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(I'm pinging Qwerty and C.P. because they don't believe the negative press public education is deservedly getting and have accused me of fabricating our educational horror stories. I wish.)

When our younger son was in elementary school, only a few years ago, we asked the principal why the school wasn't teaching the multiplication tables (reinforcing them for our son since he knew them when he was five).

The principal's answer to us was "children don't need to learn the multiplication tables because when they're at the grocery store they will have use of a calculator."

We sat stunned.

Being an ex-newspaper reporter, I asked if I could quote him on that and he said "certainly; this is what the state has mandated."

This elementary school is in an upper-middle class, multi-ethnic district with influential, liberal parents who think the state can do no wrong.

Their kids, now in high school, still can't multiply. And they've misplaced their calculators along with the keys to their Firebird and their Sports Club I.D.

My advice to parents embarking on the public school system is to know that you will need to be a vigilant watchdog; do not take "no" for an answer.

Polite, unambiguous persistence is everything. Good luck.

I can give a good one and my daughter is in a charter school. My older daughter is bright. She tested 2nd grade 4th month in math the second month of kindergarten and is the youngest in the class. Her classroom is chaos. Out of 19 kids 9 of them are behavior problems or need special attention (one has CP and one has neurological problems that her parents are working to diagnose). The teacher has a high tollerance for noice and disruption. She punishes the good kids and rewards the bad when they do well.

Well, my daughter (bored with the cut, color & paste of every assignment) started becoming a behavior problem and stashing her papers in her desk so she could go to "free time". She even stated that when she and another child (a bad one) were caught doing something, she had her card turned (punishment) and the other child did not.

I went to a conference with the teacher and explained that I have tried both punishment and reward with this child at home and nothing seemed to work. What can we do together?
The teacher says that my daughter has ADD.
I had worked for a psychiatrist at one time and had him evaluate my daughter, no ADD. She is bored.
Now the teacher just knows that she is right and will not go past the idea that she can't help my daughter because she has ADD.
To boot, I asked this teacher to hold my daughter accountable and not let her go to free time unless her work is finished. Last Friday I found eight papers in my daughter's desk. Oh that worked.
Only 10 more days of this.......

Goals2000 ... Project2061 ... et al

While I was researching the background information to design this web site last year, I kept coming across the name F. JAMES RUTHERFORD on many Official Government and Teacher web sites when the topic was teaching math and sciences to our children.

F. James Rutherford is Chief Education Officer of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and Director of Project 2061: Education for a Changing Future.

Educators and publishers have been scurrying about for much of the 1990s trying to translate into practice reform slogans such as ‘less is more’...

Mr Rutherford believes that:

"High school textbooks list 120 different technical words about the cell that students are often required to memorize." Rutherford says that "We found 11 of the words were sufficient."

With "Education" with that attititude, where will the USA be in 10 years? Right where Clinton & Carter have promised? At the bottom of the world? References are posted with this article.