Donna2, SallyJo etc.

You continue to make sweeping generalizations about which there are only minor elements of truth.

You and your friends and relatives who think education has turned "180 degrees" from the good old days do not speak for the educators I know or what I believe is the greater majority of those who really know schools.

My wife and I are each the eldest of seven children. Of those 14 kids and 13 spouses, Twenty, including my wife and I, spent their careers or are currently in education. Everything from teaching and administrating in rich suburbs, poor rural schools, parochial and inner city schools. Every single one of us is proud of our years working with kids and families. We discuss education all the time and often we recall how hard it is, to some degree because communities and parents don't always value education or care about what their kids are doing. But it was absolutely no worse at the start or end of our careers. We weren't stymied by the politics - local, state or national. We were limited by our own less than perfect training, stamina and the size of the challenge. We all agree there is nothing as satisfying as watching children grow and learn.

I can honestly say, that, in addition to my immediate relatives, of the hundreds of other educators I know, I cannot recall a single one who is as negative as those to whom you refer in your posts.