There's a well written piece on the failure of public schools and is listed as part 1 in the failures of Liberalism over at Blogs For Bush.

Here's an excerpt:

The fundamental problem with public schools is the fundamental problem with all liberal ameliorative efforts - they are predicated upon the false notion that everyone has the same abilities and desires.

While I don't agree with the whole thing, something definitely needs to be done. There is a need for basic education while at the same time allowing students to go into more focused training later on in their educational life.

In my opinion after 5th or 6th grade, schools should work more like trade schools and be more tightly focused on a specific slant of skills. Maybe science and technology, literature and the arts or mathematics and physics.

These specialized schools would allow a child to go to a school that they really give a crap about what the subject matter is. I think everyone can agree that the subject's they absolutely hated in school all boiled down to simply short term memorizing of information just to get past the test and then dumping the info. That's simply a waste of time of not only the teachers, but the students as well and could be better directed into something productive.

Tell me where I'm wrong.