[tadd]

My dad taught Jr high wood shop for 33 years and kid sister is going on 15. They both swear the reason public education is 'broken' is for three reasons...

1. Phases/AP/magnate. Put everybody together. Smart kids help the slow kids. Slow kids get the help they need, and the faster kids truly know the material. If you can teach it correctly, you have to know it. Segregation by smarts is a 'new thing'.

2. Private schools are selective. They don't have to take everybody like the public schools. This really irritates them since public HAS to take the societal garbage... which can chew up 40% of a schools time and funds. There is no other place for them to go till they are 18.

3. Too much test based teaching and the total death of vocational ed. There is very little open ended problem solving available. Oh, and PE has been eviscerated.

I run into folks that had my dad as a teacher. They always comment that the modules class they had was the best thing that they ever did. You built a small section of an actual home. It was a 'L', about 6x2'. Subfloor, frame, window, drywall, electrical outlet/light/switch, plumbing all the way to shingles on the roof. The kids did all the drafting (This was long enough ago that no CAD on a TRS80!) too.

Dad got the lumber materials donated every year and the rest was recycled.

You just don't find programs like that anymore.