” of our next generation of citizens. If you’ve ever raised any children you probably have come to realize that it is easier to shape a child’s tastes/ideas/attitudes/values than it is to change them.

We all agree that America’s public education system must be changed. I say that change will be better accomplished from within.