But conservatives can.

It is simple really. Liberals are constantly opening the lid on Pandora's Box.

Conservatives, on the other hand, have a deep respect for those who came before us. Because of this, we take the rules they made about social relations very seriously.

One of those rules is this: Don't have sex until you get married. Liberals think this is a bad rule. But unless we start to encourage people to follow that rule, the public schools will never be saved.

Urban public schools are filled with children who are poor and living in terrible, stressful conditions. In short, they are in no position to focus on learning. And why is this? It is because their mother and father conceived them irresponsibly. And then the father, the despicable father, left the mother and the child to fend for themselves.

The bottom line is this: Until fathers whose children attend urban schools begin to take responsibility for their sexuality and their offspring, urban schools will remain a disaster. And as someone who regular reads about the Detroit Public Schools, I have seen what disaster is in the public schools.

So, when liberals want to have a "frank discussion about race in America," I suggest that we start to talk about how practically to get black men to take responsibility for their children. Perhaps the most hopeful thing about electing Mr. Obama as our next President is his courage in addressing this very issue. Maybe if he is elected President and the media finally cancels the Jesse and Al show, things in the urban schools might really start to improve.

So

The disaster of public education is man and woman made, and a huge percentage of dedicated people in the education racket know exactly what is wrong but do not feel anything can--or will--be done about it.

An avid public education supporter, I served 12 years on the Education Committee of the Georgia House of Representatives, and devoted a great deal of my legislative years to the subject.

An educational institution should be reasonable in size, it should be comfortable, safe for the kids and staff, and classrooms should be orderly so teachers and kids can go about the "business" of education. That's the surroundings.

The purpose, however, is to educate the children who attend. The academic program should geared first to teaching kids to read, write, the english language, math, history, geography, etc. The arts have a place, too, but the arts are not critical. Their place in the school day depends to some extent on where the schools are located.

Public Schools should essentially provide the skills and knowledge to understand our society, our culture, and what every person needs or should in our society. Kids should know the history--not "correct" propaganda--of our country, their state, their locality, for example. Critical thinking skills are crucial.

The school day has become filled with extraneous "programs" and courses (why the hell should psychology be taught in high school?) which have little to do with the critical purposes of education. Course growth merely vitiates the educational program. The "reformers" try to remedy the time loss by making school days and years longer, and think they have improved education instead of merely raising the misery factor and cost of education.

There's lots of talk about inequality among school systems, but in fact we now have a nation-wide massive system of inequality inside almost every individual school building in the country. Public education should be based and have a curriculum based on what every kid should know. Instead, during the past thirty years every school has developed "gifted" and "special" programs for a small percentage of students and many resouces and time are spent on these students and programs. Ordinary kids are being shortchanged and a caste system is created in every school by these programs.

What caused it" Politics entering the curriculum: the education system has been turned into a massive social engineering program instead of educational endeavor. Throughout the South, the time period from about 1840 until 1880 is virtually ignored in history classes, I mean "social studies", because to teach the facts about the old south and civil war is "too controversial". That means that some black kid, backed by the NAACP and minority members of the staff and school board, will stand up and yell "racism" and get the teacher fired or get some alternate (political)view of the facts taught.

The other great and immensely expensive disastrpis policy is the creation of a ppublic educational system which discards the policy of giving kids a basic education based on what everyone should know and instead adopting the impossible goal of teaching every kid an individual program based on his "capabilities". In effect, a different education program for each kid. You can spend the world into bankruptcy and not reach that goal.

That's a beginning as to what's wrong . . . .

The destruction of the African American family is one of the fruits of drug prohibition. If you want to help the African American family legalize the drug trade.

Prohibition turns poor neighborhoods into drug markets prone to high crime. It puts too many African American young men in jail at a time when they should be settling down, starting families and getting careers. It places the remaining young men in high demand so that they can act any way they like towards the young women who date them because if one young woman won't put up with their outrageous irresponsible behavior, there's always another one who will.

The first step to healing poor neighborhoods in America is to legalize the drug trade.

Of course, social conservatives like you (despite paying lip service to concepts like personal responsibility and freedom of choice) won't allow that.

Please excuse the several typos in "Saving Purblic Education". I was hurried in my response and don't have my glasses on.

Legally mandate 20 students maximum per qualified teacher in clean, safe, equipped, classrooms. Enforce it. It will cost you a LOT of money. And it will work.

I won't send my kids to public schools, or to private schools that follow a public school teaching model. These teaching methods were designed to teach lower class and middle class children to be "good workers" - clean, obedient and docile. Too much time is spent in conventional class rooms teaching children to be quiet and to sit still. Kids who won't get with that program are too often labeled as ADHD and drugged. It's especially devastating for gifted children and creative children, who respond poorly to being taught in groups at the pace of the most average child in the class.

A few instruments and extra enrichment classes aren't really going to correct the fundamental flaw in the model.