I see lots of conservatives attacking public schools. So what do you want? An end to public education?

I think parents are at fault. I had a public school education, and I did just fine - graduated in the top 10 of my class. If you want to learn, you will learn. I had great teachers (and no, none of them had a "liberal" agenda). Incentives for outstanding work may be the key. But to be truthful, I don't know. I would like to see these standardized tests done away with. Teachers have to concentrate more on preparing the kids to pass these test, and less on TEACHING THE KIDS.

I think its the parents fault for not putting enough emphazis on education. And the students themselves fault for not wanting to learn You cant improve anything untill you are able to improve the household these children are coming from...and not to mention that their are some teachers out there that shouldnt be teaching The solution is teaching kids the importance of education, but that must first be done in the household...and we could do without the standardize testing....

No, but throwing money at them has never made anything better. Education begins at home and many parents fail to accomplish this. When you see a struggling child in school, I will guarantee it's not the school rather the parents. There is nothing you can do, unless you had bad parents stop having 8-12 children. They are free to have as many children as they want.

those are all just talking points that they have been handed out as an assignment to repeat over and over and over..... the fact it, the best and brightest minds in this country were educated in public schools....

the teachers unions are not a problem in itself....and neither is the concept of "public education". that said....our education system has been run by liberals for the past 30 years...and it has failed miserably.

There is nothing about education that lends itself to government control. It is not a natural monopoly; rather it is something that could be handled much better with free enterprise and competition. Quality teachers and schools would thrive; bad ones would die. What we have now is the exact opposite: bad teachers are protected by their unions and bad schools get money thrown at them.

public schools have deteriorated in the last few decades! no one is holding teachers to the fire hence the *dumbing down of America*!

I just want as many choices as possible and I want the govt. to remove itself from the schools. The govt. hasn't done it or any other thing it's involved in any good.

I want to see the school voucher program in every state, available to every family. This means that they can use their tax dollars (use for public schools) to be able to be used for private schools instead. This would make the two systems compete with each other, forcing public schools to get better or go bye-bye. Competition, called Capitalism. It works.