>>The teachers response was "oh we teach that in 8th and 9th grade, we don't worry about it now because all the kids have spell checkers."...
>
>Ah, I see a lack of understanding of the purpose and capability of a tool (spell-checker)... I find it disturbing that there seems to be an increasing number of people who are dependent on such tools and fail to realize the problem with it.

That's all fixing the symptoms, not the root of the problem. Of course, most will disagree with me, but the root of the problem is the disconnect between spoken and written language. Not only historically, where each reform to simplify spelling was done only halfway (just count the number of silent -e in words today and 200 years ago: not zero today, but not what it once was). It's disconnected methodically; the kids don't learn about this connection (I was shocked to find out recently); they memorize the spelling of each word instead. Despite the exceptions being the most frequent rule, even English spelling has some method to it and there is some, albeit feeble, connection between the spoken and the written word. That connection was thrown away from the modern curriculum. Why, I can only dream up a conspiracy theory, or utter idiocy of whoever was in charge of making that decision.