[conservatism_IS_compassion]

>The rules of suspension, and what student misconduct qualifies as leading to suspension, are rules designed without input from teachers.

From teachers who are willing to work under them, that is. Other actual and potential teachers vote against them with their feet . . . which is part of what makes government run schools tend to be a "disgrace to the Nation."

It is time to fix the problems or [by] privatiz[ing] the whole system.

That will introduce competition for teachers and students based on the working conditions (a.k.a. "learning environment") which each school's administration delivers. I would expect reduction in pressure for higher salary, I would expect longer school years--but also happier teachers and students, and better education. And "poor Russel" to either either shape up or meet real life at an early age.

The home schooling parental tutoring movement is a straw in the wind; under the bureaucratic pressures inherent in government, "public" schools have tended to decline. Simultaneously the Internet is fabulously well suited to the mutual support of tutoring parents. Parents who are college grads are IMHO eminently entitled to wonder what magic enables the education major to support their child's learning better under the handicaps we're discussing than can the parents themselves.

And when your child comes home with 5 stitches, and his assailant's parents mount a political campaign against the school for trying to prevent a recurrance . . .

[summer]

Teachers have much less power than you imagine.