Teachers have to teach what they are told to teach...and most of the time reading, writing, and arithmetic is very low on the list of things to be taught. Our schools are into "mind control" and making our kids and grandkids a bunch of robots who cannot think for theirselves or have any common sense.
Not to argue that the youth of today are all prodigies, but don't you think there's a lot selective editing in these shows? Some of the Fox shows, in particular, do a lot of that, asking college kids if they know who the president was during the Civil War, who our first president was, or who our current president is, and I think it's quite possible that they ask these questions of a lot of kids who can reasonably answer these questions, but who are then cut from the segment. I have known a lot of much younger children, even, who have learned things that I didn't know at their age. These shows are good entertainment because we can laugh at the stupidity of the younger generation, but are they truly representative?
Particularly given the misspelling of kindness, it's clear that indoctrination - not education - is the focus of this elementary school classroom.
I wonder how many parents made a stink about the sign in the administrative office without even noticing the misspelling of kindness. About the Common Core studies in the schools, I threw my hands up when I helped my grandson with his math (old school) and the answers were correct but he received a low grade because the work wasn't done the 'common core' way. To me, simple math was made out to be like algebra with this 'common core' teaching. I hate to think about English, Social Studies, etc. and how they were conformed to fit the common core curriculum. Ha, say that three times fast.
I understand that. I continually seem misspelling by folks with journalism degrees, those who make their living with words. Proof is everywhere. My wife has always pointed out that commercial have misspelled words in their ads and on their signs for the world to see. Bad examples are at every corner. And then there is the unstable tablet I'm using.
A restaurant near where I lived once put up professionally made metal signs on each of their parking spaces that read PARCKING FOR CUSTOMERS ONLY. There were about twenty of them but no one even noticed or cared about the spelling.
It all falls on the proofreader if there is one. Then if the printing company made the mistake - customer gets partial or full refund and keeps the signs, - well, why not? It's a win/win situation. The public doesn't have anything to say about how they handle their business unless it affects them personally.
The best teacher can't prepare a student in one semester to pass an AP class (I am cert. to teach Spanish) if the student doesn't even know how to write in his/her own language. Yes, I had students in the 3rd / 4th HS year who wrote English at the first grade level. When I asked "What happened in grade school>" the answer -always- was" "They were promoted to the next level." Did you ask yourself "why"?
I taught college and had students who weren't a whole lot better than that. I was the program chairman for the emergency medical services department of a state college. When I gave tests, I would look at the ones that a large percentage of the class did poorly in so that I could figure out what the problem might have been. There was one question that most of the class got wrong. The question was about things that might adversely affect radio signals. The right answer was "dense foliage" and it was an important question because it was likely to show up on the state or national certification exams. What I found out was that most of the class didn't know the definition of "foliage" and nearly half the class didn't know what the meaning of "dense" was - or, as I would put it, they were too dense to know what dense meant. In their defense, however, I was teaching in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas, where English was not necessarily their first language, although most people learned both languages simultaneously.
I taught in three local colleges every other semester...I was a "fill in at my convenience" and yes, I had similar experiences with most of the students. BTW, if you ask me what could interfere with the radio signals...one of my answers would be "the solar spots".
Well, critical thinking, proof and literacy across the curriculum is not bad at all. That was the way I learned since grade school ...and the same one I used to teach my students. Oh, yes, "I did it my way".
fwiw,,, I read and heard from others that QUOTAs had to be met to receive federal , state, or other $$$ .... i.e. statistics of pupils passed each semester determined too often, too much, what funding the school was eligible for, or how much the school would receive .... This was apparently in all the schools - pre-k thru 8, 9 thru 12, tech/specialty , and college...