billy8, Sand Springs (8/30/2009 10:10:04 AM)

The kids in high school today are not learning a lot of the stuff I learned back in th '60's. I have yet to see a reading list, or basic math and science being taught today to the extent that we had when I was a kid. A lot of high school grads can't read or write a coherent sentence, or do basic math skills when giving change at McDonalds without the computer to tell them.

HitAnyKey, Tulsa (8/30/2009 10:46:24 AM)

It is tragic that our taxpayer dollars are supporting these public schools, and then parents have to pay college tuition for "remedial" courses their children should have learned in high school. This is exactly why we made enormous financial sacrifices to send our child to a top notch college preparatory school. After the academic rigors of Cascia Hall, our child had a wonderful college career, with no "remedial" classes.

MarkB, Oklahoma City (8/30/2009 11:17:25 AM)

Most of it is in algebra, a subject most of us struggled with many moons ago

Tough but Fair, COWETA (8/30/2009 12:06:56 PM)

HitAnyKey - you are 100% correct about the broken public high schools and the cheating system that fails to educate our kids while in high school and then goes on to enrich college coffers with absolutely no return on our investment. I admire you for making the financial sacrifice to send your child to CH - and I know you are proud of your child's success. You are one of the fortunate ones; not all of us have the means, no matter how hard we work, to do the same.

Where is the outrage and the political will to change this ongoing culture of cheating our kids - and us taxpayers - by correcting the deficiencies within our public high schools?

Have we become so dissociated from our obligation to the common good that we simply look after our own - and ignore those who continue to be victims of this disgraceful broken system?

Why are we taxpayers not demanding a better return on our investment of tax dollars?

Why should HitAnyKey have to pay double – first in taxes for our public schools and then in private school tuition - in order to provide his child with a decent education?

Oklahoma citizens have the perfect opportunity coming up soon to remedy this sorry situation. For 20+ years we have endured an elected State Superintendent of Education who has been nothing more or less than a bought and paid for mouthpiece of the teachers' unions and her political party and who has run a polished PR campaign promoting her own popularity among sheep-like teachers who believed (wrongly) that she was their salvation, as well as her own personal career ambitions from the Office of the State Superintendent of Schools. We can all thank God she will be gone soon, and we can finally get down to the real work of changing leadership and solving the problems within our high schools that have been ignored and that have cheated us all for an entire generation.

I urge all taxpayer/voters to start NOW looking for a candidate for this most important elected office - one who will commit to finally fixing these problems in our public high schools. We all know what the problems are - we simply have not had the committed leadership in place to face them down and change them. We voters must now muster the political courage to demand that whomever fills the State Superintendent of Schools chair in the future has no other goal than guaranteeing our kids a high school quality education. Period. (Continued below.)

Tough but Fair, COWETA (8/30/2009 12:07:19 PM)

We must not have our heads turned by glossy resumes which list offices held in national education associations or teachers' unions, nor should we decide whom to elect based on other politicians' glowing recommendations. Voters must not be intimidated by long lists of degrees earned, nor campaign speeches filled with promises of new education theories that are too complex for us to grasp.

We voters must ask common sense questions like this:

"What do you plan to do to ensure that all our high school graduates who want to go to college are able to enter college fully prepared for for-credit coursework?"

"How do you intend to restore discipline and an environment that encourages learning in our high schools?"

If we don't hear common sense answers to common sense questions, then we won't vote for that candidate.

Correcting the deficiencies in our high schools is not rocket science, people. We must stand together now and demand that the education of every single high school graduate in Oklahoma is a quality education and that we stop being cheated at every turn.

Ron B, (8/30/2009 4:07:22 PM)

This isn't a shock to me. When I graduated from OU back in 1970, it was common knowledge that students who flunked out of their classes could go to the College of Education and do well. Graduation was mainly comprised of Education Majors who became the teachers who can't teach your young people.

Schools are too busy teaching kids a value system based on the idea they are a product of chance and time. Being without a Creator, they become the "Final Authority" in determination of right and wrong. Families have turned over their right to raise their children to the schools, and we are paying the price for it.

Moses, Jenks (8/30/2009 4:10:58 PM)

So am I to understand that we now learn our brilliant, under paid teaching professionals, in our public schools, are NOT adequately teaching our children the basic fundamentals and preparing them for college?
Wow, maybe these teachers are overpaid and should be tested themselves in order to keep their jobs!
Did this problem exist before the teacher’s union and the NEA took control of our schools?

thinker, (8/30/2009 4:33:12 PM)

They are put in remedial classes because they didn't score a certain score. Sometimes kids do not try. They are in a hurry and want to just get it over with......Everything is not the teacher's fault everytime...sometimes young people are responsible for their own actions-

trickledown, Park Hill (8/30/2009 7:41:52 PM)

Moses, come down from your mountain. The teachers have been tested since 1990. The students are tested, their is accountability, the Universities make momey from remedial classes. Hello!Do you really think that the schools are as poor as they were when you cheated your way through?

Ron Ballew, Lawton (8/30/2009 8:22:14 PM)

I read somewhere that if kids were taught right they could get a college degree in 12 years of school instead of just a high school diploma.

Too many classes in elementary and high school are just a waste of time and boring.

Ron Ballew, Lawton (8/30/2009 8:26:10 PM)

The primary purpose of mandatory education is to keep kids out of the job market, so that adults do not have to compete against kids with no dependents who will accept minimum pay just to buy a car and gas to take their girl to the movies.

native07, Pawhuska (8/31/2009 10:46:28 AM)

I think it's how well you apply yourself in high school.. I think it's more of accountibility than anything... It's how well you prepare and study more than anything.. So i don't blame anyone teachers but more of how well the students listens and prepares there own self