I said (or at least meant to say) that the problem is the parents who believe it’s their job to drop their kids off and let somebody else be their kids’ parent. You didn’t do that. You are part of the solution.
The public school in our town went to a curriculum that is designed to teach underprivileged kids who haven’t had exposure to a lot of stuff. It’s worked well in inner cities and among new immigrants. It’s memorization, period. Bores regular kids to death. But they went to that curriculum anyway because we’ve got a lot of illegals and all the federal grant money they bring to the community. We’re getting gangs, we’re getting a society where the government is supposed to provide everything... it’s the entitlement mentality that has destroyed the inner cities and now the school is employing the same “solutions” as are used for the inner cities. Which came first, the chicken or the egg? I don’t know, but I do know that there is no teacher or school in the world that can bring a kid up to speed when they’re fighting an apathetic, gang-type, entitlement culture at home.
Yes, there are curriculum problems and other problems too. I’m home-schooling my son because the school is a waste of time for him. But sometimes the schools do crappy stuff because they’re trying to be everything to the kids - because it’s an entitlement society where immature babies are procreating for welfare money. No curriculim in the world is going to fix that, and the teachers know it and are frustrated by it.
And some crappy things are because the teachers and administrators know they can get away with it because it’s very difficult to pay for the public schools AND pay for your own curriculum, as you and I have done. If parents were willing and able to walk away from a crappy public school system - with their property taxes actually paying for the education that the kids get, at home - schools would be better places because of the accountability.
I’m glad you did what it took for your son. Your story sounds similar to mine, except that my son was a sophomore in high school and it was an immovably-censoring English teacher who was the last straw. She saw no problem with it because she’s been here 6-7 years and nobody’s complained before. They all just ignored her requirements and let her think she’s doing fine. How many kids has she indoctrinated and nobody even cared? We’re “supposed” to just trust that she’s the expert and censors their sources for good, valid academic reasons. That’s the mentality that I say gives us the troubles, including the trouble of bad curricula.
Like you said memorization is boring but it is till needed. That said math is good for memorization but sight words are not. Sight words do not teach the roots of the words and give most students no basis to grow on. The school my son was in taught sight words and was the reason he was falling farther and farther behind.
As for the cost I spend in excess of $3000 dollars per year on top of my taxes to pay for schools in out area. For this I get private tutoring with the local college french instructor for my daughter. I also get private composition instruction from a teacher with 25 plus years of education. The rest goes for curriculum which we teach ourselves. Granted not everyone can afford this. It takes a rather large chunk of our income but it is what we choose to spend for our kids future.