And the most important: #1 – Supportive family environment.

Perhaps I’ve been a little too hard on public schools. I used to be a first level engineering supervisor of about 15 engineers and techs; three of the engineers under me were Vietnamese, two of them were women. They were my best workers. The man was promoted to my position after I left. They had come to the US as children of boat people who fled the communists after the fall of Saigon. They all spoke with slight accents, so I know English was their second language.

The thought occurred to me that since they obviously went through the American public school system for a good portion of their education (including college), public schools must be providing the information necessary to be successful. Then I recalled an article about 15 years prior in Scientific American entitled, “Why Vietnamese Children Succeed in American Schools Where Others Fail.” The family placed great emphasis on learning; there was an accompanying photo of a whole family studying around a small kitchen table. Their attitude was, “yes, there is racial discrimination in America, but overcome it with education.” Of course, this was all just before Leftists really took control of the schools and fostered attitudes like the ones held by Latino parents in the Vista school system noted above.

1. Supportive family environment.
2. Committed and competent teachers.
3. A school administration unshackled by politically correct
restraints.
4. An educational bureaucracy which is truly interested in
education rather than expanding its empire and protecting its
jobs by politically correct indoctrination.

The political educational bureaucracy is currently a death-knell to re-instituting a proper educational environment in America!

This, regrettably, is the only thing I disagree with: “Frankly, any parent can find the answer simply by looking through their child’s textbooks or taking a close look at the classroom structures that their children are forced to endure.” Children are only forced to endure it because their parent’s force them – they can homeschool their children.

On one occasion when I was confronted by a teacher about the inadequacy of homeschooling, I was fortunate enough to have to hand a simple math problem my children had just completed. Here it is: “Traveling today [from El Puerto to Cordoba, passing through Al Arahal and Ecija] we covered 180 kilometers. The distance between Al Arahal and Ecija was 30% as long as the distance between El Puerto and El Arahal, and the distance between Ecija and Cordoba was half the distance between El Puerto and El Arahal. What was the distance a) from El Puerto to El Arahal? b) The distance between Al Arahal and Ecija? And c) the distance between Ecija and Cordoba?” [From my book Escaping Britain]

My children did the math over dinner in a Parador in Spain. They were eight and ten at the time. Neither the ‘teacher’ nor his two children (both finished school) could solve that simple problem.

Incredible!!

Joseph BH McMillan http://www.freedomvrights.com

You are correct, the public school system in our country is a failure. It is all about the NEA and the teachers, they care nothing about the children. Brainwashing is a proper term in this instance.

Not only is remedial instruction being given in community colleges but top universities as well in order to make their Affirmative Action programs work. Take a look at the figures at the end of this article http://www.uiowa.edu/~030116/116/articles/bronner2.htm , especially the last one. You will note there is a special category for minority students, “Admit to remedial program”.

It’s bad enough that colleges have to offer remedial programs, but a TOP university?

I was a community college administrator in 1975 when we created our “new” basic skills classes. Why were they created? Failure of our public schools. Students were very incensed when they found the basic skills courses were non-credit. They couldn’t read, write, or compute but they were able to figure out that they needed an extra year to get though a community college. Failure rates were extreme until the faculty went to feel good grades, then the failure rate in regular classes went through the roof until the faculty went to feel good grades, then our community college graduates could not read, write, or compute.

It sounds like things have gone further down since the mid-70s. Hard to believe it but take a look at 4 year graduates today being taught to read, write, and compute by their employers if they haven’t terminated them first.

Oh well, the latino parents are right we should not emphasize the difference between those that know more and those that know less. This way we will have a good pool for the jobs that those that know more don’t care to perform.

Everyone – get your kids out of government schools now. Don’t fool yourself into thinking that your school/neighborhood is okay, that these problems only exist elsewhere. Just the attitude that the schools and courts take, that the kids are “theirs” and not yours should be enough to convince anyone, let alone the tragedies that the article describes.