Reply #43: I'd start with "no child left behind"

[buzzycrumbhunger]

Having barely survived getting two scary-smart kids through public school, my vote is that education in general is a farce. They aren't teaching kids to be productive citizens; they're teaching them to fall in line and spew out prescribed facts. Perform well, and the schools get their bonuses. Perform poorly (at least in FL), and they try their damnedest to get you out so you don't fuck up their statistics. Worst of all is if your kid is a thinker who dares to question why about anything because they don't have time or patience to deviate from the schedule. Over 20 years battling these people and I was lucky to get more than a 15-minute conference just before school (too inconvenient to meet me at a better time)--and I was there constantly. If I'd known how much our county's schools had deteriorated between my two kids, I would have let my daughter be home-schooled all the way and simply test out at her first opportunity. (As it was, she took her GED her senior year and scored high enough to be given a diploma from the state, which I didn't realize they could do.)

I can't say I had many truly great teachers, but my kids had exactly two between them who really cared. The rest of the experience simply pisses me off because my taxes pay for it all.

IMHO, education is geared toward creating a working class and no more. The ignorant are easier to control. Only problem is that we are now lagging pathetically behind the rest of the developed world and will pay hell trying to catch up. Intelligence hasn't been valued and neither has creativity--never mind that there are more important things in life to strive for.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERbvKrH-GC4">Alan Watts had it figured out.