Bob,

You continue to ask abou the special needs and hard to educate (meaning the parents don’t give a S**T). In a free market system any need will be met by a private business. Some entrepreneur will see a need that is not being met and create a business to fill that need. This is the same reason you have non-religious private schools. Someone saw a need for a better than public education and decided to fill that need.

So I believe that private enterprise does a better job and you believe that government does a better job. You have NO examples of what government does better but it doesnt matter to you because you are so small as a person that you need a politician and/or government official to make decisions for you. And I’m the one with a pea brain? You are hilarious! Over and over and over private enterprise does extraordinary things and a good price and government overspends all of them.

You know, there really is something wrong with you people. If you have so little faith in your fellow man then how the hell do you expect them to have faith in you? You nanby-pamby weak sissy people are a disgrace. We already have a pathetic government school system which ranks somewhere around 18th throughout the world and you people keep funding this disaster. Until your socialist hands got into business we used to be ranked #1 business wise but with all your over-regulation and over taxing we have become a second rate place to operate a business. Of course your sorry butt wouldnt know that because you have over-regulated and overtaxed yourself out of a job. Hey, do you want us to retrain you too? Isnt that the liberal way of doing things?

Look Boob, I dont care what you think of me, but to have such little regard for your fellow citizens is sickening.

Now, go find a politician what you should do next since you are too inept to do it yourself. Perhaps a poor person will give you a job. In the mean time, I will stand by all the kids and do my level best to make sure they have a shot in life. They sure as hell dont get it currently with this embarrassing school system. What a twit!

James R

So you are saying that a mentally disabled child are a physically disabled child is simply the result of the parent not caring? So all those parents that have one or more of these children do not care?

So far I do not see private industry rushing to fill the needs except for those parents who have the money to pay.

So you are saying that private industry will rush to rural area to fill the need of the students? To date they have not.

It is just like the post office. UPS and FEDEX are quick to fill the needs of the profitable, they do not care for the unprofitable. So they do not rush in to deliver the letters and the bills, but they are quick to take the packages. They deliver in rural area’s but not has frequently as the post office and in some parts not at all.

But hey you are giving us your word that private industry will rush in and take care of all this so what do we have to worry about. Not only will they do this but they will do it at a profit, because that is what private industry does.

I now think I will invest with Madoff, after all private industry did such a good job there.

less than zero dave

First of all thank you for saying that you do not care what I think of you. That is such a load off of my mind.

Next I did answer your question, but you chose to ignore it. Yet you go ahead and fail time after time to answer my question. Why is it that you believe an unemployed persons opinion counts for less than an employed person. You are saying 14 million Americans count for less, in your opinion.

So does someone who makes $2 million count for twice as much as someone who makes $1 million? After all you keep going back to me not being employed but you running a business. Of course you ignore what I said about investments, otherwise your scenario would not work.

The funny thing about you complaining about the school ranking 18th in the world, every school system that is ahead of our school system is a publicly ran schools system. YES ran by governments and often with more regulations than we put on our schools. But hey to acknowledge that fact would not fit into your argument.

I bet it is nice in your little world to talk about the failure of the school system because of government while ignoring that the school systems in the rest of the world that are ahead of ours are government ran.

It is really nice in your world to cherry pick your arguments.

You look at the STL school system and say government run systems do not work. I look at Fergueson-Florissant, Ladue, Clayton, St. Charles, and many more. They are all succeeding.

You fail to acknowledge that the post office delivers mail that no one else will delver and when adjusted for inflation at the same cost as the 1930’s. You wish not to acknowledge the police and firefighters, both government run institutions. You wish to play down the military, government run institution. The FBI, SEC,FDA all government run institutions. Yes bad food gets into our system, but a lot more got in before the GOVERNMENT got involved.

I forget the nuts that were tainted earlier this year. Private industry was more than happy to ignore their own study of the quality of the nuts and kept shipping them until the GOVERNMENT traced it back to them.

Recently we had tainted beef enter the system, private industry was not tracking it, but the GOVERNMENT was more than capable of tracking it back to the source ind instituting a recall.

The military use to feed it self very well, but then it was outsourced. It was nice that Haliburton fed all those thousands of troops in Iraq that did not exist. I do not believe you could trace that mistake back to public schools. The Haliburton brass went to private schools and learned to count there. I guess they did not learn to count very well.

So go ahead and cherry pick, and of course you claim to be on the side of the kids while all of those on the other side just hate kids so we try to screw them over every way we can. In fact we hold meetings on it.

Of course continue your class war as well and dodge answering why you believe the opinion of the unemployed does not count.

Zero Dave

Since the subject is out there why do you hate retired people. If someone is retired and living off of their investments you must see them has a burden on society.

The reason I say that is you appear not to believe that my investments count, though they pay my bills and taxes etc.

So if mine do not count then we all must assume in your eyes those of a retired person’s do not count. The only difference is I am looking for additional employment to enhance my income.

