quote:
There's nothing wrong with our public education system, it's perfectly good, the problem is with students and parents. You get what you put in to public education. If parents want their children to read then they'll emphasize that in the home and the kids will carry that into the classroom, if not then they'll grow up to be functionally illiterate. I'm perfectly fine with that being how it is, we need fry cooks and garbage men and if they want to self select more power to them.

+1000

People that blame the education system are the ones that have never really seen it up close. No offense to the OP, but your post comes across as pretentious as frick. No, not everyone can afford a "good" education for their kids. That's kind of the point. The impoverished families, usually single parent home, can't afford much of anything. Not only that, the things they do buy with their money aren't exactly tools their children can use to better themselves. Granted, there are exceptions, but for the most part, these kids coming out of shitty situations really just don't give a shite because no one around them does either.