Another great post!

And an oportunity for me to plug the organization for the "Separation of SCHOOL and State"..

This is yet another example of what happens when parents do not get personally involved and take PRIMARY responsibility for the education of their children

May God HELP America!

David C. Osborne (For U.S. Senate in 2004)

Another great post!

And an oportunity for me to plug the organization for the "Separation of SCHOOL and State"..

This is yet another example of what happens when parents do not get personally involved and take PRIMARY responsibility for the education of their children

May God HELP America!

David C. Osborne (For U.S. Senate in 2004)

I salute you, Sir. Godspeed, and take care. We're praying for you and all of our men and women in uniform.

Bump for input on this important issue...

Cultural Jihad...

Would like your take on this one....

BTTT

David

In a word, UNIONS

What's wrong with the government schools (they are no longer public) is that they engage in "the garbage pit of human thought". I believe a soviet general said years ago:
"Give me two decades of your educational system and I will give you a new soviet man". That's a rough quotation.

Well they've had more than two decades and they have "dumbed down our kids, feminized the boys, removed prayers and posting of the Ten Commandments and in their place have given us condoms, promoting the gay agenda, banned wearing of patriotic clothing or any form of pride in our country .
There should be no nea. There is no mention in the constitution of the Federal government getting involved in public education. Correct me on that if I'm wrong.

To hell with the terrorists! The single most threatening thing to our country and way of life is our pathetic educational system.

If we continue to go down this destructive pathway, the commies will take over and narry a shot will ever be fired. BTW, I just found out last week that a K-4 school in Houston spent last week reciting the United Nations Pledge for Peace!!!

"There is no mention in the constitution of the Federal government getting involved in public education.
Correct me on that if I'm wrong."

You are 100% right! I believe the Fed's did not get involved in education in schools until the Carter administration.

I wish you would move to Oregon so I could vote for you!
Tell your miltary unit I said Thanks!

"BTW, I just found out last week that a K-4 school in Houston
spent last week reciting the United Nations Pledge for Peace!!!"

Can you post the school name and location so we can FReep the Houston school board?

Watch this if you haven't.

There may even be a negative relationship as suggested by the fact that students who are home-schooled by parents who have had no teacher training have achievement scores higher than 85 percent of all other students.

I hate to disagree with Mr. Williams, but the reason why home schooled children are so much more successful (on the average) than their government schooled counterparts is parental involvement. The more a parent is involved in a student's education, the more likely the student is to succeed. Apathetic parents typically don't expend the effort or money to educate their kids, and typically send their children to the cheapest source of education. An involved parent usually wants to be sure their child gets a quality education. Perhaps they can't home school or private school their child, but they will at least check their homework, discuss lessons, drive them to the library to get materials for a report, etc.

In my extremely short career as a teacher, I had very few dedicated students who were the progeny of apathetic parents, and very few apathetic students with involved parents. It happens, but I believe it's rare.

David, Thanks for the flag. I will contribute to your thread by adding a true story, but first, I want to make it clear that I very much support public schools and will always support public schools in ADDITION to ALL other educational environments: homeschool, private school, hybrid home school /private school, etc. I support EVERY type of educational environment if the child is learning and the parents are happy. And, in that huge mix, I always see a place for public schools, and will always support and desire to improve public schools.

As for college of education: Out of all the students at the university where I obtained my 2nd degree, and this degree is in education, unlike my first degree, there was a total of: one black student, studying to be a teacher.

She was seeking elementary education certification. And, in FL, there are subject area tests, created specifically for the subject area one intends to teach --- unlike the PRaxis tests in the article as such are "general" and apply to "anything." In FL, if you want to be a science teacher, you must take and pass a SCIENCE teaching test; and, if you want to be an elementary school teacher, you must take and pass many tests, including: subject area.

She could not pass this test. In addition, she could not pass the "CLAST" test required in Florida, which is a minimum basic skills test for reading and math.

Now, here is what the state did: because this black woman was already receiving full scholarship aid, from a variety of both public and private sources, the state paid for her to take remedial courses in order to help her pass these tests. She took the course. She failed the tests again, both the CLAST and the subject test. So, the state tried again: she took the courses, and failed the tests again.

She this approximately six times, after petitioning the state for an extension of the number of times one is usually allowed to take the test.

In the end: she still could not pass the math portion of the test.

So, here is what happened to her -- who could not pass the math test, and, to me -- who scored so high on the GRE analytical portion of that GRE test (which a college of education does not even consider) that my advisor told me to become an engineer instead of a teacher:

She had to switch programs -- she left teaching, and started studying: computers. She graduated, and earned a starting salary in her new field of: $68,000.