However, if theirs count then why does mine not count though once more it pays my bills.

Only conclusion we can come up with is you feel retired people living off of their investments are not contributors to society.

So Bob, What is your solution to the education problem in this country? We are turning out tons of high school graduates who are asking the question, “Would you like fries with that?” because they have no skills. They can’t balance a checkbook, can’t find Canada on a world map, heck, they can’t even make change unless they have a machine to tell them how much. Colleges have to send a majority of new students to remedial English and math classes because the high schools are sending them students that can’t read or do long division.

In the 1950’s we had the best educational system in the world and the federal government was not involved in it. Education was controlled and funded by the states and local communities. Then along came Lyndon Johnson and his ‘Great Society’ welfare state and Jimmy Carter and his new Department of Education (which we survived almost 200 years without). This is when the downhill trend began.

Today our public schools are teaching sight words to elementary school students. What happened to phonics? These kids see a new word and don’t know how to pronounce it because they can’t sound it out. They don’t know the sounds various combinations of letters make.

The public schools experiment with every hare brained scheme that comes down the road. That means they’re experimenting with your kids! Private schools are still teaching phonics, basic math, fractions, algebra, trigonometry (how many of today’s high school student take trig), English grammar and literature, geography, history and that pesky thing that keeps getting in the way of all the liberal ideas, the U.S. Constitution.

In other words, they’re still teaching the basics.

Get the federal government out of the education business and put it back in the hands of the states and local communities and we might have a chance of turning this problem around. We would also eliminate another useless, unneeded bureaucracy.

Also, for your information, the Post Office is a legal monopoly. No private company may deliver regular mail, only special delivery items that UPS and FedEx and other private carriers may deliver. FedEx and UPS don’t deliver regular mail because by law they can’t. If they could, the post office would be out of business in six months.

So, my suggestion is to get the federal government out of public education and put it back in the hands of the states and local communities since they know best what is impacting their communities and states. What’s your suggestion?

I see some good points made by all, Bob and Superdave included. Dave is right, government is failing our children. Then again Bob has a point as well, public schools play by different rules than private schools.

The biggest problem I see is the state setting the class requirements for students. When I went through public schools, we were required to have 3 years of English. I have no problem with that except the state didn’t set guidelines for what should be covered. I still can’t figure out why Shakespeare is so crucial to the English language and why I had to endure it each of those 3 years. Where was the variety such as Mark Twain or Tolkein. Of those 3 years, only in one semester were we allowed any kind of choice, there I got to read Lord of the Flies which I felt was well above Shakespeare.

I graduated from public schools in St Charles county. I learned that Daniel Boone lived and died in St Charles county the summer AFTER graduation. That same summer I also learned that St Charles was the site of Missouri’s first capital. In my view this was a failing of the schools I attended though some districts covered it and visited there. I think when the state requires certain courses, there should be greater guidelines covering what is taught. When they require Missouri history, they apparently don’t specify what part of our history should be taught.

Is government the full solution to the problem? Absolutely not. At current school districts are being run like big business. No offense here Dave but your being a business owner, I still bet you don’t run it like big business. Big business believes in big overhead that is justified by large cash flow, justified to them at least. I see a need for the NEA and other unions. Take a close look at the conditions that support personnel work under and I think you would see what teachers would deal with otherwise. If conditions were so good, why did one school district have buses parked in front of many of the schools supporting banners stating they were hiring drivers? The buses were there for 2 full years and that was before the economic meltdown. I think that speaks volumes and confirms everything I have heard from drivers I know.

All in all, the state is requiring the course load but not the correct one. They set requirements for the course load but not how the districts are managed. The state is helping create the problem while ignoring other problems. In my view, this is why we have both succeeding and failing districts, lack of standards for how a district should be run.

James R and gbones

I do not wish to say that there are not problems in the public system. Even in the best run company there are problems.

First of all though we need to reevaluate the 1950’s and 1960’s. During that period and before if a student was not college material. They were often encouraged to leave school and start their work career. This could be done because you could make a decent living in the factories etc. That is no longer true. The result of these people dropping out was that your better students were making it past the freshman year in High School. This tended to raise the GPA for the class. My own father was encouraged in the 1930’s to leave after 10th grade.

It was also easier for schools to expel students. Part of the reasoning here was once again the student was disruptive so he should go out and find a job to pay his bills. This is no longer an option.

Many of these students were not even counted has drop outs if they were leaving for work so the dropout rate was considered to be lower. That is if the school even kept a record of drop outs.

The point being is some evaluation needs to be done when you compare today’s test scores and drop out rates to the 1950’s. The 1950’s were cooked to give them a higher GPA and lower drop out rates. It was not done in order to hide anything they just were following normal practice of the day.

Your list of subjects “teaching phonics, basic math, fractions, algebra, trigonometry (how many of today’s high school student take trig), English grammar and literature, geography, history and that pesky thing that keeps getting in the way of all the liberal ideas, the U.S. Constitution.”.

