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Yeah, me too, and yet the educational system just keeps getting better and better, eh? With all of the giant minds guiding public education for the last 40 years, you'd think every kid in the system should be the functional equivalent of a doctoral graduate of the last century.

Not.

You are right that it is easy to find negativity towards education. Such is our nature in society nowadays (just look at anti-war protestors or some of the liberals to name a couple of examples). It is harder to find the positives. We don't hear about them because of a negative media, but there are many. I am a conservative, but instead of seeing what negative things I could find or whine about, I decided to see how I could help out and became a teacher. I see miracles happen every year in my classroom with my students. They are my teachers too and I learn much from them such as little things can be exciting to learn, you can work past problems and be friends in five minutes, a lot of problems aren't as big as we think they are, and so on and so on.

You might be right to an extent here. Big government has controlled education in my state for years. It should be more on a local level.

Kids are indeed different. There are many more things to divide their attention. How many kids watch 3 hours of TV a night as opposed to reading a book for 3 hours? How many kids play ball with their friends as compared to those who play video games? There are indeed different circumstances. Thus the "blame" goes to a lot of different sources, not just one.

The administrator article that said "There is no question in our minds that this will position New York state well internationally..." reveals the intent - i.e., looking good as a district or city to the rest of the world.

Like any bell curve, some kids can handle advanced work and some take longer than their peers. IMO, pushing too much too soon is moot as far as benefits go, and quite possibly detrimental. Like the manic craze to push computer literacy early, I tend to think of this clamor as more faddism in the face of systemic failure.

You are indeed correct about the computer literacy early, but such is the brainchild of Republicans in my state. I see it among parents too. Some of my first grade students last year practiced 16 hours a week for baseball during school weeks. Needless to say, it affected them at school. I am amazed at the amount of extracurricular activities young kids are involved in nowadays. It almost seems to be a competition sometimes among parents to see whose kid is involved in the most things. The families I respect the most are those who take a balanced view--who regard education as being paramount, yet may have their kids involved in a few things (without overdoing it). These are often stable two-parent families (though some may not be) who are delightful people to be around, and recognize the value of education (but aren't out to bash the teacher, just ask how they can help improve the class).

The best two cases I think are two families I've known for years (and have taught at least two kids from each) who have lost young children of their own. Despite the very hard losses, no member of the families complained a bit and went on living their lives to the fullest. One of the moms told me that, "it doesn't matter who has the biggest house, the most cars, etc. It's what your heart is like." I have taken that to heart. You bet that I respect everything they have to say. There are just too many people that take too many things for granted and want their own way or they make a fuss about it or see what they can do to hurt or complain against another. I am still learning that I guess.

I agree that it is impossible to condemn all of public education and I am sure that you and many other teachers are doing fine work. Even so, huge problems still exist.

What I see here in the Minnesota educational system (a longtime RAT stronghold) are far too many cases where the worst of the cliches are true. In addition to the myriad of horror stories a simple search here on FR would yield, every one of my friends with children in public schools could tell similar tales.

Minneapolis schools are periodically found to be well below national averages and then they undergo well publicized and terribly expensive reforms and are then touted by school officials as being among the nation's best. Later on, of course, we are treated to a different accounting in terms of further failures and more calls for greater funding. I have seen this propaganda cycle several times and catagorically believe the politics cannot removed from education. Unfortunately, the politics here are pretty much all rooted in Leftist ideology.

Personally, I won't send my kids to an institution that delivers less (or worse - a PC curriculum) than what they need and we don't have the time to fight school administrators when things sour and then tutor on top of it all. We chose to homeschool. As an aside, we actually do tutor a public school student twice a week for extra income.

I fully support public education, but not as the teachers unions insist. As you said, parents are a big, big part of the equation but reforms are desperately needed as well.