People with kids, my kids are up all night doing stupid projects.

People without kids, American kids are lazy watching tv all the time.

***

No child left behind, if the school average on exams doesn't meet a certain level, my school loses funding, it already has 33-38 kids per class, which is the average for our major US city. This is in the rich neighborhoods.

Perhaps the issue is not the stupid test, the pointless homework. But in a class of 38 kids in middle school, no one learns. So the point of homework, is so that mom and dad can give up any hope of a life and teach their kids what they didn't learn in class that day. And no the kids don't sit at a desk all day, they are crammed in with several other kids at a table. There is no way the schools built decades ago, could be up to fire marshal code, since the path between desk are to narrow for a adults to get through from the back of the room.

Homework makes up for large class sizes, when I was a kid, 20 kids in a class was considered to large, and always broken up. My kids have never been in a class that small.

And their day is taken up with DARE programs, and other Federally/State mandated health issues, this that and the other, and at the beginning of the year, I get a package with over 50 pages of forms for mom to fill out, and school supplies include pencils, paper, bandages, printer paper, computer disk, .... not for my kid, but for the general school supplies, because the school doesn't have any money for general supplies. Also there is a fee for all sports or after school activites, and endless fund raising, which takes up a lot of my kids at school time. There is no school nurse, and perhaps this year no band.

No doubt this is all due to lazy students.... of course when I was a kid, there were sports, band, we didn't buy supplies for the school, and if there was a fund raiser it was for some charity, not for our school. Oh, and we had a library, not a media center, with real books. And my teacher had a chance of learning all of our names, even in the back of the room.

What do they do in the poor neighborhoods, without school foundations, and PTA's that are scary?

Heal Thyself, jrbrown10

Why the fuck aren't your kids in a private school? You describe such a desperate situation, I can't imagine doing anything less for your kids. Get them out of there. Of course, one should keep in mind your comment that you have given up any hope to "have a life" for the sake of your children. Maybe sending your kids to that hell you described as their school is some form of payback. Thanks, dad.

-- looker

*** do you believe that a democracy needs public education?

If everyone that can afford to leaves public education, what does that do to the country, creating different opportunities for different kids, no more economic class mobilization? Instead of a selfish look out for my own, I've tried to change the situation; I've run for the school board, an unpaid four year full time position.

I work on initiatives, and funding issues. Volunteer at my kid’s school. And by the way, its mom, not dad.

Looking for a solution is different, then looking out for yourself - its that community and faith in the future thing, perhaps you are unfamiliar with it.

Besides the situation at our school is becoming the norm, only thinking of your family, will not solve the problem.

Yes the women looked a little off, until I clicked on the other fashion sections, which have professional models, and they didn't look any better - honestly they look frightening.

I was listening to this report on NPR, and one of the items they offered for proof, was something no one here was mentioning, --- to get a good professorship, you need to be published. But women have a hard time getting published.

When some of the science magazines, removed the names of the authors of papers sent out for peer-review, the number of women who made it through the screening process shot up. This is a recent change, that hasn't been made at all professional magazines. But as it happens more women get published, their qualifications for a job openings will increase.

There are no doubt other biases against women in the sciences, but this one is measurable and perhaps should be what folks focus on, because it is the sort of thing the panel was focusing on. If removing female names from papers, makes such a dramatic increase, think what it might do if they removed gender/name from resumes - for the first round. My guess is more women would get in the door for interviews, giving them a chance to over come bias against thier gender.