The problem I see with public education today, and it wasn't this way when I went through, it that the "educators" of today don't really care if a kid isn't quite getting it at the lower levels. When my daughter was in the early grades and they were reading, the motto on the bigger words was "guess and go". In other words, and this came straight from her teacher's mouth, they don't want them to get hung up on a particular work. They would much rather have them guess and go so they can keep reading. My problem with that is that it taught them, and my daughter included, that when you see or come across something that is a little harder, give it a good guess and move on rather than spend the extra minute to figure it out for yourself and get it correct. I was livid! I couldn't believe what I was hearing, rather than TEACH, they would rather the kids guess on their own.

Now, they are so caught up in the WASL testing and the failure statistics that it is no longer PC to fail a kid in any grade until grade 12. That is where they get caught up in the "student weir" and are held until they can pass, or time out on age. Her senior class was full of "Super Seniors", or kids that couldn't graduate with their own classes and were held in high school for another year or two. Why? Because, in my opinion, the public school system did not place enough value on their early education to really teach them and instill in them problem solving and self-educating skills. Luckily, for my daughter, we supplemented her "public education" at home by helping her to learn what she should've learned in school. A lot of parents don't care to take the time with their own kids and they fall behind, some to never recover.

All schools care about is the numbers on paper, the statistics of failure rates, or how many asses are in the seats to qualify for funding the next year. They could really care less what those asses in the seats are learning, or if they are learning anything other than how to pass the WASL tests. It is a blatant disservice to we the taxpayers who fund the public school system.