If 14% of adults can indeed not read sufficiently, it is NOT, I repeat, NOT because of the failures of the school system.
It’s because of the failures of THEMSELVES. Bad schools are bad because of bad students.
Go into any inner city classroom - the first thing you’ll notice isn’t the inept teacher, but the crazy ghetto trash kids that don’t give two sh*ts about learning, usually because their mother is a crack whore and their father is absent.
I’m not saying there aren’t bad teachers - but the problem lies in the students and the parents that “raise” them.
It’s because of the failures of THEMSELVES. Bad schools are bad because of bad students.
The government schools are attempting to apply a model that works for intact and functional families. Well, Gee! This model probably isn't working for those children who do not fit the model. Duh!
Then the government does everything possible to see that these kids can NOT gain access to schools that DO have high rates of success. ( The KIPP schools are only one example.) Well! That is the teachers unions and government's fault!
It could be the academically successful child who is institutionalized for his education in government schools is actually succeed **IN SPITE*** of his government school, not because of it!
In interviewing parents ( homeschooled and institutional schooling) I have found that successful homeschoolers and parents with successful institutionalized children have almost **identical** home study habits. I conclude that 99% of what a child learns is due to his parents and his OWN efforts. The institutional school is merely sending home a curriculum and the child and parents are "afterschooling"!
So,.....The **only** way to reach children from dysfunctional families is to do one or both of the following:
*Teach the parents and child how to be better "afterschoolers". ( And, hold them accountable.)
* Duplicate in the institutional school what should be happening at home.
KIPP schools seem to be doing these two items above and having great success with even the most disadvantaged children imaginable. But the government teachers fight these schools with all the millions they've got!
As for the academically successful children ( who are doing 99$ of his real learning at home) maybe we should give them more freedom to do what they already are doing well. LEARN more independently.
Yes! It is the government school's fault for forcing children into a system that is guaranteed to fail, and at the same time retards the academically successful as well!