When Shapiro and Djfan tell us to get our kids out of the public schools, they speak the truth. Djfan has first-hand experience based on his 17 years in education. I base the following on my far less inculcated experiences. Specifically, California colleges once required prospective graduates to pass a composition test to qualify for graduation. Remember, these are prospective college graduates. The assignment was basic - the test provided a topic and the student had three hours to compose an essay to demonstrate the minimum competence with the English language needed to graduate.
That test was too difficult for "disadvantaged" students and the California colleges did away with the exam some years after I graduated. In other words, potential college graduates found composing an essay in three hours beyond their abilities in English, grammar, composition and spelling.
I also considered working as a substitute teacher following my college graduation. To qualify, I took something called the California Basic Education Skills Test, or CBEST. If I were to describe the test as easy, I would be vastly overstating the difficulty. The test is a joke. For example, the test has a math portion that asked test-takers to calculate the area of a triangle. Okay, this requires some rudimentary knowledge.
No, it doesn't - the test gives you the formula for the calculation, 1/2 base x height. All the test-taker had to do was recognize what number was the base and which the height and be able to multiply. Seriously, the exam tested my ability to multiply whole numbers.
So prospective teachers must laugh at this joke of a "test," right? Not at all. A large number fail the exam and claim it is discriminatory. The passage rate for first-time CBEST test takers was recently 69%. 31% of individuals who wanted to become teachers lacked the basic knowledge most of us had - I hope - by 6th grade. So when Shapiro and Djfan tell us to get our kids out of public school, I cannot emphasize strongly enough how right they are.