the Big Mattress - Freeform Interactive Radio on the Net

PC Textbooks, disaffected ineffective tenured teachers, Unions that do not have the best interests of the students as important, School committees, Supv., Principals, etc. that do not have the best interests of the students as important, too many parents using the school systems as a baby-sitting service etc., etc.... When the gentleman said "a good teacher is a work of art", he should have said a "rare" work of art because most of them have the earnest, caring, "want to make a difference" attitude beaten out of them in the first years of teaching by the "Just another brick in the wall" system.

Wow! Well said, Charles.

I am very lucky to have my daughter in a school with committed teachers and an Administration that knows how fortunate we are to have such dedicated people on staff.

Washington, D.C. has the highest cost per student and one of the worst graduate numbers. I think it's time to support school vouchers and charter schools. Despite NEA claims, these systems seem to work for the parents, teachers, students, and administers.

Trying not to trot out an overused phrase, but public education is one of the pillars of American democracy. With roots in Boston and developed by Horace Mann, it is an essential gift of life in this country. Rather than weaken it by removing funds and sending them to church and corporate institutions which place their own self-interest over the public's by using a voucher system, we should demand the current system be restored to excellence. Every single person benefits from having a well educated workforce, and the fairest way to provide that is through an improved and agile public system.

As a product of public school education, I wish we could "demand the current system be restored to excellence". It grieves me that my nieces, newphews, and grandson, will not have the same caliber of public schools that I had growing up. It irks me that with all the technology available to us today, students and teachers are hard pressed to care about obtaining knowledge in their heads rather than in their computers hard drives. Children who used to read books now have to be pried with the jaws of life from their video games. Instead of raising the bar, exams and seminars are dumbed down so no one's feelings are hurt because they are all inclusive. This hurts the standards of excellence. How can we make ALL people care about this??

From my experience as a former teacher, in some poor places, I would agree that there are plenty of mediocre teachers out there, but it is hard to get better at teaching when all your energy is being directed toward behavior problems. I used to lament all the time that what we really needed in the schools were teams of psychologists and social workers, and not just for the kids.

The children that were able to focus on their studies, even if they weren't presented in the most stimulating and entertaining ways, had parents who were able to put the needs of their children over their own needs. This means that they spent time looking at their homework agendas, making sure the work was done, disciplining them if they got out of line, calling or emailing the teacher if they had any questions or problems.

I can't tell you how many parents out there are in a state of arrested development, who think their partying, love lives, internet surfing and television watching are more important than being the grown up in their own family. And they at least are physically present. Plenty of parents aren't even in their child's life at all.

You can fire every teacher out there and it won't cure any of those problems.

Totally agree Danielle. When did parents get so self-indulgent and self-absorbed. Well, you have to have training and a license to drive, own a gun, get married, why not have training and a license to procreate? God knows, I know of a few people who should not have been allowed to have children. Maybe China has something there. If you can only have one child, HE will be more precious to you. I'd say SHE but the families really don't want female babies for the most part.