Meanwhile, I stayed in education, graduated, and started teaching in an inner city public school -- and, earned a starting salary of $27,650.

Now, I must conclude: in this true story, I am the one who is the idiot.

Correction: my actual starting salary was lower -- $26,750. And, remember: I must "program" an entire class of young minds, while she programs: ONE machine. So, in answer to the question posed by this article, "What is wrong with education?" What is wrong is this: we value machines over people. And, as long as that continues, 50% of new teachers like me -- those who CAN pass every test, and begin a teaching career in an iinner city school -- will leave teaching within five years of beginning a teaching career.

iinner - inner

Try John Taylor Gotto's first hand knowledge of the public educational system. It'll clear your mind on the issue.

The public school system HAS TO BE ABOLISHED. It is harmful and cruel to our children - a form of child abuse.

Try this as a teaser, and PLEASE DO CLICK ON THE LINKS FIOR MORE on what the public schools are doing to your kids, taken from one, Gatto, who knows:

The 7-Lesson Schoolteacher
by John Taylor Gatto
New Society Publishers, 1992

Call me Mr. Gatto, please. Twenty-six years ago, having nothing better to do at the time, I tried my hand at schoolteaching. The license I hold certifies that I am an instructor of English language and English literature, but that isn't what I do at all. I don't teach English, I teach school -- and I win awards doing it.

Teaching means different things in different places, but seven lessons are universally taught Harlem to Hollywood Hills. They constitute a national curriculum you pay more for in more ways than you can imagine, so you might as well know what it is. You are at liberty, of course, to regard these lessons any way you like, but believe me when I say I intend no irony in this presentation. These are the things I teach, these are the things you pay me to teach. Make of them what you will:

I.

A lady named Kathy wrote this to me from Dubois, Indiana the other day:

"What big ideas are important to little kids? Well, the biggest idea I think they need is that what they are learning isn't idiosyncratic -- that this is some system to it all and it's not just raining down on them as they helplessly absorb. That's the task, to understand, to make coherent."

Kathy has it wrong. The first lesson I teach is confusion. Everything I teach is out of context... I teach the unrelating of everything. I teach disconnections. I teach too much: the orbiting of planets, the law of large numbers, slavery, adjectives, architectural drawing, dance, gymnasium, choral singing, assemblies, surprise guests, fire drills, computer languages, parent's nights, staff-development days, pull-out programs, guidance with strangers you may never see again, standardized tests, age-segregation unlike anything seen in the outside world... what do any of these things have to do with each other?

Even in the best schools a close examination of curriculum and its sequences turns up a lack of coherence, full of internal contradictions. Fortunately the children have no words to define the panic and anger they feel at constant violations of natural order and sequence fobbed off on them as quality in education. The logic of the school-mind is that it is better to leave school with a tool kit of superficial jargon derived from economics, sociology, natural science and so on than to leave with one genuine enthusiasm. But quality in education entails learning about something in depth. Confusion is thrust upon kids by too many strange adults, each working alone with only the thinnest relationship with each other, pretending for the most part, to an expertise they do not possess.

Meaning, not disconnected facts, is what sane human beings seek, and education is a set of codes for processing raw facts into meaning. Behind the patchwork quilt of school sequences, and the school obsession with facts and theories the age-old human search lies well concealed. This is harder to see in elementary school where the hierarchy of school experience seems to make better sense because the good-natured simple relationship of "let's do this" and "let's do that now" is just assumed to mean something and the clientele has not yet consciously discerned how little substance is behind the play and pretense.

Think of all the great natural sequences like learning to walk and learning to talk, following the progression of light from sunrise to sunset, witnessing the ancient procedures of a farm, a smithy, or a shoemaker, watching your mother prepare a Thanksgiving feast -- all of the parts are in perfect harmony with each other, each action justifies itself and illuminates the past and future. School sequences aren't like that, not inside a single class and not among the total menu of daily classes. School sequences are crazy. There is no particular reason for any of them, nothing that bears close scrutiny. Few teachers would dare to teach the tools whereby dogmas of a school or a teacher could be criticized since everything must be accepted. School subjects are learned, if they can be learned, like children learn the catechism or memorize the 39 articles of Anglicanism. I teach the un-relating of everything, an infinite fragmentation the opposite of cohesion; what I do is more related to television programming than to making a scheme of order. In a world where home is only a ghost because both parents work or because too many moves or too many job changes or too much ambition or something else has left everybody too confused to stay in a family relation I teach you how to accept confusion as your destiny. That's the first lesson I teach.

...... continued at Gatto Essays

and other education issue stuff at at this link..

I saw this for the first time about 3 or so years ago and I join you in recommending this to every American Citizen..

David