Yep, it's often religious. But again, you evidence your anti-christian bigotry here. Interesting...


Years ago, I went on a service call with an electrician buddy of mine. I lived in a small town then, and we needed to go to the home of one of the "very religious pentecostals" of the town - you know, people whose kids couldn't be around the satanic school. Anywhoo... middle of the morning - mom is at work - and the kid is sitting on the couch playing video games. AND THIS WAS CALLED HOMESCHOOLING.

On the other hand, if people do homeschooling right - for whatever reasons they decide to homeschool - I'll guarantee you that those kids are FAR more advanced, academically, then their counterparts in public schools. I've seen it happen repeatedly.

Plus, "socialization" is not an issue involved in home-schooling.

But either way, I think there's probably a point at which kids should be in public school - at least somewhere in high school. Personally, I can teach at college graduate level in SOME disciplines, but I could not teach middle-school or high-school levels in others. I'd be doing my doing my high-school age daughter a disservice by trying to teach her calculus or physics.

Very true about the dwindling quality of our school system. I think parents could handle homeschooling up until middle school maybe and get away with it just fine.

The whole god damn debate could be put to rest if teachers just received a fair salary. It would keep great minds where the money is and give our kids the quality they deserve.

Paying teachers more money is NOT going to help anything - though it WOULD be a good and right thing to do. Good teachers are NOT in it for the money, though they SHOULD be paid well. Also, if you make teaching lucrative, you'll just attract more losers into the teaching profession.


There are several key OPPONENTS of good public education:

1. NEA and Teachers' Unions. They make it almost impossible to fire horrible teachers, once they're tenured. Also, these two organizations take focus away from education, and place it on SELF - through their obsession with salaries, benefits & retirement plans.

2. Lack of Parental Involvement. This is THE MAJOR PROBLEM WITH PUBLIC SCHOOLS TODAY. PERIOD. I could list off about 10 factors, and their respective effects, but this will do for now.

I agree with the tenure part. There have to be at least a dozen teachers in my school who just aren't that good. I remember when I was a freshman one called a student the "C" word and would occasionally hit students who were sleeping, but he was tenured, so he just got transferred to another school in the district.

That's right.

And this is a Public Relations nightmare, that the Teachers' Unions & NEA simply do NOT understand. It is the voting public that accepts or rejects referendums for public schools. And when crap like this happens, the public is angry, and will vote "NO!".

It's a lose-lose situation for the school, but the Teachers' Unions aren't smart enough to admit it, or deal appropriately with it.

You are absolutely correct.

I've known many teachers who were excellent - and started doing a bang up job of educating our kids when they started. But, by the time they were in their early 30's, they realized that if they were ever going to provide for their families, they had to get out there in the workforce. No matter how dedicated a person is to their career, nothing compares to your child not being able to afford to go to college!

I was fortunate when I was teaching because I had an additional income...without it, I wouldn't have lasted the 20+ years I stayed with it.

Tenure is a double edged sword. One one hand, it does give incompetent teachers a 'free pass' ... though, in spite of nasty editorials, there are really not that many who are incompetent. Face it - antithesis mentioned ONE out of how many teachers has he had contact with in his educational career? Around 30 plus homeroom teachers? However, no responsibile person is going to invest what is required to become a teacher (6 years and about 300k) without some kind of job security. There are a lot of spiteful people out there - without tenure there is nothing to stop a principal or Board of Ed from dismissing a teacher because they don't like his _________ (fill in the blank).

If the Public Schools are so great, when was the last time that someone from a Public School won the Scripps Spelling Bee??? Why is it that the last six people who have maxed the SAT were all home-schooled???

How many public school teachers actually have Bachelor Degree's in the subjects they teach? The majority receive Bachelor Degrees in Education, in which the classes teach how to teach. HELLO??? Who cares whether or not they have a degree, the question should be are they teaching what the students require.

Finally, college is paid for by the parents, or sometime through scholarship, you are paying for nothing. Furthermore, what about the kids who public schools and need remedial classes college?? Do you want to refuse to pay for them as well. Obviously the tax dollar that is paying for their public education is not helping much to begin with.

And as far as extra curricular activities, the same argument about being tax paid babysitting service could be used about the public school children as well, perhaps you should be against all extra-curricular activity. Furthermore you evidence seems a little lacking, considering the fact that the parents of home-schooled children seem to have the time to spend all day with their chidldren teaching them.........hmmm isn't the whole public education system a tax paid babysitting service???? Hell the kids are in school for 8 hours a day and many parents are gone at work.

dmk

dmk

Actually, the Constitution allows for prayer in school. Congress shall pass no law prohibiting the free exercise of religion. So it would seem that the ones who wish to deny prayer in school are actually the ones who violating the Constitution.

Public land belongs to the people. If the majority of the people wish to place symbol on that land, then is that not their right democratically??? Living in a free society means living by certain rules that have been established by the social contract, being held hostage to a vocal minority who only purpose is to demand that no symbol which may offend them be placed anywhere.

What is wrong with telling children that their are other theories of how life began, like those found in the bible. Is education not the search for truth and knowledge??? If science were so established then there would be no need for it to worry, now would there??

Who says that stem cell research is necessary???? Especially embryonic stem cell research. Most of the major discoveries in stem cells have come from adult stem cells and not embryotic cells. While embryotic cells may have great potential to become a variety of different cells, the are not specific, meaning that they have the tendency to mature into a variety of different tissues, not always the ones that are necessary, where as adult stem cells are specific and would serve better to cure disease because scientists know exactly what they will become.

An embryo in medicine means an

animal in the early stages of growth and differentiation that are characterized by cleavage, the laying down of fundamental tissues, and the formation of primitive organs and organ systems;

That is life. Like it or not, this is a life, to use it to cure others well, that means terminating the life. What happened to due process?? Hmmm something that I believe is guaranteed by the Constitution as well I do believe.

dmk

A. You obviously don't understand "free exercise of religion" and the place of government in public schools.

B. Our constitution PROTECTS the minority (however vocal) from the whims and caprices of the majority. We are a constitutional democratic republic - not a democracy.

C. The public schools should not be teaching anything based on the Bible, as none of it is fact, but a matter of faith and belief. I guess schools should be discussing Biblical information when Sunday schools start giving equal time to science.

I dont nesessarily think the bible should be taught in class either. But if we are only to teach "fact", then we need to do some serious house cleaning in the science department.