A must watch about our schools

I'm assuming that these students took hours of footage on the cameras they were given, most of which was left on the editing-room floor. It happens with everything (I was involved with a film a year or so ago -- I couldn't believe at first the hundreds of hours of raw footage which are condensed down to a two-hour movie.). The thesis of the piece is that public schools leave something to be desired -- any footage which contradicts that is obviously not going to be shown.

One part of the piece that I find bubbling back up in my mind as I write this is the boy dancing around with his shirt off. When I was in first grade, or somewhere around there, there was a boy in my class who did things like that. He disappeared for a few weeks after a while, then he came back. It turned out that his father was abusing him at home, which is why he acted out in school, and was ultimately moved to a foster home. My point in telling you this is that there's always more to the story than you see in a news report or documentary -- there's just not enough time to tell the full story. I have no idea what the full story would reveal in this case, though.

I think the root of the problems in public schools is their mandatory nature. School vouchers won't solve the problem, as it's still mandatory that children attend school somewhere, and a private school with a legally-enforced customer base like that has no incentive to do anything but cut costs to the bare minimum. Education in this country was of a much higher quality before it was mandatory.

 

When I was in grade school(many many years ago) we had one of the local media personalities come talk to the students. The one and only thing I remember her saying clearly is that when you watch shows like that you have to keep in mind that they have 3 objectives in mind. 1) is to make it entertaining, 2) is by making it entertaining it will generate ratings which in turn generate revenue and 3) is to be accurate or unbiased view. So you can see where the priorities lye.

I am in no way saying that the school system here is anywhere close to where it could be. I went to public schools and I know just how screwed up they are. I can only imagine what they are like now.