Having four adult children, Hon, I know what you're talking about. It takes parents as well as teachers to raise kids these days. I'm well aware of the lack of parental involvement. Parents drop the kids off at school and expect the teachers to do it all.

I know what it's like for teachers to teach for a test. There's no room to teach anything else... well, except when a teacher decides they're gonna teach Values Clarification! That's why that beauty queen didn't know why people in the US can't find the US on a map, for pity's sake! Have you heard her answer?

That is precisely why I taught my two youngest sons at home. The older of the two studied at home for three years and knew more than the seniors of the local highschool did when he did his senior year in public school!

Let me give you one last example of the incompetence that some schools are putting out. The receptionist I was talking to at the repair place, when I asked her to check the fax machine for the dr's signed prescription, first she said she'd have to let the other girl handle it. "What?? Can't you walk to the fax machine and see if the fax is there??" She checked. When she came back she said "It hasn't CAME yet." "Came"???? Wrong tense, little girl! What's she doing out of highschool if she doesn't know the proper tenses of verbs?? She should have failed FIFTH GRADE!

It's also a well known fact that California schools are not much more than breeding grounds for violence. Even when I went to grade school, California schools were at the bottom of the list. You're back east, aren't you?

I know it's not ALL schools and it's not ALL teachers or ALL parents, yet, the majority of our kids aren't learning what they need to know. Proof is in the pudding.