It's not brainwashing. It's de-programming.

With the POS legislation--the unfunded mandate--called "No Child Left Behind" :puke: school teachers are told WHAT to teach and HOW to teach it from on high. Any deviation from the "method" will not be tolerated and will cost a teacher his/her job. TEACH TO THE TEST or find another vocation is the mantra---unspoken mantra---but the mantra, nevertheless.

Schools are given IMPOSSIBLE standards to meet, but not given the funds to hire enough teachers to have the small class sized needed (and mandated by law)---they are set up to fail---and, then they are criticized when they fail.

I hope that Obama, in his speech to the schools, addresses the need to REALLY individualize education by having teachers find out what a child is gifted in (and, they are all gifted--maybe not in math, science, or language--the only things on the tests that count---but, perhaps in art or music or *gasp* physical education)--and then let each child DO MORE IN THE AREAS WHERE THEY ARE GIFTED AND SUCCESSFUL.

Instead of putting the emphasis on 3 things and having half-assed results on a test---find the ONE THING a student does well, and help them SOAR.

"No Child Left Behind" leaves a helluva lot of kids behind--in the areas of emphasis, because of impossible standards---and, in the areas that the schools don't emphasize any more, because they are not emphasized.

The schools are brainwashing our kids---BY FUCKING LAW. Our kids need to be de-programmed. Throw that fucking NCLB act in the incinerator of time, or the dustbin of history, and NEVER resurrect the sumbitch.

Give it a proper burial, under a pile of shit.

Must have been a dud of a rant.

:shrug:

Are you a teacher?

A special ed teacher.

I LOVE special ed teachers. I dealt with quite a few when my kids were in school and most of them were extraordinary people. Without them, I'm not sure where my son would be today. He got the special attention he needed at a young age and after a couple of rough years, he really blossomed into an exceptional person.

My daughter's best school memories are from the years she was in the gifted program.

couldn't care less one way or the other. They just want whatever Obama tells them to want.

That's why you're not getting much of a reaction.

Personally, I thought you made some good observations.

K&R

I thought providing our children with free appropriate public educations was a LIBERAL ideal. Whodathunkit. It took three hours to get this discussion started.

Everyone is preoccupied with health care at the moment. Luckily your thread caught my eye while I was trying to calm down from my own personal rant.

with his speech. I guess, though, you're right about the timing.

I think people just a bit too hyper for any in depth discussions right now.