Tuesday, October 19, 2010

The Problem with Public Schools

The argument could be made that public schools are better than no education at all. I think you should tell that to parents whose children were killed or who died or were beat up or were driven to suicide by what happened to them in public schools! Yes. These are extreme circumstances but if you are going to talk about public schools this, for me, as a parent is number 1. Are my children safe in their school or schools? If they aren't safe then I for one will find a way to educate them in another way.

The second problem with public schools is unionization. Though I think Unions do a lot of good, I think in regard to educating our children they are (at least up until now) a disaster for the education of our children. They might be good for the tenure and eventual retirement of teachers but what if anything does that have to do with our children's education? Nothing at all.

You might ask? Where would we be without them? My honest answer at this point is: "I don't know". It might be better and it might be worse without public school systems here in the U.S.

I had a Logic Professor in College which told his classes. "Public schools have become nothing more than baby sitting services and reform schools. If my education in public schools in the 1950s and 1960s was any example, I agree. I loved to learn new things always. But I always had to watch out for D and F students who would regularly beat up A and B students when they learned their grades. This was all the time where I went to school. And it was worse when I moved from a lower middle class grade school to an upper middle class Middle School(junior High school) before High School. At least my parents had moved me away from the junior high(middle school) that had a gang that always carried switch blades(automatic unfolding knives)in their right black boot.

So, how does one educate their children? If you actually care about your children and one of you actually has the time, begin by educating your children yourselves. Create your own home school. Start your own publicly or privately funded Charter School. Get involved with your children's education. If you don't, likely your children just might not have a future you can stand to watch.

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