Redboy, proper grammatical skills are indeed something of a lost art, especially amongst the youth of today. Seems they are too busy teaching children the latest politically correct doctrine, than they are teaching them the foundation of grammar skills that would serve them a for lifetime.
Teachers are not encouraged to teach anymore. There is no local or government funding or subsidies available to a school district that fails children, which results in poor statistics for the school, thus strangling the influx of subsidies.
No one, from the Regional superintendent, down to the third grade English teacher, wants to post "Bad Numbers", for they know how quickly the faults of the entire system will be placed into their laps by the finger pointing minions of the school system.
These teachers are left with a horrible choice, pass on students to the next grade that already arrived in their own classroom with substandard skills, and are un-prepared for the curriculum presented in the next grade, Or hold them back, and face the wrath of the the parents, all the way up to the top of the chain, and in the process lose any hope of advancement in their profession, if they are lucky enough to keep the job at all.
Remember the good old days, before every child was special, victim of this or that, and as such needed to be coddled? I'm not talking about students with obvious mental or physical problems, I'm talking about kids that 40 years ago would have been considered "Normal". Now, any kid with the slightest hint of a behavioral issue get sent off to doctors and shrinks, gets pumped full of medications, and the schools are forced into building special classrooms and hiring special staff and teachers.
This is stupid beyond stupid. A kid who may be a little hyper, or possessing a slight attitude problem, needs the structure of a regular classroom, and needs to learn the respect and discipline that comes with that environment.
Loading them up on the latest trendy medicine and putting them in a classroom full of other kids who are choosing not to abide by the rules of decent society, and putting in charge of that classroom some so-called "Special Ed" teacher who is not allowed to impart any kind of discipline or negative enforcement, only furthers these kids slide down the tubes into a society that will now have to pick up their slack, for the rest of their lives.
You treat a child like they can do no wrong, suffer no actions related to their performance or behavior, and you have a child that is going to grow up to be irresponsible, un-accountable, and reliant on government programs for their food, housing, medical, and so on, because they were never taught to be responsible, or that there were consequences to their actions.
ADD had a cure long before ADD was a "Disorder".... it was called discipline.
Take two whacks to the hand by a ruler, and call me in the morning, thats what they should be prescribing to the majority of these "Special Ed" behavioral cases.
