[Amelia]

Public education is a disaster, and public school teachers as a group are a huge part of the problem. Your wife may or may not be one of the the "good ones," but that doesn't change the fact that there are one hell of a lot of bad ones. And, having been a teacher, I can tell you that one bad teacher can totally change the course of education for a child.

"My wife" is not a teacher. I am the wife, and the teacher, in my household.

I choose to believe that one good teacher can change a child's life.

I'm guessing you work in the northeast. My experience with unions doesn't parallel yours, but unions aren't nearly as strong or active in the South.

I've worked in a school where the teachers were as hidebound as you describe, but I've also worked in schools where most of the teachers were knowledgable, caring, and worked extra hours, bought many materials out-of-pocket, and generally went the extra mile for their students.

Were you and your dozens of teacher relatives as awful as the stereotypical public school teacher you describe?

I think there is plenty of blame to go around for the state of public education today - some for teachers, some for parents, some for judges & politicians and bureaucrats in general.

The state of education basically mirrors that of society in general, and IMO both have been going downhill since about the 1960s.

We've had the baby-boomers, the "me-generation", Dr. Spock & the self-esteem movement....all of these undermined discipline in the home and in the schools.

The feminist movement meant that there were fewer mothers at home for their children, more broken homes, and also there was a bigger variety of careers available for bright women -- which meant that many women chose a "real career" over being "just a teacher" or "just a mother", leading to the devaluing of "traditional women's work".

There's plenty of blame to go around, and I haven't even scratched the surface.

[RavenATB]

"I choose to believe that one good teacher can change a child's life."

You can believe what you like--your business is dealing in a fact-based curriculum. I tend to believe what I've see, what I know, and what I can prove.

"I'm guessing you work in the northeast. My experience with unions doesn't parallel yours, but unions aren't nearly as strong or active in the South."

I live and work in the Florida panhandle. I taught in Wisconsin and Iowa. I understand that unions aren't as active or strong down here, but I'm talking about public education as a regional thing...you'll recall I said public education is a national disaster. Certainly, there are small pockets of good news. When someone dies of cancer, its usually not spread though 100% of the body.

Liberals love to tell us that if scraping our Second Amendment rights would save the life of a single child, the sacrifice would be worth it. Public education pushes millions of undereducated adults into American society every year. Hundreds of thousands of them are either illiterate or exceedingly poor readers. How many children do those of us who advocate for educational choice have to promise will be saved before taking a few bucks away from this failed experiment will be worth it? How many children's futures need to be squandered at the alter of the public education bureaucracy before someone says the loss is to high to justify continuing to maintain public education at the level of the 'sacred cow,' where protection of the institution is a higher priority than the education of our children?

"I've worked in a school where the teachers were as hidebound as you describe, but I've also worked in schools where most of the teachers were knowledgeable, caring, and worked extra hours, bought many materials out-of-pocket, and generally went the extra mile for their students."

Were the jobs of those horrible teachers protected by the teachers union? Were the jobs of those horrible teachers you knew protected by the tenure system? In one or both cases, the answer is most certainly "yes"! Thank you...you made my case for me. This is the system that is throwing away the futures of millions of Americans, while fighting to the last breath to save the jobs of the most unprofessional and inept teachers the same as they do the best and most capable. If you're a union teacher, then your dues are going to support the defense of the worst teachers imaginable, and therefore, you're part of the problem--regardless what you do in the classroom.

"Were you and your dozens of teacher relatives as awful as the stereotypical public school teacher you describe?"

I can't speak to the abilities of my three cousins who currently teach. My wife teaches in a private school and she's a superior special needs teacher. So much so that she actually draws families into the school so their kids can be in my wife's class.

I have three grandmothers (two on my side and one on my wife's) who taught in one-room school houses. My mother's mother taught in a school about seven miles west of the town where I grew up and attended school. She taught first through sixth grades and had what was about 30 total students in the average. Along with teaching all six grades she maintained the inside of the building (sweeping, garbage and the like). In my seventh grade year my class was joined by six students who had attended my grandmothers school through sixth grade. By the time my class of 165 completed high school and graduated, five of those six students were in the top ten in my class--the top three and two more somewhere around #7 and 8--and the sixth was still in the top 20. Of the 165 graduates of my high school senior class, only 17 went on to graduate from college by the time we'd had our five-year reunion. All six of those students who'd come from my grandmother's one-room schoolhouse were among those 17 who had a 4-year college degree.

