I can’t speak for elementary school teachers, since I do not teach those grades. I can speak for high school since I’m a 20 year veteran. The debate about who’s to blame for our current education system should not be about whose responsible, liberals, or conservatives. There’s enough blame to go around for all parties.

Parents are a child’s first teachers. My father was a high school teacher for 32 years. My parents taught the values of hard work, what a good education can do for us, and other important values as well. Out of the three of us children two of us became teachers, but all of us are college graduates. My sister teaches kindergarteners. I teach sophomores, juniors, and seniors. My sister and I are opposite when it comes to politics. I’m to the right, she’s to the left. Yet her two children, one in college the other a junior in high school are high achievers. Both of have taken the senior exit exam (California) to graduate when they were sophomores and pass.  Her youngest is taking honors and AP classes next year. My oldest has straight A’s as freshman taking sophomore geometry, and sophomore biology. Next year she is enrolled in honor classes. My point is parents can make or break their child education career. 

We have parents who won’t buy a computer for their children, but they make sure they spend $4000 on that 50” HD screen TV. We have parents who say they can’t afford $75 for a cap and gown, but they make sure their children have that $300 IPod, that they are not suppose to bring to school, or that $300 I phone. We have parents who have children who are failing every class, but they will still pull their child out of class for 1-2 weeks for that fishing trip, or trip to Disneyland. We have parents who instead of engaging their children in conversations about school, or about what going on in the world around them, would rather set their children in front of that TV. that gets 150 channels, or that computer to play games, or that video console just to shut them up.

We have teachers, who have called parents to explain to them that their child refuses to do their work in class or their homework only to have parents shouting profanities at the teacher telling them it’s their fault that their child is failing. From both the left and right, they make excuses for why students fail. The left blame the right for conservative policies, the right blames the teacher’s union and teachers. They both seem to forget the responsibly of the parents and the students in this equation. 

Conservatives say let’s get rid of public education, everyone goes to private school, those who can’t afford it, get vouchers. Good idea, you’ve just created a public school, where teachers are not require to have credentials, nor are they require to have a degree in the single subject that they are teaching (high school). Public school teachers in California who teach a single subject are require to be fully credentials, they are also require to have a degree in the subject they are teaching or pass an extremely difficult test to demonstrate their knowledge.

The Europeans have higher test scores, but don’t forget they only test their brightest students, we test the masses. In other countries teachers are highly respected members of society. In our country the attitude is, he only became a teacher because he couldn’t get a real job. I spend 15 years working in the real world, three of those years in management position. I was successful at it, but bored. High School teachers don’t have time to teach political correct ideas, they have to teach to the California standards and follow a pacing guide.