[speaker001:] It's, it's hard topic because is, is, is it doing a good job or a bad job and you got to divide it two different categories whether you live in the city or whether you live in a more rural place like I do.
[speaker002:] Yeah, and are you talking about public schools being lower level, high school level or
[speaker001:] Well, public school all the way up
[speaker002:] state school.
[speaker001:] kindergarten all the way up to, uh, uh, high school.
[speaker002:] Okay, but you're excluding high-level education.
[speaker001:] Yes, well, yeah I am. Oh,
[speaker002:] Okay.
[speaker001:] A-, actually I think that, I, higher level education, I don't think there's so much of a problem there. It's pretty much funded well. There are small colleges that I'm sure are struggling but, uh, it's the job that the, the high school and the grade schools are doing that I see, in a area like ours, our school, even a bad school is a good school up here, where, if I lived in New York City or Washington, D C, uh, I would seriously consider moving if I had a child. I wouldn't let them go to a public school system there. But, of course, people are trapped economically and they can't do that.
[speaker002:] Yeah. I know down here the schools are, you know, I don't know, they rate, I moved to Arkansas and Texas after living in Ohio and the schools down here rate, you know, bottom ten percent across the country and having been through grade school up there and coming down here to high school I can understand why. Because they're so far behind and so poorly staffed, half the time the teachers don't know what's going on.
[speaker001:] Well, that's really too bad because it, it's giving some people unfair advantage. I mean we, our high school up here is like a junior college in Florida
[speaker002:] Right.
[speaker001:] what we learned.
[speaker002:] Well, that was my experience going through junior high up there when I came down south for high school I was just repeating what I'd already done.
[speaker001:] Yeah.
[speaker002:] Because we were so far advanced. And, uh, you know, I'd been in a parochial school before junior high and, you know, even the public schools are behind the parochial schools.
[speaker001:] Yeah.
[speaker002:] So, you know, I, I like the concept they've got now where they have more directed education, you know, you, you pick a career path or you get counseling earlier and then you, you learn the things that help you rather than spending four years learning the same things over and over.
[speaker001:] Like they have that down there that,
[speaker002:] Well, they talk about it and there are a few in some of the more, like in I live in a big Metroplex and some of the, the better parts of the Metroplex, the, the suburbs that are richer have those kind of target schools. But, uh, you know,
[speaker001:] Yeah, it's like if, if your father owns a grocery store and you're really interested in that, there's no reason that you should take college prep courses when you can get some
[speaker002:] Right.
[speaker001:] general business courses in high school.
[speaker002:] Or if you're going to go the science route you can go to a target school that specializes in science or art. You know, there's no point in, you know, I'm an engineering student and if I have to go take art classes, you know, I'm not going to use them. And through high school I could have gone so much further if I'd gone to a school that was directed.
[speaker001:] Yeah, that's true. I was fortunate. I'm a, I'm a technician and we had a vocational, uh, electronics in our high school.
[speaker002:] Right, in high school.
[speaker001:] So when I went to my first year of tech school, I had a very easy time because our high school
[speaker002:] Right.
[speaker001:] had a, a good program.
[speaker002:] I think the schools today, you know, the public schools are just, they're just overrun, you know, they don't know what to do, there's too many kids and not enough teachers and too many of the kids don't care.
[speaker001:] Yeah, I find that
[speaker002:] And,
[speaker001:] that the, that in the, [door] in the cities, it's more like the kids go there so socialize
[speaker002:] Right.
[speaker001:] not really to learn and the parents send them there because they're supposed to, and plus it gets them out of their hair. And I also find that, that you can send a kid to school, but if don't work with them as a parent, I think you're putting your child at a big disadvantage.
[speaker002:] Yeah, and, you know, there's some kids that, you know, want to go learn, but most of them just want to go play.
[speaker001:] Yeah, well I could, I could see if a kid doesn't have any encouragement if, t-, they're, you know, come from a broken home and their parents are more concerned about trying to work *sp:their and, or maybe they're unemployed and they're mad at the world, I can see where that wouldn't be very good for a, a kid, you know, he's coming up, will you help me with my homework and they're, no, get away from me, I've had a terrible day. So, it's got a lot to do with economics in the area that you come from.
[speaker002:] Yeah, that's true. I'm wondering with the boom down here. It's, well, not at the moment, but a lot of the industry's moving southward.
[speaker001:] Yeah, are they going to move to, uh
[speaker002:] So,
[speaker001:] Mexico?
