America's Failed Education System

I have my own views on why America's public school system is failing. I would sure love to hear yours! I get to appear on Adler's show Tuesday and will mention all good reasons left as comments here.

This is beyond stupid. Growing up on the prairies, PB&J sandwiches were poor people food, somewhat above lard sandwiches. We were pretty much dirt-scratching poor but for 12 years it was cheese or meat sandwiches plus an apple. Portland must be pig-poo poor (lower than dirt-scratching) if PB&J sandwiches were rich people food. Isn't that what you feed the red-headed step-child. I never actually saw a lard sandwich, just heard about them.

Allergies do exist. So do brownshirt fascists who would turn this into an opportunity to stretch their authoritarian muscles and advance a crackpot agenda (just like Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector of England- Puritan).

Growing up, the kid in class (that's singular) who was allergic to some kind of food was rare and not deathly allergic.

Robert the system is failing because no intelligent, well-educated person would ever want to go near it. It would be too frustrating.

My kids tell me I would be a great school teacher, and I think they are probably right, but no way on earth would I do it. I would lose my mind after one week, whether it be the endless political correctness, the endless useless educational fads (whole word reading, watered down math, etc. etc.) and the mindless unions.

Today anyone with a brain who believes in high standards would never become a teacher because the system is poisoned.

A couple of things to keep in mind during your conversation with Charles Adler:
With a graph showing how Chicago public school students fit in with other major metro areas in terms of hours taught.. although I think that's a minor point.

"While 12% of American students go to private schools ... 39% of Chicago public school teachers' kids go to private schools.
...
You can return, or factory recall, a poorly made product, but you can't return or recall a poorly educated public school student."

http://babalublog.com/2012/09/real-hard-to-feel-sympathetic/

I've read that the public education system in Finland is excellent. I'd suggest looking there for an answer, perhaps focusing on rewarding excellence, and punishing mediocrity.
The teacher's unions, are not in the business of having students excel, they negotiate for higher wages and benefits, greater pensions, less strenuous working conditions...

Perhaps the teachers could stop giving a B+ to most folks for simply showing up, and more zeros for those that don't do the required work. It would be easier to weed the poor teachers out of a system that doesn't reward excellence, by having the teachers unions de-certified. After all, it's for the children.

TJ's points are bang on.

I have been offered employment as a teacher a few times (in the public system in Ontario), but would never accept it. You are a glorified and overpaid daycare attendant working for the government. And forced into a union.

No thanks. Teaching in the private sector (when I am asked to) is much more rewarding.

I had great public school teachers 30-40 years ago in Ontario - of course they actually taught useful and interesting things and weren't a political pawn to the government as they are now.

I'd rather have a falafel than a PB&J most of the time but that's just me.

The purpose of invoking the false notion of "white privilege" is to induce guilt. Don't fall for it.

The real lesson of this story is: End public education now!

PB&J was 'poor people food'? Not in Don Mills in the '60s. Every kid ate it; peanut allergies were virtually unknown. And there was nothing like running home for lunch on a cold winter day to find a bowl of steaming chicken noodle soup and a PB&J. My brother and I used to dunk our sandwiches in the soup.

The contention that a sandwich can be racist is so ludicrous it defies belief. This is a classic example of why bureaucracies have to have sunset clauses, because once their initial purpose has been served, they have way too much time on their hands to churn out nonsense. The neo-fascists are like a ratchet; they only turn one way, and it's always to stifle freedom.

I think it's time to bring back the lard sandwich in schools for a number of reasons. When I was growing up, bacon fat and ketchup sandwiches were one of my favorite things to bring to school for lunch. I couldn't eat peanut butter back then (not an allergy, for some reason I just vomited when I tried to eat peanut butter).

The lard sandwich was a great example of "sustainability" in that the bacon fat that one got from ones bacon and eggs breakfast was recycled for lunch. My attempts to make a classic bacon fat sandwich have been frustrated lately as the left over bacon fat refuses to solidify into the hard white solid I remember so fondly from my childhood. It may be that I'm keeping the house too warm (my parents liked to keep the temperature indoors at 55 F to save on heating costs). It may also be that the pigs of today are eating too many polyunsaturated fatty acids.

The lard sandwich has the same effect on repelling muzzies as does garlic to repel vampires and one can throw garlic slices onto the lard sandwich to ensure one isn't bothered by vampires either. Using whole grain bread (unknown in my childhood) will make the lard sandwich a healthy lunch.

I'm with Scar on this one. When I was a kid the poor kids ate peanut butter and the better off kids ate colds cuts.

I ate peanut butter and I didn't even know we were poor.

Listened a couple minutes. Okay.

Using illustrations from kid's life experiences, not necessarily the "average" kids experience, so as not to "exclude" anyone. Okay.

Like my aunt was stoned to death the other day 'cause she wore the wrong coloured burka.

Or we go visit uncle Joe in prison, and enjoy his stories. He's there cause he killed a guy while high on meth.

Ziad has three lunches 'cause his dad lives with three moms and they ALL make the school lunch.

…..mention of the sandwich…..principal…..Verenice Gutierrez….an example of a subtle form of racism.

It could be said that the principal is in a tailspin and her/his head is stuck up her/his ass, however impossible that may seem.
It would seem only a racist could come up with that kind of interpretation.

