Reply #173: Please believe me that I support teachers. But the current system has failed.

[rhett o rick]

Until there are standards and evaluations and accountability, you will have a broken system. Good teachers should be rewarded and bad teachers fired.

I know a teacher that lets students play guitars in his room while he is supposed to be teaching. He also lets students leave his class and run around the halls. The principle walks around the halls carrying his coffee when there is a no food outside the cafeteria rule. Another teacher I know well, shows videos in lieu of teaching. Another berates and humiliates students in class, actually I know two of these. When the students complain, they get no help from the administration. Students are pushed thru that can't read, write, spell or do math. Class control is a disaster which I don't think should be completely the teachers responsibility. But how can you teach the good kids when the class is out of control? When you talk to the administration about the problem, they (all former teachers) shrug and say their hands are tied by the union.

And again, I am not blaming teachers. I am blaming the system.