In my second year of teaching public school I was recognized as being one of the top ten teachers my state in my area of specialty. At the end of that year, after refusing to join the union, I wrote a letter to my school board asking for a $500 merit pay increase for the following year. The school board refused award me a merit pay increase. My principal told me later that their decision was 100% due to the fact that they didn't want to confront the union who was hostile to the idea of merit pay. I submitted my resignation the same day.

"I think there is plenty of blame to go around for the state of public education today - some for teachers, some for parents, some for judges & politicians and bureaucrats in general."

I'm sure you do. After all, you spend the majority of your waking day in the classroom. If you're an elementary school teacher you spend more time in direct contact with nearly all of your students than do their own parents. Those judges and politicians and bureaucrats...how much time do they spend in your classroom? Do they tell you what to teach or how to teach? Do they tell you how to respond to a child who asks you a question that relates to a fact-based part of the school curriculum? Do they somehow prevent the school from teaching thousands of kids to read.

"The state of education basically mirrors that of society in general, and IMO both have been going downhill since about the 1960s."

In this we agree. Since the 1960s, when public education was first infested by the union movement, our educational system has been going steadily downhill. Here's where we differ--I'm unwilling to sit quietly while the status quo washes the futures of hundreds of thousands of American children down the toilet. I can't fix parenting. I can't point to a judge whose keeping "Johnny from reading." I can't find a politician who gives enough of a damn to walk into the average public school to see what's going on. But, I do know that there are one hell of a lot of lazy, ignorant, good-for-nothing people drawing a pay check while under contract to educate the kids in their classroom.

I do know that unions and the tenure system protect teachers who should be fired at the expense of the children in their classrooms. I know that thousand of teachers who want to think of themselves as good, while they pay dues to maintain a union that protects lousy teachers from suffering the appropriate consequences for poor performance and all manner of misdeeds and sometimes even criminal activity.

I do know that there are hundreds of thousands of teachers who support forcing other fellow teachers to pay dues into the union for the purpose of supporting Democrat candidates for President (in every presidential election since the NEA was first chartered, by the way).

Public education is a corrupt institution that's infested with some of the most unprofessional people this nation has ever produced. The vast majority of well-meaning parents no little of how bad the situation really is.

"We've had the baby-boomers, the "me-generation", Dr. Spock & the self-esteem movement....all of these undermined discipline in the home and in the schools. The feminist movement meant that there were fewer mothers at home for their children, more broken homes, and also there was a bigger variety of careers available for bright women -- which meant that many women chose a "real career" over being "just a teacher" or "just a mother", leading to the devaluing of "traditional women's work". There's plenty of blame to go around, and I haven't even scratched the surface."

I believe that you are as aware of the fact that public education is a disaster as am I. You've posted quite a bit, here, and you really aren't debating the point. Most education experts don't debate it either. You're more than aware of the abuse, the waste, the incompetence, and the arrogance of public education. You're fishing for reasons to shed blame from the institution on everyone, so you can feel better about the investment you've made in a system that's failing the children while fighting to protect the incompetent.

I left public education because I couldn't stand being part of what I was seeing. The paycheck wasn't that important to me. I couldn't participate in a union that was set up to put the needs of the teachers ahead of the best interest of the students. I didn't get into education to put my needs ahead of the needs of my students, and I certainly wasn't going to pay money out my check to supporting something like that.

I knew I could make more money in other professions, and I didn't want to be part of a system that protected failing and abusive teachers at the expense of kids. I got into teaching because I wanted to help kids. After two years in the system I became convinced that I was part of something far worse than I'd previously understood.

Nothing I've seen in the past 23+ years after leaving teaching has made me think better of that. But I've had dozens of friends and people who work for me tell me incredible horror stories about incompetent and abusive teachers and school staff.

I cannot imagine caring so little for my own children that I'd ever let them spend a single day in the public school. I cannot imagine caring so little for other children that I would participate in a system that is so poor and so corrupt.

Every year thousands of teachers stand by in silence as hundreds of thousands of children graduate from public school without a proper educational foundation. Every year thousands of teachers put money into a system that protects bad teachers at the expense of students futures. Every year thousands of teachers ignore the abuse and incompetence around them so as to not "rock the boat." Lord, we wouldn't want to make any waves...

No, I think the public education system is completely and totally corrupt. There are, most certainly, a smattering of teachers who are trying to educate their students. For the most part, even those good teachers participate in the worst of public education through their silence and their financial support of the NEA.

Personally, I believe this nation would be far better off if we fired every single American public school teacher, tomorrow morning, and told parents it was time to "do over."

There is absolutely no possibility that any new system we could set up could be so corrupt, so wasteful, so abusive, so arrogant, and so ineffective as the public "education" we suffer with today.