Public Schools: the Good, the Comical, and the Absurd

Today, admittedly, there is a teacher shortage. The thing of it is, ever since I started teaching in 1959, there has been a teacher shortage. Overcrowded classes falsely assured us there was no teacher shortage. When forty pupils are placed in one class, instead of reasonably making two classes of twenty, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out more teachers will be needed.
Why didn’t anybody fix the problem? Simply, it was too expensive. The governments, both federal and state, didn’t care to make the investment in the children. It was just a matter of priority.
Everywhere we here people saying, “What’s the matter with the schools today? Why are the schools producing such an inferior product? What happened? Why when I went to school we learned.”
The answer is not that difficult. Nothing happened, that’s the problem. Nothing happened to all class sizes. (Some math and English classes were reduced.) Nothing happened to maintain the physical school buildings and grounds. Nothing happened to change the attitudes of those who demanded the ever revered 3rs. Teaching critical thinking faded. Nothing happened to improve the quality of school administrators, including those in the central office.
And why not? Simple: some in charge at the local level didn’t know what to do and if they did, getting the necessary funds to advance the quality of their product was never there.
“Why was that?” The answers are here: Either the federal, state and local governments were ignorant, or to them everything was fine; just the way they wanted it. We all know the former not to be true, so that latter must be the answer.
How is everything fine? Easy, the schools are producing everything that is important. There are enough doctors, dentists, computer experts, engineers, etc. The schools are indeed doing the job those in charge want; rigid noncreative jobs that are needed in the corporate world.