How can idiots like that get in a position to teach young people.

I was poor?

Put a peanut butter sandwich in a zip lock bag and watch the school go in lockdown mode

The whole thing is that there is a significant difference between success rates in their school district of white and non-white students. Instead of realistically trying to tackle the real problem and cause of that fact (I believe to be the culture of low expectations especially from the parents of said kids) they are trying to come up with feel-good Liberal crap policy to be more "inclusive" hoping that maybe some kids will be motivated by that. Hah! Good luck. Stupid crappy policies - not going to help because they are tackling the real problems.

Robert:

The answer to there education system's problems is the same as it is for the healthcare system.

All participants need to be made accountable.

Achieving that goal/answer is also similar in both cases: make the money follow the student (or patient). In education this can be easily done by the use of vouchers. Voucher systems have been implemented to some extent in a few states in the US and in a way that is how the Alberta system operates.

No surprise which group opposes vouchers tooth and nail: teachers unions and entrenched education dept bureaucrats.

If time permits this am I will post a simple outline of how such a system would work.

We live in a democracy, but we are anything but free.

I'm with Scar on this. The poor kids had to eat that and it wasn't PB&J. Jelly is too costly. It was PB and a coagulated mess that was probably no-name strawberry jam.

"While 12% of American students go to private schools ... 39% of Chicago public school teachers' kids go to private schools.
- marc in calgary

This is the ONLY thing you need to say to public school advocates, and it's a universal fact of life. I read something the other day (Bruce Bawer?) about the Netherlands: the bureaucrats drop their kids off at white schools at 8:30 am and from behind their desks at 9:00 am promote the glories of multiculturalism and public schooling increasingly dominated by muslims.

I once had a fierce argument with the owner of a private film school who hated free enterprise and loved the public school system and who showered me with UN stats about the glories thereof, when I suddenly realized his own two sons were going to private schools. A public school teacher customer once told me that "today, I wouldn't dream of sending my children to a public school".

Again, this is the ONLY fact you need in a debate with unionized public school teachers, who know in their hearts how bad it is and who do not want the disastrous government schooling for their own precious urchins; who know it, but out of understandable self-interest can't say it out loud.

Don't know for sure if this is true or not but:
I've been told that children of fisherman in Nova Scotia used to be teased because of their ... LOBSTER sandwiches.

In the Simpsons episode where "Marge goes to jail" Homer makes the lunches. Bart's lunch consists of PB smeared on a playing card.

When the twelve-year old granddaughter of a friend dropped out of school in Vancouver, I just said "good", to the considerable upset of my wife,
who still believes in education. The girl is now about 20 and has not suffered in the least for her limited PC indoctrination.
Similarly, the Chicago teachers' strike is good - for the students. Some might even watch Fox TV!

Re "Me No Dhimmi": yes, lobster used to be poor man's food. Not only in Canada - an older Indian friend told me that in the subcontinent of his youth,
"if you ate lobster you didn't brag about it."

It probably has something to do with the low fat content of lobster vis a' vis beef and pork, fat being essential for hard work in a cold climate.

The mindset that pins identity group politics to a PB&J Sandwich is fully demented. Thinga re way off the track on the pedagogue planet.

Perhaps if they were as concerned about the students grades in math/science/Hist/etc. ....

"39% of Chicago teachers send their kids to private schools."

Sure, they probably want to see the little darlings come home at night. Just a couple of weeks ago, Drudge had an item about close to 30 people, including some young kids, being shot in Chicago over the course of a couple of hours.

But this is nothing new. Some of you may remember Steven Lewis, once-leader of the NDP, and then freeloader at the UN and other useless organizations.

He sent his son to Upper Canada College in Toronto.

nold "It was PB and a coagulated mess that was probably no-name strawberry jam"

What was it? The big can of Empress, I think, apple and raspberry jam. I highly suspect that by count there were an equal number of apples and raspberries in the can plus a bushel of pectin to coagulate it. Love peanut butter, hate jam.

Given the way "Matt" was dancin" my BS detector has another theory:

What if "Principal Verenice"
(who sounds like one of those high political profile
useless teachers who are shunted to principal and
then out of the system as a full time teacher's union
official or onto the political treadmill as a reliable
Democratic Party ward healing hack)

thought that the jelly used to make PB sandwiches contains pig gelatin
which is "haram" to Muslims? What if she saw Muslim parents coming
after her in a nightmare? It doesn't seem to, because pectin is usually
the listed thickening ingredient, but what if?
Then this whole bit of PC theatre starts to make sense.

Some excellent points. Thank you all!

First they came for the PBJ's, next thing you know, concentration camps.

I think your tinfoil hats are on two tight guys. Yes, this is supremely annoying, but you know what? Everybody will live, and this is not a sign of creeping fascism, so much as a mild annoyance resulting from either a very real allergy, or at worst, a few control-freaky individuals.

minuteman: "When I was a kid the poor kids ate peanut butter and the better off kids ate colds cuts."

How about, I ate PB&J sandwiches every day because I made my own lunch?

I remember hearing or reading of someone who tried to count all the bodies at schools from peanut allergies. After looking at all the schools in the world that he could, he couldn't find any. I am not discounting the seriousness of allergies, it's just that someone else eating a peanut butter sandwich won't kill you.