[speaker002:] Uh, I don't know about that, but a lot of the industry up in, uh, you know, the northern states is moving south
[speaker001:] Uh-huh.
[speaker002:] and I'm wondering if that's going to have any effect, you know, on what you see now. We're, we're, we're behind down here.
[speaker001:] On the,
[speaker002:] I say we because I live here. If that might not turn around in the next, you know, fifteen, twenty years.
[speaker001:] Yeah, maybe the, maybe they'll bring their good schools with them. [LAUGHTER] You know, if the industry comes
[speaker002:] Yeah.
[speaker001:] hopefully they'll promote good schools. Because I know the town that I come from the, the, uh, the large I B M plant has something to do with the top rated high school because of their tax base for one and plus for, for the type of student that's going to that school, it's going to raise the level of the school
[speaker002:] Right.
[speaker001:] because your parents are engineers or chemists. They're, they're, you're most likely to do better in school. They're going to help you.
[speaker002:] You hope.
[speaker001:] Yeah, you hope [LAUGHTER]. Well, I think, I, I don't know. I just think it, it's, it's a duty of the parent to do that. I mean, jeez, my parents always helped me and, I don't know, it's just like you say, it's the way you're raised and the economic situation you're in. I can see some lady, she's twenty-one years old and she's got four kids. A kid in, her first grader, I don't see where she's going to have much time for them. [LAUGHTER] So, [pause] I don't know. It's just like,
[speaker002:] I guess you just have to wonder, is it up to the, is it, you know, who, who's supposed to make the change, the, the state, the govern-, the federal government, you know, where's the money supposed to come from. Is it, you know
[speaker001:] I don't know. Actually, I think it's, I think it should be
[speaker002:] what, what do you advocate, more taxes or better management of what they got?
[speaker001:] a civic level, the city level and a, a system level really to find out, and t-, to see what they need and not overinflate it, like, if the teachers are getting six percent raises every year when people in industry have been getting cut back, and you're getting
[speaker002:] Yeah [LAUGHTER].
[speaker001:] raises every eighteen months you got to go now, hey, wait a minute, we're in a recession here. We, uh, our town didn't pass the school budget this year and for the first time in many, many years just because people are, are in the recession and they're, even though we've, uh, enjoyed very good employment here for the past ten years, now we got eight percent, uh, unemployment when it used to be four or five. People are going, whoa.
[speaker002:] Yeah.
[speaker001:] So,
[speaker002:] Starts hitting closer to home.
[speaker001:] Yeah, but I always, [breathing] see it's all, it's all money. This, like a couple other topics we had talked about was crime. It, it's, it's all money based. And what you can do unless you just get down to the parent level and, and then if you're in a bad situation where you have to send your child to a bad school. Who knows, bu-, maybe we do, we need some more Catholic schools, support the church instead [LAUGHTER]. They seem to have done a, the good job in the past. In, uh, some places, uh, you couldn't go to a public school. It was miles down the road and the only school you could go to was the Baptist school or the Catholic school so,
[speaker002:] Yeah, they're a lot more strict.
[speaker001:] Yeah I don't,
[speaker002:] You, uh, have to learn, you aren't given the chance to, you know, screw off all the time.
[speaker001:] Yeah, I don't know if I would do that to my child, though. [LAUGHTER] But, so, pretty much, though, see, I don't have any good ideas or, or anything that would contribute. See, this isn't a subject that I think a lot about because I'm never faced with it because our school system in Vermont, it seems to do a really good job.
[speaker002:] Well, I know I'm in the, you know, the only reason I asked about secondary schools or, you know, advanced education is because down here, you know, going to the University of Texas, the education I'm getting I think is kind of shoddy for a public school.
[speaker001:] Is it?
[speaker002:] I, I don't think I'm getting what I should, but, you know, in Texas, it's next to free because th-, they pay so much of it. It's state supported.
[speaker001:] Well that,
[speaker002:] But at the same time it's really not, it's not like going to M I T. My engineering degree will be nothing like somebody coming out of M I T. And that's, it's really too bad
[speaker001:] Well,
[speaker002:] but that's, I don't know, I think it just builds on the foundation that they've already built. You get people out of high schools and col-, junior colleges that don't have the background for an M I T kind of curriculum. So,
[speaker001:] So you have to go to a lesser engineering school. We have a very good public school up here and a degree out there means a lot. It's a very good school. It's, it's University of Vermont. Uh, we also have some two year college. Well, there's a four year colleges. They all have a pretty good reputation. But, like you say, you,