I am not necissarily advocating teachers, per se, The classrooms where I was subing as a teachers aide, The teachers actually do try to teach. The best one I have been in was teaching algebra. I was in there to try to keep ONE boy focused. And from disrupting the whole class. The algebra teacher was a good teacher. That day she told the kids if they would bring her a folder for their papers that she would give them a whole grade to average into their semester grades. A week later I heard her teling other teachers that not one kid brought a folder. An other teachers class I sat in on was a world history class. The teacher seemed like a good teacher to me, but then I am interested in history. A number of kids in the class put their things away and laid their heads on their desk. Several others had ipods stuck in their ears. They are not supposed to have those or phones but if you try to take them away even for the duration of the class you are just causing a big bruhaha and it ruins the class time for the others who are trying to learn. I know that there are some teachers who should not even be teaching but I haven't seen one in our high school. Some times I am there to sit with one kid for X number of days in a room by ourselves because of some diciplinairy action. But I have less problems with these kids than a whole lot of the others. I do not belong to a teachers union or have a degree. I am just a substitute with a high school diploma. That is all we need in the small towns here to be able to sub. I don't know where I was when the rules were made. My kids graduated HS 30 yrs ago. No, I don't think kids are getting the education today that we got 50-60 yrs ago. I truley think discipline or the lack of, plays a big part in it. I am not meaning to step on anyones toes about what I have said. I am truley greatfull that I don't have kids in schools todayI would probably have them half beaten to death before they graduated. (figure of speech here)