There was a time when teachers received their training because they had a desire to teach youngsters how to think.............not what to think. Before federal involvement, parents were very involved in the schools. Parent-Teacher organizations had a voice in selecting who was hired and who was fired when it came to the teachers.

When I taught, there were still neighborhood schools, and the only school buses you saw were those bringing children in from the country homes. Most children walked to their school and many parents walked to the parent-teacher meetings.

There was a one day pre-school meeting of teachers and the principal which dealt with basic issues of schedules and how best to please the parents while accomplishing educational goals. Remember those? Reading, writing and arithmetic were the principle subjects along with history, geography and social studies. We even had special visiting teachers who taught art and music once, sometimes twice a week.

Children received honest grades and those who were not as advanced as others had a chance to receive rewards in other areas such as "good citizenship". Teachers often spent extra time with "problem students", but there was no concern for subjects that were to be handled by parents such as sex education and community problems. Anger management was handled in the Principal's Office.......usually very successfully.

Enter (from stage left) the NEA,supposedly a fine professional organization for teachers, followed closely by the federal Dept. of Education and and increases in teacher's salaries followed closely by the establishment of a teacher's union, which is what the NEA became. It spelled the end of what had at one time been an honored profession and brought about the politicalization of the schools where children have been removed from local schools, often being bussed many miles from their homes and parents have, for all intents and purposes, been removed from any choices as to what is being done to their children's minds.

Gone are the "good old days" when America could boast about having the best educated young people in the world. We are very near the bottom of the list now.