"Polar" wrote in message
...
On 27 Mar 2003 05:04:50 GMT, (Anonymo421) wrote:
School properly taught would be a delight to children, not a chore.
But of course we don't even have pennies to spend on our children's
schools; gotta spent those billions to kill other people's children.
Hah! We spend more on education than we ever have--the problem is that
the NEA
is a corrupt organization more concerned with political correctness and
protection of incompetant teachers than with meeting the ostensible end
of a
public education system. Things would improve if we spent more time on
rigorous academic exercise and less on failed social engineering (this is
why
so many foreign kids who have far less funding put into their educational
systems come over here and run circles around so many of our students).
Part of what you said is true, though I don't necessarily buy into
your blanket condemnation of teachers' unions. You want to go back to
the days when teachers could be fired if they refused to have sex with
the principal, or if their religion or politics didn't meet certain
criteria? Unions arose to serve a need.
You partially answered the reason for unions, but it was mainly a matter of
economics. At one time it was almost impossible for a married man with
children to survive on a teacher's salary. I had a great biology teacher who
worked a second job as a bar tender to make ends meet. Most of my teachers
used to be single women or women whose husbands had a job and lived in the
town where they taught. BTW, most new teachers today last three years, and
then go on to more lucrative and less stressful jobs. Another fact that is
not often considered is that teacher salaries are paid out of taxes, and the
public has been stingy. Why would the best and brightest of college students
consider education as a career when salaries are so dismal? It's interesting
how the politicos beat up schools and teachers before every election. They
promise to improve schools through testing and promise students will not
pass unless they pass these tests. If you are a teacher and liked teaching,
you're forced to teach for the test. That reminds me of the German
situation.....
The "social engineering" accusation is accurate, however. Pushing
kids through school via "social promotion" to avoid wounding their
tender egos has resulted in a literacy/numeracy *disaster*!
This "social engineering" has more to do with parents than teachers. Parents
demanded the right to say whether Johnny passed or failed, and school boards
and officials gave parents the final say. It was more parent egos than kid
egos. Guess whose kid is too intelligent to fail!
However, the greatest danger threatening our educational system at
present is the Administrations' drive to replace secular public
education with religious schools, under guise of the "voucher" program
-- a scam of unparalleled viciousness and danger that has roots going
back before even the first Bush administration.
I couldn't agree more with you on that one. The voucher plan expounded by
the Bush administration is nothing more than welfare for the wealthy. If you
want to send your child to a private/religious school - fine! I don't want
to pay for it. I am willing to pay for public education.
We need to sleep with our eyes open, and lean on the cowardly, corrupt
Congress, lest the Bill of Rights be trashed --prime objective of our
theocrat-in-chief, Attorney General, the Ayatollah Ashcroft.
--
Polar
The religious agenda of the Bush administration is the scariest part. The
people of this country didn't realize how good we had it until 9/11 began
chipping away at civil rights with freedom of speech a target. My greatest
fear is that Bush will have the opportunity to load the Supreme Court with
Ashcroft types.
John