Response to Huffington Post story on Donald Trump education remarks at convention:
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He and you are both right. I don't believe he was necessarily questioning professional dedication. He was calling out principal and school board and supt. policies that create exactly what he is talking about.

Despite educators' best efforts at all levels, our students are failing. Failing to learn, failing to critically think, failing to succeed later in life. Why?

Our international standing based upon a standard test given every three years, show us in the high 20s and 30s in Science, Math, Reading, Writing. Ridiculous.

Our national h.s. graduation rate is running roughly mid-70 percentile. Or, almost three of every ten are failing to graduate. He's got a point. Those numbers are far worse for some minority groups.

Budget cuts have seriously impacted education in all 50 states and most districts, save the ultra-rich white-suburban dominated ones, with their extravagant homes and high property taxes. These places have pools and planetariums and practice fields. Most districts, including too many inner-city schools, don't even have heat or a/c, sufficent staff parking, computers, glass for the windows, or green grass anywhere. The differences, are stark, and are a contributing factor to black unrest, blacks failing to learn, blacks failing to progress. Note I said a contributing factor, not the only factor. Corporations do not help when they invert themselves and bank and incorporate overseas, taking millions in tax dollars out of the very communities and states they are located in. Our failed leadership in Washington has responded to this by requiring more testing and the failed, ridiculous Common Core Standards. Kids aren't robots.

Schools must change.

The entire format is basically wrong, after about 4th grade. Up until that point, reading and social skills are to be emphasized: read, read, read; cover your mouth when you cough, wait your turn, cops are good, look both ways, and all the rest.

After that, schools, especially high schools, need to go vo-tech on the same campus. We're so afraid of publicly marking any student as "different", we ignore their needs. Not all want to go to college nor should. Many are excellent with their hands and can make quite a good living if shown how, and encouraged. Budget cuts removed vo-tech shop classes, cooking, home ec.

Tracking needs to be brought back. Many children can fly through the lower grades, and should. Group the students by ability, as we once did, and press on. The goal of education, I believe, is to educate individuals, to differentiate instructional methods tailored to how each learns best. This is not new nor rocket science, but schools much prefer the Control Method. 35-40 students of umpteen different skill levels and learning styles lumped together and handed to one teacher who is supposed to then work miracles. This, is the definition of nuts.

We want responsible young adults to come out of high school. So, our method is to demand they have a hall pass at all times, because we don't trust them from Point A to Point B.

Our federal government, far too all-encompassing (they have taken over student loan program from private industry, for example) needs to get out of the education business entirely. States know best, in fact local districts know better, what their students need. A blanket approach to education will not work, does not work, never has worked. We remain stuck with an agrarian school calendar, and it is rare to find a state requiring its children to attend over 180 days. Think about that. Generation after generation spending just six months yearly, learning. There should be no surprise about our international standing, about college professors complaining their incoming freshmen appear uneducated.

It's because they are.

I understand teacher dedication, caring for one's students, intruding into their home lives when necessary. Been there, done that. It is past time the teaching profession told everyone, and I mean everyone, to back off and stand down; to stop adopting every new idea that comes down the pike; to stand up to school boards, supts,. and state ed. officials and let teachers teach.