That kind of thinking has been one of the goals of public education from the start–locking kids up and making them sit still for 6 or 7 hours a day gets them ready to be placid workers. Unions simply finish the job.

If anyone questions it, we've always got automatons like the Reverend to yell "Tilt!"

Roy, I knew you'd have something to say on this subject you know so well. I think things have changed for the worse since the 70's, when I last attended high school (1971). Back then, some discipline was still allowed, but no more. I also had the experience of attending both a private Catholic grade school and a public high school. Even though there was discipline in the public school back then, there was a lot more in the Catholic school. There was also a lot more teaching taking place as a result. When I arrived in public high school, for the next two years I was relearning things I had already learned in the Catholic grade school. I didn't even have to study, and that grade school I attended wasn't some ritzy private academy, it was an inner city school. That was my personal experience, and I know many others with the same experience. I ran into an old high school english teacher of mine several years back, and she told me things had gotten much, much worse through the years, that it was almost impossible to educate the kids anymore. That is really sad.

We live in a country where we have agreed to settle disputes in court with attorneys rather than, you know, simply shooting our adversaries in the streets.

Now, nuts like those who left the above comments want to take that dispute settling method away and replace it with what?…..the Wild West again?

And to Ghost: Faith in God and the free market? But not education. Wow….no wonder you comment here.

America is a secular country governed by a secular contract called the Constitution.

The free market of capitalism gone wild has helped us and hurt us as a nation. Partisans only admit to one part of that sentence.

Teachers in public schools do a great job. Sure there are problems. But you don't usually throw out the baby with the bathwater….that is….unless you are a wingnut. The baby of public education is one of America's greatest strengths, so it figures that anti-American neo-conservative minded maniacs would want to dismantle it.

They hate everything about America except the fictitious revisionist part they find only in their tiny brains.

larry's call to "common sense" is the silly old stupidity by those who insist "common sense" is completely detached from empirical facts. Anti-education in a nutshell. It's just something you have or that you had handed down from your grandparents or somebody. It is stupidity in itself. Too many laws, too many court cases, too much bureaucracy.

Strap them leg-irons on and let's get back to those "common sense" days. If a teacher hurts your kid, don't sue or call an attorney, just kill the teacher. If a doctor hurts your kid, don't sue or call an attorney, just kill the doctor.

"Common sense". Please.

People longing for the good ol' days that weren't, is so unappealing.

Whether it's teachers, police officers or even judges, nobody is allowed to use their common sense on a case-by-case basis, these days.

There are so many laws, lawsuits and regulations that no one can take personal responsibility and everyone's a bureaucrat.

My favorite story about Democrats and the NEA goes back to the year that Jimmah Cahrteh promised them a separate Cabinet position if they hepled them. The first thing he did after the first day of work as Pres. was to grant discharges to people like Jon Carry and the next was to ask for this Cabinet position.

The story goes to the group that was damaging Democrat jobbing of the people, the Americans Against Union Control of Government. It seems that the AAUCG, which I belonged to and gave quite a bit of money to, was against things like that Cabinet position. Now the NEA gave the man $4.5 million for his campaign. Wait up, this was before the present campaign rules. Anyway, it seems that the AAUCG gave some money to some dirty Republican to campaign with. The grand total sum of $250,000 and they were punished out of existence by the Carter appointed FEC. They had to pay the $250,000 to the government and also another $250,000 as a fine. They just couldn't handle that and went out of existence. The NEA was heavily punished also. They had to pay all their members back the money that they had given Carter without permission by the members. Most of the people I knew didn't go to the trouble to ask for their share. It was a grand total of $4.39 and I damned sure got mine just to spite the group.

I really don't think that we did such a bad job of educating in the 50s through the 70s. When I was finished with my stint I could still touch kids and today they can't be touched in any way. It is so easy to get accused of sexual touching just by touching in any way. I used to walk down the track with my arm around kids of either sex and never worry about being sued. I used to take hold of boys roughly when they needed reprimanding but you can't do that today. Lets blame the courts for at least some of the lack of education of today.

Let me add that I am against vouchers and not convinced that private schools are so much better. I guess this makes somewhat less than a good conservative Republican. I will admit that if this does that I am not a good 'un.

Wrong.

What has brought America where it is 1) faith in God and 2) the free market, both of which are outlawed from the socialistic public school system.

The fact is that the ones who benefit most from the public education system are those employed in it, surely not the kids.

What those in the education establishment fear is the competition that vouchers would bring. School choice would throw them off the gravey train they're addicted to and force them, for once in their lives, to produce real results. No wonder the likes of the teachers unions fight vouchers.

Purposely weakening public schools is the job of conservatives. Taking tax dollars OUT of a district and handing them over to for-profit capitalists has nothing to do with giving our kids a better education. Ignorant are they who don't realize charter schools don't do any better than public schools.

No, attacks on public schools, as seen here in King's post and the comments that follow…is all about breaking up the public school system for fun and profit. Paying stockholders with tax money and defeating a strong Democratic Party support system in the teachers unions at the same time. That's the goal.

Supporters of the juvenile use of the word "choice" in these charter school and voichers discussions are simply not credible. The public school system in this country, overall, does a fine job. Disparities exist where poverty and social problems prevail.

Teacher's unions do need to deal with some internal policies but extremist privatizing talk is ridiculous and should be rejected out of hand.

Republicans, conservatives, for the most part, could give a crap less about anybody's kids but their own.

The public school system has been extremely significant in bringing America to where it is today. Any rhetoric to the contrary would simply be an attempt to revise history.

The alliance of the Democratic Party with the self-interest groups in the education establishment, especially the teachers unions, is a true axis of evil. Working together, these two organizations hose the taxpayer for an inferior product — public education — while at the same time dumbing down the kiddies.

As to this latter point, much of the dumbing down is, sad to say, deliberate. And, it goes on not just in the inner cities but everywhere.

Look at how the Democrats and the education establishment work hand-in-glove. The schools stupefy millions of kids who, because of a lack of a decent education, must then turn to Big Government (i.e., the Democratic Party) to make a living while in return the Democratic Party provides political cover and a soft living for those in the education establishment . Nice, huh? And of course, the education establishment does everything in its power to elect Democrats. This is a vicious circle.

But it is the blacks [and Latinos] who are the most in need of a good education and who are the greatest hurt by the public schools. When the day comes that the scales drop from the eyes of African- Americans and they realize how the Democratic Party, in conjunction with the teachers unions, have committed what amounts to educational genocide on them, that’s the day the Democratic Party, as it is now structured, dies.

Unfortunately, the parents who teach at home are pretty lax when it comes to handing out condoms.