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Politics : GOPwinger Lies/Distortions/Omissions/Perversions of Truth -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Peter Dierks who wrote (40263)	3/30/2005 12:18:43 AM
From: Kevin Rose	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 173976

I am very interested in any discussion of the current education system, having four children in it right now (two in elementary and two in middle). I believe our education system suffers from a number of maladies. The left and right like to point fingers at each other, but both are to blame. The biggest fault that both share, in my opinion, is elitism. The right promotes a class system of schools, with private schools at the top and public schools at the bottom. They mask this caste system in many ways: vouchers, charter schools, and a variety of funding contortions. It's the old joke about when the two guys are confronted with the tiger; I don't have to outrun the tiger, just YOU. The left inhibits true reform to the public schools by refusing to reform their traditional union stances. Unions are great for protection against trusts, but they promote their own caste system where incompetent teachers hang on and good young teachers are lost. As individuals, teachers often put the good of the students before their own, but the unions do a disservice to that altruism when they shield incompetent teachers and refuse to consider reforms. As an engineering manager who has hired hundreds and interviewed thousands of engineering candidates in the prime sweetspot of engineering (Silicon Valley), I am distressed at the meager numbers of highly qualified American educated engineers. Currently, SV continues to thrive on mostly foreign born and educated engineers (although many come to the US for their university education). Science, math, and engineering at simply not a high priority for either our school system or our students. If we lose this high ground, the US is in danger of becoming a nation of service specialists. We won't improve until we remove partisanism from the discussion of how to improve education. But, since education is a convenient issue for both sides, that probably won't happen.