Oh this pisses me off..

We keep hearing about how our education is as low as 29th in the Industrial world in Education.

I have to say that this is appalling. As an American I am disgusted with the politicians in this country for letting this happen to our nation. We still want to throw more and more programs into the mix, with the worst one being "No Child Left Behind." We want to blame the public education system, the teachers, and the unions.

There is one group however that I don't hear any of the politicians crying about, and who might that be? THE PARENTS

It doesn't matter how much or how little you pay a teacher. It doesn't matter how many extra classes a teacher takes to be prolific in his or her subject. It doesn't matter how strong or weak the Unions are. It doesn't matter how advanced the program might be.

What matters the most is how involved the PARENTS are in their child's lives.

You can have a child that goes to a "challenged" school, with little funding, and every thing working against them yet they are successful because they have the total support from their parental figures.

Then on the other hand you can have a child going to a "superior" school with all the advantages that every child should have, and because they are ignored by their parental figures they find ways of screwing up just to get attention.

Americans are so pre-occupied with their own lives that they forget about their children's futures. Children do no ask to be born. They are forced into this world, cold and naked, and all they long for is to be loved and accepted.

The problem is that Americans feel they deserve to have fun all the time. We place so much importance on going to bars, getting drunk, watching the big game, or (God help us) NASCAR. We need to hang out with friends, and waste time fiddling around. All things we place before our children's education.

We have too many divorced parents. Part time moms and dads who are usually fighting with each other, or trying to hard to keep up with the new living situation that cause the children to become second place.

Sometimes its even worse because the parents work so much to have the "good" life, that the start to neglect the children.

Now I am not saying that these other things aren't important. You need teachers who are good at their jobs. You need programs to help guide the children. You need funds to help keep everything running, but where I think the politicians need to spend more time is trying to figure out a way to get parents more involved in the lives of the children.

It is only then that we will see the improvements that are needed for a successful education system.