[neutrino]

Simply put, matters aren't going to change. The public schools are holding pens, and higher education little more. You have urged a visit to the public schools; I suggest you take a look at the composition of graduate-level science classes at major universities.

What will you see? Classes with few - or even no - Americans, and the balance foreign students. In this case, by foreign I specifically mean citizens of a nation other than the U.S. The next generation will be notably less educated.

Despite declining standards, Texas has a substantial and growing dropout rate. Some contend that the functional illiteracy rate approaches 40%; the implications for the future are not favorable.

You're probably wise to extract yourself from a problematic situation. Life is far too short to put up with the nonsense you mention.

Finally, the symbol to use for paragraphs is:

<p>

Just type it in your post, and the preview - and subsequent post - will show a blank line. Of course, if you get HTML editing software such as Frontpage or Dreamweaver, you can create posts that will forever silence the paragraph crowd.

[13Sisters76]

I have a friend teaching at college level and she is very disillusioned as well. The young students she is seeing are "dumb as rocks", complaining, and confrontational. They refuse suggestions to bring up their grades and then whine to the administrators when they do poorly. She says she is looking for other work, as well.

I spent 32 years in medicine and this is a second career for me. I'm beyond saddened.

[flada]

Thank you, neutrino. It sure doesn't take much to actually show someone how to format rather than just chastize her for not doing it.

It's good to see that some posters still have tact.