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["Lynda" <lurine AT softcom.net>]

Actually, for the p.s. system, you would be arguing apples and oranges.  The
type of school you are talking about was a rare beast even back then and now
is extinct.  I've worked for school districts and seen them from the inside
out.  They have always been bad when they are run as a big factory but they
have been on a severe downhill slide since the feds got into the education
business.

It wouldn't do your dad or anyother parent any good to try and fight them
now.  Oh, maybe with a small one room but not with any "regular" p.s.  ALL
schools are tied to federal money and without it they cease to exist.  So,
he who pays the piper calls the tune.

And, no, public schools are crappy because they are designed to be crappy.
They are designed to advance a few and to keep the rest in the low-income
brackets, fodder for the factories, Micky Ds, WallyWorld, etc.

You don't really think that the Waltons gave MILLIONS to various groups to
promote various education bills in a few states because they want college
grads, now do you?

Let me leave you with some quotes from the folks who set up the p.s. system
of mandatory attendance schools in the U.S.:

***Benjamin Rush:  "Our schools of learning by producing one general and
uniform system of education, will render the mass of the people more
homogeneous and thereby fit them more easily for uniform and peaceable
government."

"Let our pupil be taught that he does not belong to himself, but that he is
public property."

***And, Horace Man, the "father of the public school movement" who stated:
"We who are engaged in the sacred cause of education are entitled to look
upon all parents as having given hostages to our cause."

***Sheldon Richman:  "the first purpose of state schooling was not
intellectual training but the conditioning of children 'to obedience,
subordination, and collective life.'"

"Second, whole ideas are broken down into fragmented 'subjects' and school
days were divided into fixed periods 'so that self-motivation to learn would
be muted by ceaseless interruptions.'"

"Third, the state was posited as the true parent of children."

The book I referred to in another post, the "bible" of public schools to the
folks who put together what is commonly referred to as GRTFs (government
run, taxpayer funded) and brought into play mandatory attendance, "The State
of Public Instruction in Prussia" which was published in 1835.

Oh, Marie, please don't lump me in with Denise and James.  I really don't
want you to be responsible for causing either of them to have a coronary <g>

BTW, the vast majority of parents don't have a clue what to do or how to do
it.  Most of them aren't as stubborn, blunt, rude and unafraid of screaming
lawsuits as I am.  A lot of our foster kids were required to attend p.s. and
believe me I've gone the rounds with schools.  The only reason I won the
battles is because I had a high faluten lawyer who was VERY well known in
CA.

So, unless all of those parents you talk about know some good attorneys who
will do pro-bono work, most of them are dead in the water before they get
started.  Also, it is the norm, not the exception, that school
administrators and teachers retaliate against any kid whose parents raise a
fuss!

Lynda
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Marie McHarry" <mmcharry AT gmail.com>


> Lynda, I apologize for sticking you in the same camp as James &
> Denise, but let's be real.
>
> The real underlying problem with America's seriously fucked up school
> system is that, for the most part, parents don't care. I went to a
> tiny one-room school and Daddy was on the school board. Sure, it was
> easy for him to be involved then, but then he went on to fight as hard
> as he could against the consolidation of the schools that resulted in
> kids being bussed for at least an hour to a nice school where they
> could learn about drugs and, eventually, gangs. Once my sisters were
> in that system, he was up front and active and grilling the physics
> teacher to see if he knew what he was teaching (he did).
>
> In being active, the old man didn't just affect happenings in the
> schools. More importantly -- at least to me -- he instilled in his
> children the need to speak up in a community forum.
>
> Plus, we learned a lot at home. It still amazes me that when I worked
> on my Latin homework Dad, who was in his 50s at the time, was able to
> help me. But of course that isn't all we learned. He was a farmer and
> taught us an immeasurably amount about farming. He loved his cows too,
> and we learned about livestock (but as Mom has always pointed out, he
> didn't grow up with 'em so he didn't have the second and third
> generation experience that you need to be really good with livestock).
>
> With experience and Mom's tutoring, we learned that too. To this day,
> I can walk into a barn and smell sickness if it's there -- I'm not
> sure anyone can teach you that.
>
> And my point is -- heh, heh, I had a point: the most important teacher
> in any child's life is the parent. I am a firm believer that kids take
> all their cues from their parents unless the parents are too buy with
> something else to give the cues.
>
> The saving grace of schools is that when parents fail sometimes an
> excellent teacher can fill some of the gaps. No teacher, however, can
> replace a crummy parent.
>
> If public schools are crappy, it's because the parents are first.
>
> Marie
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