Oh yes. Look at lot of kids today. For all the money that has been
spent on aducating them they know ****. If would be far better for
them to learn about the real world and get them working.
Some people say every child deserves a decent start in life and a good
education.
TO which I say crap!

Come on Pete -- you're just being cynical. The vast majority of children,
even in today's society, benefit greatly from school. They come out
literate and capable of functioning at levels that even 50 years ago were
reserved for a small percentage of the population.

Everyone needs SOME measure of formal education -- be it via a
public/private school or home schooling that is overseen by authorities.
This is necessary to function at the most mundane levels in our society.
Remember -- we're a society based largely on technology, not agriculture.

Perhaps a better angle to consider is who should be educated for how long
and in what manner. Many people believe that education is a right not a
privilege -- this likely stems from a few generations back (and prior) when
literacy and education WERE for only the privileged. Unfortunately, this
attitude is so pervasive that is even applied to post secondary education,
which IMHO is insane.

Another angle to consider is discipline -- children are no longer raised at
home in the way they were in the 50's and prior. It is my experience that
most families lack a parent figure for a large part of the waking hours.
This is typically due to parents working, single parent homes, etc..
Between parents to young to be parents, and parents too busy to be
parents... well, I think you can see where this argument is going. That
lack of home discipline & involvement makes public education difficult for
teaching professionals.

And that's another important factor to consider -- teaching professionals.
I've only been out of secondary school for about 16 years but many of my
teachers bordered on incompetent. Prime example -- my senior year of high
school was spent with an English instructor who sat at the head of the
classroom spitting phlegm into a cup and telling us how she was a member of
MENSA.

It is increasingly difficult to make the choice of joining the educational
system today. Low pay, little respect, not much room for career
advancement, unruly children, long hours...gee, sounds like a great job to
me! Under these conditions we get one of two types -- truly devoted,
wonderful teachers and incompetents. IMHO, the system is not very good at
weeding out incompetents for a variety of reasons.

To make an already long post a little less verbose, the point I'm trying to
make here is that it's much more than "we're wasting our money on these
punks". It's important to see this situation for what is -- a large,
consuming problem brought about by a variety of concomitant issues. We keep
trying because to not do so would be to take the plunge into societal
regression.

James