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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ilaine who wrote (169602)	6/12/2006 11:13:34 PM
From: ManyMoose	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793809

You're right, many do and many don't. I don't want to dismiss public schools. I want to make them excellent. I don't want them teaching things that are best taught in the home by parents. I don't want them mainstreaming problem kids with all the others. I don't want social promotions, etc. I want them to allow kids to perform to potential, not require a bunch of BS prerequisites that bore bright kids to death and encourage them to drop out. I have two children, both adults now. Both went to public schools and both endured costly and ineffective school closures (because the kids still had to go to school the minimum school year, which ran over into summer resulting in MORE money being spent) because of budget problems. I can't say the school board was entirely wrong, but they eliminated an outstanding industrial arts program that had kids actually building houses that were sold for a profit. The school board ran off the Jewish superintendent (who was my next door neighbor) with a settlement package that allowed him to buy a new Cadillac. I failed to see the economy in that. His successor was the superintendent that I mention below. One of my children benefitted from the strong industrial arts program and is a success in every way, especially financially. The other dropped out at age 14, but not before we petitioned the state superintendent of education to allow her to get a GED below the minimum age that was allowed at the time. She aced the GED well enough to get into college, and later graduated with a bachelors in education. She became a teacher, and that is a hard way to make a modest living. Her education included a lot of BS from professors who had never taught in the schools they were supposedly preparing new teachers for. They were the flower children I complained about. There were already some infiltrating the college I went to in the 1960s. I worked to improve the schools by participating in discussion groups that the superintendent hosted, which were also attended by local politicos interested in budget slashing. I must say it was an eye opening experience. I came from a teamwork environment and was unused to working in a political environment. My service club, to which the superintendent also belonged, dedicated our activities to the benefit of the schools. I also worked on a drug awareness program, called Dare To Care, founded by Nancy Reagan. I coached a youth soccer team for two years. I was the only parent to go on a week-long geology field trip when my son was in the sixth grade. It was excellent, college level. Public schools that I attended had a very high success rate. I don't know for a fact, but I think it was upwards of 99%. I knew of only one kid who did not attend school at all and only one or two girls who dropped out due to pregnancy. Some of my friends attended parochial schools, but we all felt sorry for them. By comparison, the success rate of public schools these days is abominable.