Reply #13: Whip Harder! [View All]

Frankly, I've had it with the current state of public education.

Standardized testing and state/federal mandated curriculum are dumbing our children down more every year -- yet the plaintive plea for more and more funding never stops.

The teachers' unions in too many locales have become total sell-outs to the NCLB agenda -- they don't fight against high stakes standardized testing and BORING curriculum, they have in many cases decided to embrace those degrading schemes.

I am to the point where anything (except vouchers that could be used at religious schools) would be an improvement ... if for no other reason than to shake-up the education-industrial complex that is wrapped-up in its jargon and professionalism and bureaucracy -- we need to make people seriously re-examine what is actually going on in public education.

Time to get rid of all the consultants and text book vendors and corporate testing whores and out-sourced services providers ... and make schools places of learning instead of regimented schooling. Indeed, empower real teachers by letting them teach students in the interest of only what is best for the student!

My, yes. Online school is going to be a great thing for many kids, it can give them the time and freedom to educate themselves, learn from parents and family, mentor to a retired wise woman or man, teach themselves a skill at a job, so on and so forth.

Until teachers and parents and students flatly call for a revolution to end centralized, corporatized schooling, then I'm for anything that gives kids more abiltiy to learn in a way that suits them best.