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district, students have to share textbooks, teachers send home notices to parents to donate supplies to the school, and teachers are offering extra credit and free homework passes to those fortunate enough to be able to afford to bring reams of paper or dry erase markers to class to give to the teacher.

When did grades stop being about student performance and become more about what the student could afford to bribe the school district with? How does, as in the case of my daughter's junior and senior year in high school, a ream of paper brought to school for a free 100 on the student's grade report in any way accurately reflect that student's ability to write a research paper?

My daughter is a very intelligent young lady, in her second year of college seeking a degree in Music Therapy. She was an honors student at her high school, having graduated in the top 10% of her class, was a member of the National Honor Society, Texas Scholars, and was in the accelerated academics program in her high school, and received commended performance on both sections of her exit level standardized tests. By all accounts, she is an excellent student, and yet, she cannot spell to save her life, and so help me if she uses their, there, and they're wrongly again - I might scream.

In my opinion, her high school education was below minimum standards required to enter the workforce and be productive in anything other than lower paying minimum wage, manual labor type jobs. And seriously, folks, she's a smart kid - she just hasn't learned near what I was taught in high school just 20-24 years ago.

With college curriculums changing to reflect the needs of the expanding digital and technological global workforce, if our elementary and secondary school districts do not do something to keep up with these changes, they are turning out students who are ill prepared for the shifting college requirements and completely unprepared for the global job market.

This, as well as an increasing inability of our schools to protect our students, the implementation of asinine zero tolerance policies, and an inability or unwillingness to teach to the child instead of teaching to the test, and low funding and inappropriate resources for children who do not meet the expected, but outdated, norm for a student in school today are all the reasons why I made the decision to home school my son.

I still believe that if the system worked as it should, if the school districts taught to the needs of the child and not the needs of a test or the state, and if the schools could allow children the freedom to be children, that public school would be the best solution for a child. Unfortunately, I don't know of any school districts that are currently equipped to meet the needs of every child.

The school system in America is broken - and I can only hope that this doesn't lead to our children being raised with educations that are inadequate and unable to meet the demands of the global marketplace, while competing with countries whose school systems are much better suited for the changing face of a social and economical landscapes.

Learn more about this author, Michelle L Devon.
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