[speaker001:] uh uh interestingly enough in my younger days I taught school for two years while my husband was getting his business established and I find the changes uh in the school system
[speaker002:] um-hum
[speaker001:] I think a lot of them very positive uh since his retirement the first of January in nineteen ninety I've gone back to subbing and of course subbing is a very different endeavor than teaching uh
[speaker002:] yes
[speaker001:] it's very difficult and I've after almost two years I've become a little bit disillusioned and I'm not real sure that I'm going to go back to it because uh of discipline uh although I've never had a problem with it I guess I've just gotten a little tired of fighting
[speaker002:] yeah what what do you said you think there're some improvements what do you think the improvements have been
[speaker001:] I think uh the quality of education in the high school system here is better I think the teachers that we have now are more professional and I think the students are more education minded than they were twenty years ago
[speaker002:] um-hum I think the problems that I see in the system uh are I I tend to see more in uh large inner city school districts that uh and I've I've noticed that uh suburban or rural schools tend to have much fewer problems at least what I from what I hear than than than the inside the city school districts
[speaker001:] uh-huh uh-huh
[speaker002:] and so I think the problem isn't so much the school system as in the things that go on around it
[speaker001:] in the community itself that spill over so to speak
[speaker002:] yeah um-hum well my my personal opinion is that so many parents especially those parents who are in a lower income and have to spend more of their energy on work they say okay well I I don't have to teach my kids anything the school's going to do it for me and I think the school can't
[speaker001:] uh-huh
[speaker002:] do that the school can only exist as something to help the parents out not something to take the parents' place
[speaker001:] um-hum I find that the school uses the parents as an excuse and the parents use the school as an excuse however
[speaker002:] um that that can be yeah
[speaker001:] we're in uh as I said a small town in Indiana and it's a WASP community with a student body of five hundred in the high school so the setting is very different than it would be in
[speaker002:] um-hum
[speaker001:] Dallas or Chicago or even Indianapolis which is a couple hours south of us uh but to me the the more gifted or the higher intelligent children are more geared to learning than they were they're more into the school system than they were twenty years ago and uh I find the Say No to Drugs campaign here
[speaker002:] um-hum
[speaker001:] to be I think very effective unless I have my head in the sand
[speaker002:] uh-huh yeah um that you know kind of goes along it it it's a small enough school where people can know each other and and they can work together to thwart off problems when when you've got a high school with you know three or four thousand students
[speaker001:] uh-huh
[speaker002:] um there's just no it's it's very difficult to keep track of them all
[speaker001:] uh-huh oh sure there are high schools as large as our community
[speaker002:] yeah
[speaker001:] which makes a totally different situation I've I've never felt that pouring more tax dollars in was the answer to solving any school problems or most of the school problems
[speaker002:] yeah the I I find that I I haven't seen any cases where that's been very effective and that seems to be what people want to do is just you know put more money into it and I just don't have a whole lot of confidence in that
[speaker001:] uh-huh
[speaker002:] I also you know I consider for example the the teachers the National Education Association you know they I would like to see them be more of a professional organization rather than a union because we need you know we need to we need to uh instead of worrying about saving jobs or raising salaries I think we need to worry about uh how well the job's getting done
[speaker001:] uh-huh isn't that the way with most groups though they become a self-protection thing uh of saving jobs or getting more salary uh
[speaker002:] um-hum yes
[speaker001:] I do I do find that the majority the majority of teachers in our group are very professional but then of course we're a stable community and many of them have been in the system for twenty years which I just can't think you'd find that in a large city school
[speaker002:] yes um-hum uh but you know back to the idea of parents I my my personal feelings is that parents need to be taking more responsibility I think the way I like to look at it you know a lot of people look at well whose job is it to teach the kids well it's the school's job I think whose job is it to teach the kids well primarily it's the parents job
[speaker001:] uh-huh uh-huh
[speaker002:] because the kids spend more time with the parents than they spend at school and the school is just there to help the parents
[speaker001:] uh-huh uh-huh
[speaker002:] so I think the the number one responsibility is on the heads of the parents and and we need to get to the idea well if the kids are are doing poorly in school then the parents need to take some sort of responsibility and and take some sort of action instead of just complaining about what the school is doing or not doing and sometimes if the parents don't like the way the school is being run the appropriate action is to have the choice to take that kid out of that school and put him in a different school
[speaker001:] except we don't have another school
[speaker002:] yeah that's in in small communities that's a difficult choice but then the small communities are the ones with fewer problems
[speaker001:] uh-huh because they have fewer students
[speaker002:] yeah it's it's the big cities that have these kind of problems and there I like to see that the parents be able to have a choice saying I don't like the way this school is being run I want to send my child to someplace where they'll be properly uh
[speaker001:] uh-huh
[speaker002:] properly taught and properly uh trained
[speaker001:] you don't find that parents are getting more involved in your area
[speaker002:] some parents are but some parents don't have the opportunity to do that as easily you know people that are working two jobs or single parents uh that sort of thing
[speaker001:] um-hum um-hum uh-huh I think single parents probably contribute a lot of the problems in school systems because the system's really getting sixty percent of the student's day if if the mother or the father certainly would have to work and they're not getting home until probably five o'clock at the very earliest and the student's out at three
[speaker002:] um-hum
[speaker001:] I think really uh the school does have more of that student's time because eight hours of the time that the student is with the parent they're going to be sleeping and certainly the parent needs some social life besides uh
[speaker002:] yeah um-hum and you know what it feels like to come home after a long day at work you you just you you want to rest for a little while and and maybe the children uh don't want you to rest
[speaker001:] they might need to be dealt with yeah
[speaker002:] yeah and it's it's a difficult problem and it's one that well basically I think in in in large measure it's it's it's up to the parents to take the responsibility for what's happening to their childrens education I think
[speaker001:] uh-huh uh-huh And we did have we did recently have a a group here formed called Students for Academic Excellence that was formed by concerned parents and they see that these these kids are getting honor jackets and they're getting certificates and they're getting uh more access to scholarships uh on a par with the athletes which uh this was formed I think probably in the last three years and that's been a very positive thing for education itself because so often the emphasis is on
[speaker002:] um-hum
[speaker001:] uh baseball basketball and football and it gets away from what the school is established for originally
[speaker002:] um-hum yes and here here in Texas if you don't like football y ou're considered a heretic
[speaker001:] uh well this is basketball in Indiana so
[speaker002:] yes that was going to be my guess
[speaker001:] uh-huh We do all have our sport In fact we've been on a real high here because our basketball team won their regional for the first time in the history of the school So sport is uh has been really first and foremost here in the last month But we hope that education is first and foremost for the year nice talking to you
[speaker002:] um-hum alright well thank you for the call
[speaker001:] uh-huh bye
[speaker002:] bye