The American Education Debacle in the Age of Trump

A friend who teaches 6th grade in a public school in Hawaii notes:

The majority of his students have no real aspirations for learning or academic achievement.

Their parents don’t care any more than the kids themselves.  

The kids are disruptive in class, to the degree that it’s impossible for those who want to learn to accomplish anything.

If he so much as brushes up against an offender, he is threatened with arrest by law enforcement.

He can call security, who will remove a kid, talk to him for 10 – 15 minutes, before returning him to class where the behavior will continue.

Except under unusual circumstances, the lowest grade he can give is a C.  A test result of 0% is a C, meaning that there are literally no qualifications for promotion to 7th grade.

Two main problems here.

a) He’s frustrated, and like so many other good people trapped in similar situations, he’s desperately trying to leave.

b) Given that the high school turns out functionally illiterate kids, we need to ask ourselves: where is this going?  You tell me.  Yes, the rich can still send their kids to private schools, but imagine the life trajectory for all the rest, who can barely read and write, and have little or no command of math and science.

This is what we’ve done to this formerly great nation.