remember the bells, the lockers, the grades, the control, the threats, the desks, and the random mix of values? public school includes books with some good information, but the attitude and behavior control reaks of a system designed to mold our children in to good, submissive servants of the corporate economic system. the rich can teach their kids how to run their business or anything they want, but we are given little choice but to let the state raise our kids while we go to work. home schooling is nice, but since we all can't stay home and teach, few are able to home school. why can't we get local control of schools, reject the bribe money from the fed, and pick our own style of learning for our kids?

I think part of the problem could be that the only group willing to invest the money into the education of our children is businesses targeting children. Corporate sponserships inflitrate our schools in everything from in paid inclusion in textbooks to sponsering what kind of soda is available at lunch. For more examples or information refer to No Logo by Naomi Klein. Businesses are recognizing the impressiablity of young children and are paying big money get into schools. They are teaching children to be happy little consumers who will have almost instinctic impression of products they desire. Most will not even know why or realize they are looking at paid advertisments.

The problem is that, with cut goverment public school budgets, schools are often left with no other choice than to turn to these companies for finances. When you leave the private sector to fill in the gaps, you have to settle with their circumstances that come with it.

as babysitters? Some of it is the schools, but the biggest problems often come from the home.

My mom taught K-3 for 25 years and I know several other primary school teachers. They all say the kids with parents who care for their children well and are interested in their child's education all do much better.

If the kid is not getting 3 square meals a day, then how are you going to blame that on the teacher?
If the kid does not do his or her homework and no one at home motivates and assists the kid, then how is that the fault of the teacher.
When a kid comes home everyday, plays on a gameboy and eats doritos, then how is it the school's fault that he is an overweight kid with poor social skills.

I am not saying everything is on the parents, but I am not giving them a free pass either. A lot of the problems with America's youth are the direct results of the parents actions or inactions.

Don't get me wrong, I think the public school system has a LOT of problems. Still, its not constructive to make them the whipping boy and ignore the other problems in this equation.

You make an excellant point. My mother was also an elementary school teacher. She said dealing with the parents of problem children was worse than dealing with those students. She said she could see exactly why the children ended up the way they did. I wonder if part of that could be genetic. That would be an interesting argument for another post.

Problems such as chemical imbalances can probably be linked to genetics, but a lot of it is self-perpetuating. A child is raised badly and thats how the child raises its own children after it grows up.

Its part of a bigger problem in our society where people waste so much effort finding reasons for their failures instead of spending that effort on constructive ways to better themselves. Life is not always fair, but there is no excuse for not doing what you can to make it better.

That's just what I think. The Republican party platform on educaion believes this too, that the federal government should not play a role in education. Here is an excerpt:

- "The federal government has no constitutional authority to be involved in school curricula or to control jobs in the workplace...That is why we will abolish the Department of Education, end federal meddling in our schools, and promote family choice at all levels of learning"

It basically says what you said.

__________________
"Republicans believe that everyday
is the 4th of July, while the Democrats wish everyday was April 15th" - Ronald Reagan

Where I went to high school, the school was barely getting by WITH the federal and state assistance. I know the schools in the are are grossly underfunded and overcrowded to properly teach students like they should. If anything they should be recieving more money.

If you remove the government funding from schools, you are leaving it up to the private sector (businesses) to fill in the gaps; which is only interested in itself. Otherwise students will be forced to go to private schools. This leaves even worse of a system where the privilaged stay privilaged and the poor stay poor.

Even the founding fathers agreed that their is some aspects of society where the costs outweigh the benefits for the private industry and should be financed by the government (ie Highways, Police).

Where did you get that quote? I think that is the dumbest thing I have ever heard. It sounds like typical republican thinking. Where they don't have to look at the other side of things because they can afford to pay for school for their children. If the federal government doesn't play a role in financing schools, who else is going to?

Then again, their is a differance in federal meddling in areas such as curiculum. But that is a differant story. I am strictly speaking about finances.

Are you serious? Public education is a government institution and therefore must be well provided for. The suggestions made in the quote you've posted would essentially dumb down America's children.

i would be in favor of more private schools and vouchers. People should be allowed to take the tax money they spend on public schools and take it elsewhere if they want to. As it stands people can hardly choose what public school they want their own kids to go to if they cant afford private schools, and that should be stopped too.

It has always been my opinion that schools are jsut for molding the children into brainwashed servants for their corporate masters.

Then again the last time the country focused on educating children seriously was in the 50's and early 60's and those children grew up to be hippies and our government soon learned that a well educated populace is hard to dupe into unjust wars (Veitnam, Iraq).

I think a lot of the reason why Iraq got any kind of support form Americans is becuase a vast majority of younger Americans were robbed of an education that taught them critical thinking skills. I have even seen teachers get penalized or even fired for inspiring their childen to think for themselves and not just regurgitate what line they are being fed that week.