This is what pisses me off about a lot of public school advocates. Not all who support alternatives are anti-public school advocates. I will say this. I am anti-property tax funded public schools. It defeats the whole purpose of making quality public schooling accessible to everyone. Every single study comparing vouchers and charter schools with public schools is incomplete considering the hurdles idealistic educators face in setting up alternatives. Unless you are a Ron Clark who has a TV movie and a book to boost his fund raising for his alternative private school, a creative educator will face many hurdles from vested interests to set up alternatives. Look at the Clayton County School Board(Google it) to see that public doesn't mean less selfish and private. These school board members spent time looking out for their interests and sought jobs for their own kin. There is little transparency.

This is the point. Don't get hung up on public schooling. Focus on UNIVERSAL SCHOOLING. Every kid should have access to quality schools- public or private. If you are private, then you better satisfy some diversity requirements to qualify funds. Take college education. Do you notice a real difference between public and private universities? In most cases, people will usually prefer the higher cost of a private university only if they receive higher scholarships or the quality is deemed to be really superior. otherwise,. there is no taboo in attending a public university. If you open up public schooling to competition, then you will get a lot more creative idealistic educators in the fray in stead of just the hard core businesspeople capable of satisfying a bunch of regulations.

We did things the public school advocates way for decades and see what it brought us. Inner city kids are woefully unprepared. The system does not allow for an inner city parent to escape the tyranny of their local school board's incompetence and their neighborhood dysfunctionality.

I see some sentiments blaming republicans for succeeding in their mission to bring down public schools. I am sure some of them have that in mind. But consider this. We had a period in the 90s where we had Democratic control of the country, Democratic control of the state(let's take GA or LA), Democratic control of the city(Atlanta, New Orleans), Democratic control of the school boards(certain communities in those cities). Yet there was little improvement in education for the downtrodden. WHOSE FAULT WAS THAT? It looks like is a systematic problem and not a party problem. The main resistance to offering vouchers seems to arise from the sentiment that they do not want to subsidize christian fanatics. Who cares if some fanatics take advantage of a system if it means it allows options for the downtrodden? And if some incompetent private schools spring up, who cares? With the numbers, there should also be a lot more better private schools set up by ex public school educators fed up with their system. Do we abolish medicare because there is some medicare fraud by private providers?

Pravin, how do you suggest we introduce competition in schools? By student achievement? I teach a non-lab, elective science that lower-level kids usually sign up for to get their science requirement out of the way. They're a tough crowd but I love them. My colleague across the hall has three honors sections of anatomy. Who do you think has the harder job? Who do you think looks like the "better" teacher judging by student achievement.

Schools are not businesses. They never, ever will be.

And Laurel? YOU are NOT a TEACHER, are you? Whooo-ee! (making finger-twirling motion next to ear)

First, I should have finished that sentence with a question mark in my last post. Argh.

Second, someone mentioned that people say we shouldn't "throw money at the problem." That has always chapped my ass too, because how can this be fixed for free?

Quit ragging on unions. Jaysus. In my school, I can think of maybe four teachers (out of 200) you describe, who do nothing and the union has to defend them. The rest of us think it's deplorable too. Fortunately they're all close to retirement.

If you can't handle the messy reality of public schools, then you will forever be sheltered from what life is really like. I know kids who had silver spoon-upbringings and look physically ill around the unwashed masses. Let them live on Fantasy Island. I like public school, public beaches and public amusements where yes, lots of minorities know how to get together and enjoy great family time without comparing expensive handbags and worrying about slipping behind in the rat race.

Laurel962 wrote, "Meanwhile...if Picasso were available to teach art class, or Stephen J. Hawking willing to teach a course in physics...they'd be turned down flat. Why? NO TEACHING CERTIFICATE. That's far more important (to the union, which controls the whole pipeline) than expertise or even genius." So true! I once started applying to a teaching certification program, but was told that since I already have a Master's degree, I would be "too expensive" to hire as a greenhorn teacher, and would get passed over in favor of those who did NOT have their Master's degrees yet, but were expected to get them anyway, once they had begun teaching.

I have had it with public school teachers. Where I live, the high school dropout rate is astounding, but satellite schools show increased enrollment. Teachers cry and whimper all year about not being paid the same salary as a professional person. Hello? School teachers probably spend about seven months in the classroom, and they want twelve months pay? Three months off in the summer, Fall break, Spring Break, National Holidays, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter? Half days or four days a week are common. Kids are not being taught subject matter. They are taught how to pass the SAT, ACT, and AP tests.

Read any newspaper. Listen to any TV or Radio media reporter. Listen to McCain and Bush for that matter: limited English skills. Yet we expect the rest of the world to speak English. Most of it already does--and far better English than our leaders speak.

Teachers are not trained in their field OR trained how to teach. Schools of Education should be totally revamped.

My solution: Require school teachers to work--as in "be in their classrooms"--all but two weeks a year when, like professionals, they are allowed to take a vacation. $50,000 annual salary for seven months appearance in classrooms is obscene. Oh, and all that time for lesson planning they cry about not having? They can prepare their syllabi and lesson plans during the summer.

Stop bellyaching, teachers. And clean yourselves up. Most of you look like you just finished a hike in the swamps, you do not enforce discipline, and you do not demand respect. This first-name basis jazz is appalling.

Look to yourselves before placing the blame elsewhere.