Even if the Puritians and the founding fathers were party animals, they set up a nation that became the biggest engine of industry and progress despite the competiton of the first world nations. You don’t see England, France and Spain having built what the USA has, even if we are throwing it all away on collectivism. The collection of players like Washington, Jefferson, Ben Franklin and the rest did this. They turned this nation from an Indian occupied wasteland into what we have. And I for one like this with all it’s faults better than Europe where some relatives live and certainly better than Sub-Sahara Africa where some in-laws fled. The principles of the founding people of the USA of limited central government with checks and balances, no Kings, No Aristocracy, and widely dispersed voting was novel and it’s too bad much of it is being undone.

And remember, all of them faced execution by drawing and quartering if their little enterprise had failed. So we think much more of them rather than some of the Johnny-Come-Latelys we might have holidays for.

There is besides employment as the goal of education Thomas Jefferson and the idea that a democracy needs an educated electorate.

Jim Mordecai

The public school stands between the students and poverty and social immobility and decline. It provides a floor that the kids are not supposed to fall below. In that we are failing. We should not be failing.

The public schools cannot use the parents as an excuse for anything. That was no excuse during the worst of the depression when the public schools assimilated foreign immigrants (non-english speaking at that) into US Society. It’s no excuse now. Our public school system should do a better job now than in 1925, not a worse one.

Most parents send their children to school because that is what they think they are supposed to do, not really even thinking about the reasons. I frequently as people “why do you educate your child?” And the blank stare that is returned tells me the question is rarely thought about. I asked our State Superintendant of Public Instruction what it means to be well-educated and he stammered for a few minutes and said, “No one has ever asked me that before.” He then stammered out a few things like reading great books and going to the Art Institute.

When the locality is lower class, we are enabling parents to be uninvolved by not requiring anything of them in order for their child to be there. People rarely value what is free but when it costs them something they will take it more seriously. The problem is that as a society we have individually protected our citizens against personal failure that we have caused the whole system to fail. Public instruction was designed to help the poor get educated but after decades of effort we having made any progress. Rather than admit that the original design was flawed from the start, we continue to prop up a dead horse and try and get it to run.

I don’t believe public school teachers work for the parents, no more than private school teachers do. The teachers are teaching to a standard (which should include flunking nonperformers). That standard is what the employers are hiring for and what the families are sending the kids to meet. The failure and disgrace of the urban public schools is that they either have no standards or the wrong standards. For example not teaching standard english and not teaching deportment and citizenship which together render their working class products unemployable.

And the Federal Department of Ed. all but admits this on its website,

“”Please note that in the U.S., the federal role in education is limited. Because of the Tenth Amendment, most education policy is decided at the state and local levels.”

Notice how they slip in a “most” when the Tenth Amendment allows none. But when you take the king’s shilling you do the king’s bidding. The states want money and they are willing to give the Feds increasing control in return.

“It is time America dumps the education model that is failing – the political model – and brings about decent education reform that pushes our youth to achieve by holding them (and their parents) accountable for conduct in school and the learning process as a whole. The days of free day care (school) should end. Education may be a right, but it is a badly exercised one at this time. Students do not have the right to thwart the education system and their parents should not have the right to let them. This country has too much at stake.”

This is backwards, the schools are not the equipped to hold parents accountable because the work FOR the parents. Parents are responsible for holding their local schools accountable because technically they employ the teachers to instruct their children in their place. But because the state removed direct payment from parent to teacher, the schools now believe they work for the state and must hold parents accountable. Until the payer system is restored there is no mechanism for accountability that will work effectively.

And the teachers better get used to reporting to a national school board and national standards benchmarked internationally. All not good for local control and parental involvement.

When I was a sub in 1980 – maybe not relevant here but it was my experience – I worked for a school district where the tardies had gotten out of control. I was at a middle school at the time and even that may not be relevant here. Anyway, the school decided they would end the tardy problem. The new policy was that there would be students assigned to the door of each classroom and when the late bell rang the door to every classroom would be closed and locked. No student admitted without administration escort. Students caught out of the classrooms at this point would be escorted to a central point by staff and suspended.

When I heard this I thought that somebody was going overboard and it’ll never work.

Guess what, all the tardies stopped. There was a short break in period where students and parents tested the school to see if we really meant it. We did. Students were sent home and suspended (after a few break-in days where tardies were forced to sit in an outdoor area for a lecture). Very few people got suspended and not repeatedly. It was almost like they knew their classmates were waiting to slam the door in their faces just as they reached the classroom – people got their behinds into the classroom at the warning bell.

Changes were made, adjustments were done. The tardies all stopped. It was a miracle.

Draconian Policies can work.

If your school wants the tardies to stop – which they may not.. look at the schools actions, not their words.. all the school has to do is to stop entertaining the tardies. Tell Mommy and Daddy to take Jr home if they reach the school late – Jr can’t come to school that day. Watch what happens. Make it clear to the players that classrooms are not to be interrupted and if you are late you just missed the train completely. They will understand the locked door.

But if the school intends to continue the current scheme just keep bleating to the parents as before and see if they ever change.