I don't know why anyone puts up with the crap going on in public schools. Before I started homeschooling I volunteered at school. I was there every day and saw exactly what went on. One of the greatest disservices being done to today's children is the complete lack of US History. It's social studies and multculturalism. Native Americans were good, white people were bad. It was important to know how Indians lived...how cohesive, benevolent (socialist) they were. No one mentioned that grandma would be left on the road to die when she became a burden on the tribe or that the men (warriors and hunters) ate first and got the best portions (with good reason). Women were little more than indentured servants and most welcomed 2nd and 3rd wives because their lives were extremely difficult. And to this day, after all the weeks spent on it, my son has never had a use for the extremely important skill of building a pueblo out of sugar cubes and jello boxes.
I read Dumbing Us Down by John Taylor Gatto. If a man who was New York's teacher of the year was warning people against public education then there had to be something to the complete frustration my son was feeling. When I finally decided I could do a better job myself, both parents and teachers thought I was betraying "the cause" because if all good families pulled their kids out of school education would suffer. I told them it wasn't worth sacrificing my son to a system that simply wasn't working. Until there's some competition in the teaching profession schools will cater to the lowest common denominator because while I'm sure there are plenty of good teachers, the unions require schools to keep those teachers who are also the lowest common denominators of their profession. Why the good ones don't insist on changes I don't know.
Cindie