The "education" system starts at birth. It is the first and foremost duty of any parent(s) to commit themselves to their child's education. That means reading to them, that means talking to them, that means giving them challenges and preparing their child so that they can exploit and maximize their learning opportunities.
That's where its rotting. We have a lot of parents who are unfit for duty. They're ABUSING their children by neglecting their growth and development. Their are 5 year olds who show up in Kindergarden who have no idea how a book should be opened. They've never done it before.
That's child abuse IMO. We don't HAVE to accept that, this kid is more important than her selfish mom or dad. This child should have been removed from that home earlier, any of our children who are being neglected and denied THEIR community granted right to a full and fruitful education need to be rescued.
If parents aren't reading to their children and managing their intellectual growth, that's just as bad as not feeding them IMO. That takes no money, no privilege ... only time and care. If the parent is unwilling to make that commitment, I don't want that child in that home.
There are too many young children living in homes that are diseased and doomed. Enough is enough, forget the PC "cultural" considerations ... we don't provide welfare to single parents if they don't prepare their children like a loving, responsible human. That child deserves better.
The school problem is that the kids come in woefully inadequate to keep up with their peer groups. The Educurats choose to keep the kid with his friends to guard his esteem, and he'll get extra work and the class will be slowed down just a bit, and he's helpless but nobody wants to take him away from a setting that is dysfunctional for the slower kid, his teacher AND the 35 other kids who need to be engaged and challenged.
So these kids turn 10, then 14, then 18 and they are always innundated by the self-awareness that they are a fraud and uneducated. Everybody just pretends that the fulfillment he gets from being with his peers will somehow transform him into an educated young man. He still can't read. If you can't read, you can't learn math, science or anything else. Everybody else is 18 months behind becuase they've been carrying this poor underserved kid along for 12 years.
This is reality in 2003 public education. It stinks.