Mark;

I forgot one key ingredient to my “prescription” to improve the education system of this nation. No more tax dollars for the public school system! Yes, education should be treated as a business – you either make it work or you go bankrupt!

Parents have to keep on top of their child’s life and education. Too many parents do not take the time or care to do so. That is another story and a sad one at that.

Tom



>>The bottom line is that the public school system is a failure. Politicians and unions are to blame for this. Close down the damn public school system and let the religious
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>I agree up to this point. Leave the schools open just give parents total freedom of choice without having to pay twice -- once for school taxes and again if they decide on a private school. Our daughter went to a private school last year and part of this year. This year, she had to go to a different private school because the other one does not go beyond kindergarten. We scrutinized all the schools last year before deciding on one. In theory it ws great, in practice it was terrible. We finally yanked her out and are home schooling her the rest of this school year. Meanwhile, the loacl public school just 2 blocks from us is adopting the curricula we were looking for, so she will start 2nd grade there next year. We are lucky in that our ISD has shunned much of the Federal programs that screw up the education process. Unless the Junior High school improves, Kate will be home schooled during those years as well.
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>As for our current home school experience, Kate is learning in a 3 to 4 hour day what she covered in a week in "regular" school. Plus we have the added bonus in that she is much happier. As we progress, we are finding out alot of distressing things that happened at school, one of which was the teacher was telling them that what goes on in class stays in the class. Basically this teacher was telling them not to tell their parents. This nut also put some of her loony philosophy in a letter to 4 parents including us. The day we got that letter was Kate's last day at that school.
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>Our education system will continue to fail until it is totally open to free competition. Of course if the parents suck or there is no positive adult influence, the child is doomed to fail most of the time.