That's hardly my experience, although possibly this is different from school to school.
My experience of the educational system is that the more that the parents are aware of and involved in their children's educations, the better those children do. Having many friends, acquaintances and neighbors who are teachers in both Minneapolis and St. Paul public and private schools, there seem to be two challenges: 1) apathetic, self-involved parents who see school as merely a form of free day care; and 2) apathetic, self-involved governance -- from the legislature down through the principals -- whose priorities are not the education of the youth, but the perpetuation of bureaucracy, careerism, and petty politics. The teachers that I am acquainted with have never given up on their students. Instead, they face students whose parents have never cared in a system that has never cared: against such apathy sometimes the best that the teachers can do is cope. -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of [EMAIL PROTECTED] In a message dated 10/4/2002 9:19:26 AM Central Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: > Our schools had better fix their deficiencies NOW, or start teaching > janitorial skills. > Our schools are currently doing this - at least for the bottom 80% that they deem are not fit for an academic curricula. They are operating from a very blinkered (and very 19th century) view of class society - an elite of 10 to 20 % who are tracked into a college curricula starting in first grade and the rest doomed to dumbed down instruction and ritalin. They need to at least be brought up to date as far as the desegregation cases in the 50s. Doug Mann for School Board! Linda Mann Kingfield _______________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A Civil City Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest option, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
