[George Frm Br00klyn Park]

“Knowledge – real knowledge in the form of facts, not ‘thinking skills’ or feelings of self-worth – is about the least concern of the professional education industry.”
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All, The above is stone cold knowledgable FACT!! And MANDATED, by LAW, yearly increases in education funding is LARGELY to blame for budgetary problems in many if not all school systems. Peace and love, George.

[George Frm Br00klyn Park]

           It’s clear that teachers feel they shouldn’t have to suffer for the financial ineptitude of their bosses.  One can sympathize with their emotions; especially since many of them regularly dip into their own pockets to pay for classroom supplies the school system doesn’t deliver.

Guys, If teachers would stand against the idiotic policies, detailed in the book Ron mentions, passed down from on high, this could be fixed. But, teachers are afraid of losing their "underpaid jobs". AND, The "teacher's" union will NOT stand with he teachers who fight the idiocy. The unions and management are in collusion to create larger unions with greater salaries in their symbiosis. Peace and love, George.

[gathersnomoss]

Ron hits it on the head. Being a product of PS #239 in Brooklyn I can even see that, as with any corporation, the front line employees must be properly trained and motivated in an effort to satisfy the customer i.e. well rounded students.

[reformed_democrat]

[The] No Child Left Behind Act . . . mandates that in a decade, all American school children meet the same educational standards in key subjects at certain ages. That this is an impossible goal doesn’t matter.

Since we homeschool, I haven't paid much attention to school issues. But I am curious about this one.

When I was in school, you could count on first graders knowing the alphabet, second graders adding simple sums, third graders reading "real" books (no See Spot Run for us),and so on down the line. If you didn't learn, you didn't pass.

Now, if the No Child Left Behind standard is conjugating Amo by second grade, I can see why there would be problems. But its my understanding that this act states kids must learn to read, write, and understand mathematical concepts.

Why is this impossible to achieve?

[moehoward]

bump

[evilC]

There doesn’t seem to be a way to avoid hundreds more layoffs and other belt-tightening. It is a crisis, simple as that.

Yes, it is a crisis, a spending crisis. However spreading the burden between the taxpayers and tax spenders could close the deficit.

A "contribution" (like the Social Security "contribution"), say 10% of the cost, from the parents of attendees would probably raise enough to solve this spending crisis. This "contribution" would make parents more cost conscious come election time. It also would pave the way for a real solution, the removal of government and politicians from the education of our children.

With government no longer involved in education, your property taxes would fall by about 75% and your state taxes by about 40% (for most states that could mean the complete abolition of one of the income or sales tax). It would mean an end to fights over prayer in the schools. It would mean that things like teachers salaries would be set in the economic and not the political marketplace. Finally, it would return schools to places of education and not indoctrination.

[headsonpikes]

Public schooling is the enemy of real education.

How else could it really be?

If in doubt, re-read Orwell.

(not YOU, George - I know you know!)