My nephews who are in High School have taken all of these. With the exception that Trig. is an option and was in the 1960’s. One has had it the other probably will choose not to take it. I know they have had these by getting phone calls every once in awhile on subjects. When my one nephew was about 10 I was showing him binomials and polynomials and he got all excited. I found out then that they would study them the next year. I know History because they will cross check some of their information with me. The rest of math, well if you offer trig you have to go through the basics and fractions to get there. My nephew who graduated 12 years ago, I was talking to him one day because I thought he might not be understanding the Constitution. He surprised me when he mentioned Marbury v Madison. Of course as we all know since we went through High School before it all went to hell, that was the Supreme Court decision that established judicial review. In other words he got that from his studies on the Constitution.

So in the end I do not know what school district you are talking about that does not teach those subjects. However, if they are not being taught then that was a decision at the local level and not the national level.

As for the changes I listed some of them in an earlier posting.

GBONES

When I went through High School I had the same thoughts on Shakespear. What good would it be.

Sometimes I think Shakespsear has taught is lost on High School students. It is difficult to read in the form that they used at the time and is even harder to follow when listened to. I think it should be taught by playing a CD of each play then discussing the play.

I still have trouble following Shakespear but once you get into the flow it is such a beautiful thing to follow and you can often figure out what they said by the flow.

We often do not realize what subjects they address. For instance the “Merchant of Venice” addressed how Jews were treated, but had a bunch of sub plots. Such has women were capable of doing everything that a man was and did not need to be subjected to a secondary roll.

It talks of the fine points of the law, the Merchant was promised by contract that if not repaid he could cut his “Pound of Flesh” from the borrower. The lawyer, who was a woman disguised as a man after being told she as a woman could not understand the law, pointed out that the contract called for the Pound of Flesh but not one drop of blood. So the Merchant could have his pound of flesh but violated the contract if in doing so he tool one drop of blood.

Go rent Henry V, by Branagh. The Saint Crispin speech he gives before Agincourt makes you wish to pick up a sword and follow him into battle. Your blood stirs as he talks about “My Brothers my Band of Brothers, for those of you who shed your blood with me today are truly my brother…”.

In Much Ado About Nothing as the one character is explaining why she is not seeking marriage, “If he wears a beard then I am not for him and if he wears one not then he is not for me”.

In Loves Labors Lost, as the French Princess is about to leave to attend her fathers funeral and she and the king fear that their found love is to be lost. She could have said wait a year, but said “Go away an cloister yourself. When 12 celestial periods have passed if you are for me then I am for you.”.

In Ceaser, where Ceaser is returning from a public event having taken ill. The description is clear that he had a epileptic attack. It is surprising that Shakespear knew that Ceaser was afflicted by this in real life.

I could go on but I think I made my point. There is much enjoyment that I have gotten from Shakespear, after High School, but I doubt if I would have looked again if not exposed in High School.

Not so Super Dave goes on and on railing on the horrible condition of public education…yet his wife works in public education. What a hypocrite. If you’re going to talk the talk Dumb Dave then you need to walk the walk. How much money did your wife get from public education last school year? Did you enjoy the health care provided for you and your family? I don’t know what schools you are talking about but the ones I know of are quality institutions that serve ALL children…not just the run of the mill average students such as your daughter. Quality public education abounds with quality teachers working diligently to provide outstanding learning experiences for all children….average, below average, and well above average. So, instead of criticizing something you know nothing about…take the time to go visit a high quality public school and then shut your trap.

Now, RTI, used appropriately, is an outstanding technique to meet the needs of children that struggle. Doing what is right for all children, no matter their “diagnosis” is the right thing to do. I say if it’s not good enough for YOUR child..then it isn’t good enough for ANY child.

Not So Super Dave will now rant about liberals and how stupid we are and how we don’t know anything blah blah blah. Save it Dave….we’ve heard it from you about a million times. Same old same old.

Wow, there is nothing I love more than the posting of brilliance. Of course we cannot get that from liberals because that would be an oxymoron.

Lets set the record straight here since reading comprehension seems to be major problem on your side. My wife substituted in a local district, therefore there are NO medical benefits or any other stipends. Its a check for the day. She does it because she cares about the children and want to help in every way she can. There are many good teachers as well as many bad ones. The Administrations and the school boards are the worst but still connot compare to the politicians, especially liberal ones. So, we pay our own health insurance, among many others. In fact, I pay for lots of peoples health costs besides my family.

Facts are facts! Our educational system ranks very low and has been getting worse every year at a cost that is beyond belief. I know facts bother you and failure obviously is ok with you but it sure isn’t with me.

So, while you write your vile comments please come up with some facts. Good intention means very little to nothings. It’s results that count. From where I see it your side is failing miserably. Oh, lets not forget the indoctrination that your side enjoys every school day. It’s really very interesting how your side wants the kids earlier and earlier. Oh yes, to educate them. How’s that working for you? Thanks for the comedy!