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The problems in education are a bigger reflection of America's disintegration as a society. The failure of the American family has a greater effect on education than all the teachers out there; but we will never see parents held accountable.

Typical high school has 40% that don't even want to be in school, 50% that just float through (many eventually getting it together), and 10 % high achievers that know where they are going at 16. That top 10 % are our America's future leaders and why we will survive as a Nation.

Right, 100% agreement. My suggestion is that mandatory attendance laws be changed so that mandatory schooling ends at 14 (like in Japan, the country that articles like these like to beat us about the ears with.) After that, you want to go to high school, you can take an entrance exam and score well to get in. If you have suitable *behavior* you can go to a different school, but in either case, sny misbehavior -any failure to do the work - you're out. If you want to come back, you have to pay tuition (a lot - the full cost of education, usually about $6000-$8000 a year.)

I came across a very old "Time" magazine, from sometime in the 1940's & there was an interesting article about a noticable decline in the quality of American education. That was long before most of the government polcies promoting a decline in the family.

The industrial revolution & the rise of union power changed our education system. Society needed greater numbers of semi-educated sheep to fill jobs & at the same time a way had to be found to keep the job market regulated, so the flow of applicants into job openings met demand, while at the same time, keeping "unemployement" numbers low.

The answer was *mandatory* education AND a set age of "graduation" around the age 18. Gone were any of the old motivations of learning, including a natural desire to know more things. Line up class. Remain silent & raise your hand until you are called on by the teacher... Leaders arose *despite* the education system created, not because of it.

Think of some of the greatest minds in American history. Many did not do very well in the education system. Their inate hunger & drive took them to the top of their fields. Many also had crummy home lives.

We kill drive by making education *required* & boring. The bright are held back, cuz we instruct down to the lowest common denominator. One of the best ways to learn is by teaching, so eliminating something that made single room school house learning great also cost us.

I'm very radical about education. The "cure" IMO would be the creation of mixed age classes made up of kids with similar IQ's.

My wife is a high school science teacher in an at risk school. Most of her students come from broken homes and parents that are trash. I could fill a two page post with some of the crap she has seen, just a taste, one parent cmae into a parent teacher conference and told my wife he did not know why he was there. He said and i quote, "It is not my job to raise the brat, that is why I send him to school." The parents have a ultimate responsiblity to raise their child and to see that he is educated.