[snowman]

Public schools are totally unresponsive to the needs of the students or the parents. I say that we need to deconsolidate the schools and return to local control. Consolidation in the 1960's ruined the public school, followed by even worse court rulings that brought all of the public schooling down to the lowest common denominator.

My youngest daughter was in 3rd grade and still unable to read. I protested that the stupid, non phonetic method was largely responsible and they needed to do something to get her on track and soon. So they tested her intelligence, IQ above 140. Why couldn't she read then? Defining silence and no action what so ever to help her. I had to help her learn phonetics and she learned to read. The school was worthless. New requirement in CA for high school graduation, the dreaded test that all hs grads must pass. She passed it in 9th grade. Consequently she learned NOTHING for the next 3 years and even had to take remedial classes in Jr college to come back up to speed. What a fking waste of 3 years. I wish I could sue them for their incompetence, for wasting my money, and three years of her life.

My oldest daughter was much brighter and even the public schools could not screw up her education much. She graduated 2nd in a class of 750, gpa of 4.4 out of 4, (would have been much higher if an Arab that thought girls should not take math did not have her for a student for about 2 months, I had to threaten to sue to get her out of that class, and all of the teachers whose class she ended up in were upset that they had to take one more student and consequently she had one semester where she did not get all A's), in one of CA's best public High Schools. She also was cheer Capt. and did a large number of after school activities, homecoming princess, and a reputation for having time to spend at the beach. She had almost a full year of AP course credit (higher than 30 score on AP tests). Yet she was NEVER challenged, ever. She did her homework in school, spent over 40 hours a week in competitive dance, cheer. She never learned what work was like. again school was almost a total waste of her time. By the way her curriculum was not the same as most of the other students. They had three unofficial tracks, the dumb track, the normal track and the superior track. The superior track was much like the normal track when I was in school, the normal track was very dumbed down and politically correct and I don’t know much about dumb track except that no one ever flunked.

She later went to UCSB and graduated with a master in education (what a waste) with a 3.7 gpa, working 40 hours per week.

Even though my oldest did ok, I cannot support the CA public schools. I think they are a waste for talented students, normal students do not get a good education and basically waste at least 4 or 5 years of their life, learning nothing, and students that shouldn’t even attend high school are graduated without any knowledge of anything.

As to the political correct indoctrination, it’s horrible. They put students up against their parents that want to instill values and morals. They instill very UN American values in children, communist, socialist values that are so anti America, that we would have been better off if the commies had invaded and won the cold war!

As to students being 50% above or below average, its a simple fact, no matter the school system. What is a fact is that all home schooled students and all private schooled students learn more than the typical public school student. Why? Because the govt is ALWAYS incompetent, at any thing. If you think YOUR public school is better than the rest, your are WRONG, its a POS.

By the way, I am very proud of both of my daughters accomplishments, but not of the educational system that they were subjected to. They suceeded in spite of that system, not because of it.