Reply #14: What this really means...

[chervilant]

Consider that the majority of people who have "graduated' from our system of public education in the last twenty years have been suckered into believing that at least three quarters of us have average or below average intellects (a deliberate corporatist-driven deceit). Consider that we've been trained AWAY from critical thinking skills and toward rote memorization, so that we can perform like trained monkeys on ridiculously expensive and pedantic standardized tests. Consider that almost half of our adult population is functionally illiterate (perhaps we can READ the words on this page, but many of us would be hard pressed to explain the gist of what we've read). Consider that our nation ranks in the fourth quartile with regards to our high school students' ability to demonstrate competitive academic skills in math and science--almost every other industrialized nation ranks ahead of the US with regards to educating their children.

Our system of public education has been broken for decades! Many of our brave teachers have had to be subversive in their classrooms in order to be true advocates for their students! AND, these are the teachers that students remember for the rest of their lives--I know, I had several in a small, rural school that didn't even RANK in the federal government's assessment paradigm.

Our entire system of public education needs our help, and our children deserve our advocacy to insure that they receive the education they deserve. One contemporary advocate for improving our system is Sir Ken Robinson. In my humble opinion, our madfloridian is also an important contemporary advocate for our children. We MUST make this issue a priority, just as we MUST make eliminating poverty a priority.