Video: John Stossel, Stupid in America

I am a current public school teacher. I can testify that many of the things in the video is true. I can testify to the force and power of the teacher's union, in my case, the California Teacher's Association. You are automatically enrolled into CTA, with membership fee automatically deducted monthly. It was $30 back in 2005. I don't want to join the CTA, so I opted out. They do let you opt out, but they still take that $30 away from you, because they work for EVERY teacher's benefit. Later that year, CTA was fighting Arnold, because Arnold was trying to reform CA schools. So they raised the membership fee without a general vote from CTA members, from $30 to $90 something INDEFINITELY! To fight Arnold! And they won! I left CA in 2006. I don't know if the membership fee is still $90. It is the first time in my life to realize that an organization such as CTA in the US is MORE communist than Communist China! I come from Taiwan, so I know the Chinese Communist. It was OUTRAGEOUS!

Now I am still teaching in public schools. I can testify that it is a very difficult situation. I believe vouchers can help, but there are also many other issues involved. I think getting the Federal gov't out of education will be the first thing. Based on the principle of liberty, we should give parents and students free choices, not just which school to go to, but whether to go to any school at all! That's liberty. Education should not be mandatory, it should be received freely. And parents should pay for it directly. State is not responsible for educating anyone. Parents are responsible for educating their own children. So home school should be the best solution. If they don't want to or can't, then they can hire someone to educate their kids for them with their own money. This will allow the abolishing or greatly reduce property tax, which is unfair to charge residents for services they might not use. So, lets have real freedom in education. No government involvement and free market competition and parental responsibility. That's the way to go.

Let's get out the public schools!
http://www.exodusmandate.org/

as well as videos of other John Stossel shows. ABC and John Stossel has a whole series of his libertarian-oriented videos available for free to send to teachers that want to use them for their classes.

in S.C. we have a had a new state super intendent (no idea how to spell word) for a couple of years now.

Also I am quit surprised he did not bring up the crappy curricullum

Fortune Favors the Bold

first, this seems a little dated, based on the movies. secondly, note the monopoly game was AFTER finals. Most schools don't even have classes after finals, but if they do, the remaining classes are pretty much just social events. The same thing would happen on the last day before winter break. Attendance was super low, so the teachers would have holiday parties or something for the kids who bothered to show up.

It's sort of the equivalent of making a documentary about a business and going to their christmas party and saying oh my god, look at the state of american business!

This federal Department should be abolished.

It was started in the '50s and Reagan spoke of eliminating it.

But big entrenched government agencies seem impossible to end.

This agency has one agenda. To dumb down the population and keep them easier to control.

If kids were taught the U.S. Constitution, Austrian economics, sound monetary policy, proper role of government and maybe a little Ayn Rand thrown in, they would grow up to be ethical and intelligent.

And government could simply not control them as today.

We are raising sheeples.

Thank God I didn't bring any into this world to be pawns of the Socialist American government.

It's the parents job to teach the children. That's right ! Parents, Take some responsibility. Parents plant the learning seed and the children can learn pretty much anything that the "public school system" puts in front of them. Most teachers and school staff are not qualified to even teach. When schools are regulated by any level of government you can bet there are going to be major problems. When colleges are set up for the purpose of drive threw diplomas for the all mighty dollar there are going to be problems.
Most public schools now have some level of government security and underqualified teaching and counseling staff. Children at any level know when a teacher is trying to help them or not. Children also know if a teacher knows what they are teaching or not. Most teaching tactics today are negative, deceiving, threatening, etc. etc.. And when any level of government is involved, be it in the curriculum, teaching, counseling, coaching, volunteering and on and on. You can count on confrontations.
Stupid is stupid does.
People who are stuck on the television tube and msm brainwashing, computer games, etc. with no direction of maintaining freedom are convinced that they cannot think for themselves. Exactly what the corrupt individuals running this country want.
Wake up People !

At the point when the federal government got into the act, the #1 purpose of public education was to change attitudes and corrupt morals, NOT TO TEACH. Some history ...

In the late 1800's prior to mandatory education, the literacy rate in America was 97% and "adolescence" wasn't even a word, much less the term "juvenile delinquency." Children were either taught at home or were schooled for a few years until they were competent readers and proficient in math. After that, they learned alongside adults ... helping in the family business or being apprenticed to skilled craftsmen. This made for a self-reliant, independent populous ... men and women who could marry at 16 and take care of a family!!!

Unfortunately, this loose system of education would never prepare workers for the industrial revolution ... where children and adults were expected to work long hours in factory sweatshops for chump change. So, a public school system, modeled after the Prussian schools, was begun. In that system, children were basically trained to be compliant robots. They made nearly perfect factory workers for the big shot industrialists and robber barons.

For the communist NWO to succeed, educational goals had to change once again. The plan was for factory workers to become extinct in America. Enter the US Department of Education where it was most important that young children learn to slip condoms onto cucumbers, become "street smart" about drugs, be terrorized by doomsday scenarios like global warming bs, etc. People trained in this system are living, eating, breathing and VOTING all around us. The only thing they're not doing is thinking ... because they can't. And that's not really their fault. But they are doing drugs, sleeping around, producing children who will never have a stable home life and VOTING for Barry Obama ... their savior!

The public school system is communist and programmed to produce idiots. Even the schools that succeed in basic teaching are still producing defective citizens ... devoid of a moral foundation.

There was nothing deficient in Greenspan's education, or Kissinger's or Cheney's, or Bernacke's! What these men lack is a moral foundation. Their first-rate education has permitted these men (and thousand more like them) to spread death and destruction around the globe very efficiently.

Only God can save us now.