Don't blame teachers for bad education?

Bad education? Don't (always) blame teachers
A reader e-mailed me last week after

WND ran a story about a poll showing how poorly most Americans feel public education really is.

That poll -- granted, just one voice of many -- found that "64 percent of parents with children in private schools rate the education their kids are receiving as excellent, while only 27 percent of public-school parents are making the same claim."

That may be, said this e-mailer -- a professed retired teacher -- but don't automatically blame "the Teach."

"I think that it is about time for the media to place the blame of poor public schools results where it belongs -- on the parents and society," she said. "Public schools try innovative programs to try to improve the situation but to little avail" because students themselves -- in one form or another -- aren't interested (or made to become "interested").

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The biggest problems this -- and many other public/private school teachers have told me -- include:

• Kids don't speak English and are not made to learn it
• Many kids are in school only because they will be in reform school or jail if they aren't
• Parents often demand ridiculous curricula
• Parents don't supervise their children at home or monitor them after school or during after-school activities, which often leads to violent behavior
• Children are no longer taught respect for elders or teachers
• Teachers may not discipline students
• Special education students are put into mainstream classrooms
• Many other students simply have low IQ's but their needs are not being met

Another common misconception/problem endemic to public schools especially is the Clinton/Gore/Democratic Party mantra of "spend more money on schools so they'll get better" theory -- an expensive, farcical, nonsensical, and unrealistic joke. It just doesn't work, nor has throwing money at our "educational crisis" ever worked.

In fact, more money is spent now per child in the public schools of America, though our children are achieving the least amount of academic excellence ever.

According to the level of funding we're spending per public school student, every student graduating should be an Einstein -- you know, if we're supposed to measure the success of public education based on how much tax money we can blow on it every year.

This teacher -- and the thousands of others like her -- have one of the toughest jobs in America; they always have. But many adults, parents and legislators (as well as teacher's unions) seem bent these days on making it even harder.

We have become a nation of people bent on ignoring our duty to raise little Johnny and Suzie to a) respect and mind adults and teachers; b) concentrate more on their studies instead of themselves; and c) worry more about what they know than what they or their friends are wearing to school.

For example:

• Kids may "look better" in Doc Martens and Tommy Hilfigers, but if they're stupid and undisciplined they'll end up being good-looking failures -- for awhile, at least, until life on the street takes those looks away.
• Teen-age sex has always been a problem, but it's a shame when boys know more about the mechanical workings of a sports bra than a garden hose spigot or the computer they're using to do their work for them. The same is true for girls who are "wiser in the ways of the world" at 15 then they'll be in the kitchen or on the job at 22.
• And, thanks to the socialist advocacy of most national teacher's unions, kids nowadays have loads more "independence" but a lot less responsibility; paddling by the principal is out, but telling a teacher to get screwed is in because it's a good way to "express yourself."

What this teacher wrote to me -- combined with many other problems inherent in our "modern" and expensive public education system -- will do little more than make our kids easy prey for the few smart, elite and tyrannical leaders who are looking for a hundred million "sheep" to follow them down the road to hell.

This teacher's point about parents, especially, is right on. More parents than ever work today, and I understand that, but look -- we have one chance to raise our kids. Either we're there doing it -- regardless of the "sacrifices" we have to make -- or we're not. The choice is ours but we'll suffer or gain because of it.