RE: Giving up on education

["Larry Shapiro" <larryrshapiro@hotmail.com>]

I have spent 14 years as a volunteer for Public Education Improvement. The
survey of parents I preformed at the beginning yielded this answer to the
mission statement question, which I believe is unchanged since the early
1900's. 

"The purpose of sending my child to public school is so they can do better
(economically) that us (their parents)."

Confusion arose after WWII when colleges gave up their original mission of
helping people to achieve their own self-defined potential for the public
school role, and the public schools succumbed to political pressure by
dismissing distasteful "hard" mission statements, replacing their mission
statement with "taking students to the limit of their potential". I believe
this impossible to measure mission statement lies at the root of public
education dissatisfaction.

Larry