Who's Mr. Chittum? I have no idea what this is referencing.

I stopped teaching in the Public Schools because it is a waste of time. You fight an uphill battle against culturally induced stupidity promoted through the media. No standards are adhered to and the few kids in any classroom that are interested in learning are swamped out by the behavioral issues of overstimulated and poorly nourished latchkey kids, whose parents both have to work 2 jobs just to pay the rent.

The devolution of Public Education over the last 30 years in the US mirrors the cultural bankruptcy we have been mired in. Teachers were devalued in the society, and the actual knowledge the teachers themselves have now is quite low. Anyone with decent math skills went into banking or IT, that's where the monetary rewards were. So kids come out of elementary school unable to add and subtract without the use of a calculator. I couldn't teach algebra or physics to these kids, I had to teach 3rd grade math first. If you are teaching 3rd Grade math to 9th grade students, you might as well throw up your hands, its too freaking late to fix the problem. They are bound for fast food jobs anyhow, and who needs algebra for that?

There is no fixing public education until we fix the culture surrounding us, and that isn't happening. What is happenning rather is that we are now imploding as a society on all levels.

Myself, I opted out and went as far out to the edge of Human Civilization as you can and still find kids to teach, and that is what I do. I teach only the ones who are there to learn, the parents have to pay for them to be there and if they don't listen and obey, I won't teach them for any amount of money. There are enough people around up here who value this that I make a good living doing it. How it will go when the monetary system collapses remains an open question however.

Reverse Engineer

+1

I Googled Mr. Chittum and got a zillion references to the "coming breakup of the usa

Mr. Chittum is the author of the rant posted in the OP.

The first ten years of my adult life was spent in the Florida prison system as a classification officer. Those are the people who do paroles. The last twenty five have been spent in public education teaching high school history. I have two masters’ degrees and am nationally board certified and still can’t spell worth a damn. My wife is a teacher and my kids are attorneys.

Where are you?

The Matanuska Valley, start point of the Iditarod. Population around 60,000.

Reverse

There is a reason why the most desperately poor slum-dwellers in India send their children to for-profit private schools instead of the available public schools.

They get a better product at lower cost.

It amazes me how people can know that government-run telephone systems, postal systems, and hospitals are utter crap, yet think this somehow doesn't apply to the provision of education.

+1. One place that the US excels in for education is in higher-education (of course, the rest of the world does well also, lest I upset Cur with only talking of America). We go from a public HS system to a mix of public and private university system (since students' tuitions are subsidized at the public level) and all of the sudden the situation is different. Really amazing. I say that from first hand experience just 3 years ago.

It wasn't always that way. I got most of my education in the Public Schools.

Before it was evicerated by conservative republicans looking to spend money on the military an liberal democrats with specious ideas regarding relativistic education, the Public Education system in the US was actually quite good through the 70s.

Poor allocation of resources and a devolution of the culture surrounding education is what did it in. Privatization of education is not a solution to the problem on a general level, any more than capitalism is a solution to economic problems on a general level. It only works for a few, not the population at large.

The solution comes in having real standards and real consequences for not meeting the standards. That is why I favor a Test for Survival at Puberty, where all the adolescents have to go out into the wilderness for a year, and whoever comes back gets to procreate. What they learn in school will determine whether they live or die out there. Everyone should have equal opportunity to take advantage of the resource of education, if you choose to ignore it, when the test comes you will surely regret it. It sure would be easier to maintain discipline in the classroom if the kids know they are likely to DIE if they don't LISTEN. LOL.

Reverse Engineer

I see some of us remember our college philosophy class. But we just didn't remember it well enough

Think of how much better an education you would have received if there were no Public School system. You got screwed.
Think of all the money your parents could have invested in your education if their earnings had not been diverted to the government-run. You got ripped off.

> "Before it was evicerated by conservative republicans"

Seriously. Get past the lib/con/r/d nonsense. There's not a spit's worth of real difference between them on the fundamental issues. That little dog-n-pony show is an utter waste of your time. You are smarter than that.

Thank you. Enough of the Bipartisan BS. I'm so tired of everyone trying to pin the blame on "the other".

Until we all take responsibility for our little piece of the pie, there'll be no digging ourselves out.

thanks for the support guys,

I am just frustrated that it is impossible to have a meaningful conversation with anyone these days. That's why I love this forum.

Come on! I sprinkled a little blame on both parties! This was a very balanced post They are all idiots, just idiots with different agendas. Republicans vote for morons like Nixon, Reagan and Bush; Democrats vote for nincompoops like Johnson, Carter and Clinton. Now, anyone here is free to rank them on the IQ scale if they so choose, or do an accounting of who made more egregiously bone-headed policy, I am not doing that I don't mind when I am lambasted for something I actually did, but this is very unfair criticism in this case. LOL.

Reverse Engineer