The education mess in the U.S. is one of those problems that, like the Middle East, seems so exasperating and irretrievably broken that you end up wanting to throw your hands in the air and shout "FUCK IT! Let's nuke it and just start all over."
And EVERYBODY shares in the blame: government, the educational bureaucracy, teachers, parents, students.
I know a couple of teachers and they are good people, love their job, are hardworking and in it for the right reasons. And I hear the horror stories.
But I also know there are quite a few bad apples out there, and trying to get rid of these teachers can prove almost impossible thanks to union and tenure rules.
But to me, at least here in California, it all started to go wrong in the late-70's, when the twin events of Prop. 13 and Social-Engineering began to leave their mark on the school system.
Prop. 13 caused a reduction in local revenues, which simultaneously meant less money for schools and more money and concentrated power in Sacramento.
Then there were the social do-gooders...suddenly it wasn't enough to just teach the 3 R's(reading, 'riting, 'rithmatic). No, now little Johnny and Sally had to feel "good" about themselves. In fact, students self-esteem started to become more important than actual achievement.
2+2=5? That's okay, at least Johnny tried. World War II occurred in 1967? No problem Sally...at least she knew what side won, right? Don't know where Europe is? Who cares...they're just a bunch of America-hating commie fags anyway.
Gold stars for everyone. Your team lost at baseball? Don't cry, everybody gets a trophy. Everybody wins. Cause god forbid someone's kid feels bad about losing or getting the answer wrong.
But that wasn't enough. The baby-boomers, once they started having kids, decided they were the most special and perfect kids in the world. And why not, for the baby-boomers themselves thought they were the most special and perfect generation in the history of mankind! They had invented sex, drugs and rock n roll...and had even ended the Vietnam War and gotten rid of Tricky Dick.
No teacher was going to say a BAD word about their precious child, let alone actually have the nerve to discipline said spoiled brat. So, over time, the power balance shifted in schools, as teachers lost authority and control over the classroom, as the students could pretty much get away with anything short of murder. This coincided with the rise in litigation, so schools began to fear doing anything to upset a student, lest the parents take the school to court.
As the spoiled brats grew up to have spoiled brats of their own, it got worse and worse, until now, where you have in certain schools a complete breakdown in discipline. I go back to my old high school...it looks more like a prison than a school. Every week you read the same stories. Students raping students...teachers raping students...students raping teachers.
Then there's the periodic decrees from the Federal and local do-gooders. Every 5 years somebody claims to have the answer to our educational woes. ESL. Bi-lingual education. Phonetics. Whole reading. New math. No Child Left Behind. It's like Stalin's Soviet Republic or Mao's Red China with their 5-year plans...that always failed.
How can you hope to succeed this way? It's like a sports team that keeps changing GM's and coaches. There's no continuity...no momentum built for the future. Everybody is tugged this way and that every couple of years.
I wish I knew what the answer was...other than dumping Standardized testing and No Child Left Behind and returning to the BASICS. This whole "teaching to the test" is a scourge. Kids don't have to read entire books anymore...the teacher just gives them the parts to read that they'll be tested on. They're memorizing, not learning.
But I fear that the decay has been going on for so long...over 30 years now...and is so ingrained, that nothing short of total destruction and a brand new start will ever get us back on track.