When Did You First Hear That Public Schools Were Failing?

I started school in the first grade (we had no kindergarten) in Greenwood, Mississippi in September, 1943. We had one first grade teacher and no teaching assistants for over thirty students. Our reader was Dick and Jane.

I never heard anyone complain that public schools were failing.

In third and fourth grade, I attended school in a two-room, four grade country school house in rural Tulsa County, OK. The room was spartan. No library. No hall. We entered class through a door leading directly outside. There was no bathroom. Only an outdoor privy. I rode a bus over an hour to get there.

No one complained that public schools were failing.

I attended fifth and started sixth grade in temporary classrooms in Midwest City, OK. There was one teacher for over thirty students.

No one complained that the schools were failing.

I completed sixth through eighth grades in a rural school East of Oklahoma City. There were two grades in each classroom. I had the same teacher for all four grades. Many of my classmates had never set foot out of Oklahoma County. Many had never visited the state capital, ten miles away. Many students quit when they reached sixteen.

No one complained the schools were failing.

I was taken by bus ten miles into Oklahoma City for ninth and tenth grades. On the school grounds, older boys bullied younger ones and stole lunch money. Ninth grade students showed up for class some mornings drunk. Some stole cars and went joy riding. Most smoked. Many were sexually active from about the seventh grade on. Teachers were mediocre.

No one ever said the schools were failing.

We moved to Anchorage, Alaska. I walked two miles to school every day through snow drifts, often in below zero weather before sunrise.

No one ever said the schools were failing.

I graduated from the University of Mississippi and eventually received graduate degrees from Tufts and Harvard. I had no trouble competing.

Apparently I wasn't irreparably damaged by all those public schools.

Oh, by the way, what did those schools have in common? They were segregated (except for Anchorage - we had one African American in the high school).

When did I first start hearing that public schools were failing? Not until after school integration.

Could there be a connection?

Here's a good article from Huffington Post by an author who sends his children to public schools. He explains why.

My children also went to public schools. They aren't noticeably deprived or intellectually deficient.