[nocommies]

sounds like these kids were "schooled" by dysfunctional parents. not the kids fault, but not the fault of the parents who do a great job of homeschooling, either. unfortunately, things like this will happen. while we're at it, why doesnt a school's curriculum involve something on BASIC financial skills for living? i took some screwed up classes in high school against my will, one was "home economics." i assure you, it had nothing to do with "economics." maybe just a few hours even, to get BASIC things across to tomorrow's adults, like with enron, if you have a retirement fund or a kids college fund or a new boat fund, dont put it ALL in one place. i submit that they dont teach this because they WANT us to be STUPID AND DEPENDENT on ted kennedy and government to save us from ourselves when were 65 and freezing in the winter in our 1 bedroom apartment. an electorate with a mind of its own is bad for the liberals, and bad for the teachers UNION.

[Aquinasfan]

i submit that they dont teach this because they WANT us to be STUPID AND DEPENDENT

That's true. A perfect example is "whole language," that is, learning reading by memorizing entire words rather than learning reading phonetically.

John Dewey developed the "whole word" method. Why? He didn't want children to be able to learn independently. He wanted to make learning to read so painful that children would give up. He also wanted the children to work communally in guessing the meaning of words in trying to understand sentences.