The American Public school system is fundamentally broken. There are two reasons for this:
1. Budgets are split with transportation, which means that every dollar spent on buses is a dollar not spent on education. The buses run twice a day for part of the year. This is a broken system - that transportation money should be spent on public transit that would be benefit a far broader part of the community (yes, school kids would travel on public transit, like most places in the world, and not have their own system)
2. Actually, that's it. Get rid of busing, spend that money on public transit that benefits everyone, and you can do more with less money. Yes, I know busing is a shibboleth that certain conservative liberals (liberals stuck in the past) can't let go of, but it's time.

Busing has turned neighborhood schools into these huge monstrosities with large class sizes in order to make the system work. What it's done is made education impersonal, fostered places (schools) where children and teachers are treated like numbers. It has also helped sprawl (why live close to a school when the bus can do all the driving), driven down child exercise (children used to walk and ride to school), it makes the roads in the morning and evening a complete mess (yes, lets stop every 150 yards on that busy road at 7:30am).

No Public schools are broken on purpose to dumb down the kids, make everyone on the same level. What do expect, it has been taken over by the socialist left, leftist teachers union and they don't inspire to move you up they bring everyone down to the lower level. it's only fair you know. Besides they don't want their stupid voting base to be too smart.

Wrong, Let me guess they need more money, a school system that already has more money than almost every other country in the world.

That's how it works when our standard of living is higher than everywhere else. It's relative in some ways.

Go look around Europe fool.

First of all, nobody said the system needs more money. If anything, moving to a more technical system could probably save money because school wouldn't take as long. That's simple. Second, you should go look around Europe. See how many people live in 2,500 sq. ft. houses on half an acre of property or how many live in small houses or apartments instead, see how much the land costs, see how much goods cost. You can't easily compare education costs across borders because it's wildly complicated when you have to consider all the other economic factors.

You argument is null and stupid.

I'm so glad you followed up on this conversation 9 days later, and now that you've had time to fully contemplate your argument and form an intelligent, cogent theory on why your stance is superior, have come up with "you're dumb LOLZER."

Go and re-read what I wrote before you fire all your indignation and go all libertarian on me.

So stop spending money on buses and spend it more on public transit? Aren't you just taking the chicken out of one pot and putting it in the other?

I know a teacher. In fact, I have sex with her regularly. Don't worry, she's my wife. Her biggest complaint is parents who don't care. Doesn't matter if the kids are rich or poor; if their parents don't care, neither do they.

We don't value education enough in our country. We value things and celebrities. Once that changes, the rest will follow suit.

Teachers get paid to care. If they can't, they shouldn't be teachers.

Oh she cares, and sadly enough, sometimes she cares more than parents. Don't get me wrong. She teaches in the burbs, so most of her parents DO care.

And no, teachers aren't paid to care; they're paid to teach. It's a bonus when they do care.

'Merica way of thinking... caring for the future is everyone's job whether you get paid or not.

When you do my job, paid or not, I'll do yours.

Once again, this time let it sink in first ... caring for the future of humanity is everyone's job whether you get paid or not, it is human nature and your responsibility as a human to preserve our existence.

One can either pay the taxes that go towards education now, or pay them later in unemployment compensation or welfare in 15 years. Nobody understands the concept of an "investment."

Let them ride a bike. Kids are getting so fat now, the buses have to go around the scales!

"Her biggest complaint is parents who don't care."

My mom was an elementary school teacher, and she now works in the school district office (training teachers). This was one of her biggest complaints, too. Also, when their kids were acting like undisciplined hellions, these parents would usually blame the teachers and/or schools. A lot of school/teacher time and resources was/is being spent defending themselves against those parents and trying to make up for their parenting shortcomings.

Exactly! She told me she had a parent come in for a conference one day that was visibly drunk. Cops were called...

No wonder some kids grow up to be idiots. They aren't born that way; they were just raised that way. People who don't want kids/don't want to be parents need to either learn to use contraceptives or keep it in their pants.

They ARE "born that way." Genes are what matter, not 'parenting' or 'schooling.'

It's not nature versus nurture; it's nature AND nurture.

Duh! But, the science says genes by far are the major determinant of IQ and the other personality traits correlated with academic, vocational, and social success.

"parents who don't care"

Biggest issue right there. The kids of those parents unfortunately drag everyone else down. The parents have absolutely zero positive involvement. I specified "positive" involvement because ironically the same parents that scream about how junior's getting Fs because they never bother to make sure he does homework or studies and how that's all the school's fault are the ones that raise hell if a teacher dares discipline the kid. Parents have come in and literally told teachers that their child should not be punished for anything because they "don't like consequences"

And yet it's not politically correct to mention that, we're just supposed to throw more money at the schools...

Honestly school shouldn't be mandatory. The kids should have to perform to a minimum to continue. The ones that fail and are currently just passed on (blew my mind when I found out the school was allowed to "recommend" holding them back but couldn't enforce it) without getting anything out of it shouldn't be allowed to hold back the ones who actually want to learn.

My friend fled Romania when it was still a communist country and came to usa when he was a teenager. He was shocked when saw that there were kids who were repeating grades not due to a learning disability but due to being just plain lazy. He told me in Romania when he was growing up starting at about 15 you had to take yearly tests. If you passed you went onto the next grade. If you failed, you went to work in the factory. It was a good motivation for doing well in school.

Yes, stop spending money on busing. Agreed. It's just not working.

Thing is, that won't change.

How about just going back to neighborhood schools , even if there is only enough kids for a one room schoolhouse? (where they learned very well, indeed.)

And every one room schoolhouse would only need a teacher and some volunteer helpers-no administrative staff or overweening bureaucracy.

I dîd that in California with expelled and on probation students who could not attend regular school in their home district. The students succeeded beyond everyone's expectation, graduated, got jobs immediately, and have been doing very well since. I worked with the student and their personal interests, their parents, interfacing agencies, and potential employers for job shadowing and work experience. The difference is that I am willing to do what it takes, even after hours on my own time, and as i did and was successful because of student outcomes, my peers had a bad case of professional jealousy and furthermore did NOT want to work extra hours on their own time (guess I made them look sort of bad/selfish). It can be done. Will the system and your colleagues want to do it---therein is the question.

I'd be ok with that.

school buses themselves are not the issue. its the busing itself. the desire to create these non-segregated schools within segregated communities by busing kids 30-45 minutes across county.

"It has also helped sprawl (why live close to a school when the bus can do all the driving)"

If only it wasn't dumber than that. There are schools where the parents are *required* to pick up the kids, even if they literally live across the street. So parents leave them in subsidized after school programs until they can pick them up after work. My head nearly exploded when I heard about one family... They have 3 kids, one of them special needs. All 3 at that time went to the same school. The parents *insisted* on getting the special needs bus to come around to pick up that one child to transport him to and from school. Yes, while the parents drove the other two to and from the same place they were going anyway. The district had no choice but to do it.

Then you've got the parents that treat schools as a free daycare center all designed to make their lives easier. A local district was going to shift school start and end times by an hour. This would allow sharing of the buses and would save the district *lots* of money. Parents screamed bloody murder and the district ended up having to lay off dozens of employees instead. Apparently *nothing* is to interfere with the convenience of the parents...

Interesting line of thought, but I don't think that would work for non-urban areas. I would like more trains though. It sucks to have to buy expensive plane tickets or drive for hours on end.

I share the same concern with non-urban areas. Busing doesn't make much sense in the area I live in now...but, when I was a kid I lived on a farm that was 25 miles from town. If my father had driven me to school daily he wouldn't have been able to do his work. I knew many students who couldn't even attend school during stripping and hanging season. I remember filing their excuse slips in the office. "Had to go to work." "Needed in the barn." "Has to hang sticks today." "Injured during topping." "Needed to watch the other kids while we put the crop up." I'm not talking about some far distant past, either. I graduated in 1998. Our graduating class had only ninety students in it. Urban schools and rural schools have very different challenges. I don't think there's a one-size-fits-all solution. As soon as we realize that individual communities have very different education needs, we'll start making progress. I was grateful that my family was well-enough off financially that I got to go to school while some of my classmates labored in frozen barns, stripping and bailing tobacco leaves.

Half true, yes when Parents participate child have much more chance to reach a good level, the problem is all the parents could not help there chidren they do not have the skills and the knowledge to do it.

The biggest contributing factor to poor academic performance is genetics.

It's on purpose; dumb down the populace, remove the ability think critically and question authority, overwhelm them with multiple crises, and then have agent provocateurs and media figures (e.g.,Gweneth Paltrow) demand an authoritarian figurehead. They may very well get what they want sooner than they think. I'll wait and see if we actually have elections next year or will we be so overwhelmed by multiple crises that there is a Declaration of National Emergency and Martial Law. Paranoid? Maybe - but hedging my bets only leaves me with a household of food and supplies for a really rainy day.

He means that leftists are commie lovers at heart.

if I'm not mistaken, she recently held a fundraiser for Obama.

Correct...she swooned over him and said “It would be wonderful if we are able to give this man all the power he needs to accomplish the things he needs to,”

Thank god for Congress then, right?

Don't get me started about the so-called GOP... <sigh>

Gweneth Paltrow recently said during an interview that she wishes for Mr. Obama to have absolute power.

“I am one of your biggest fans, if not the biggest, and have been since the inception of your campaign,” Paltrow said.

“It would be wonderful if we were able to give this man all of the
power that he needs to pass the things that he needs to pass,” she
added."

+Manisha, *that's* a HUGE problem there!

"I pledge to be a servant to our president"

And don't forget to free Mumia.

I grew up in Philly, so *HELL NO!* ;\

"It's on purpose; dumb down the populace, remove the ability think
critically and question authority, overwhelm them with multiple crises,......" its called being a parent