During my commute this morning, I heard about a report released by The Education Trust that states that, if current trends continue, one in four students currently in high school here in the States will drop out before graduating.

So much for No Child Left Behind.

Even more disturbing was the very next report, which announced that state budgets around the country are in such dire trouble that tuition rates for many public colleges and universities are slated to skyrocket. Some states are even considering mid-semester tuition hikes to cover their shortfalls.

Begs the question then: Why is it so important for high school students to actually graduate when they will more than likely not be able to afford a college degree, which in today’s society has become what a high school diploma was to my parents’ generation?

Sorry, but I am particularly surly when it comes to this topic. I find it abhorrent that we are such a global failure when it comes to educating our children. And the failure is so multi-tiered that it’s going to take a lot of work for us to ever come close to improving things.

First, teachers are horrifically underpaid, under-appreciated, and in some places, under-protected. I had a friend who left her contractor job to become a teacher at a school here in D.C. She left after less than a year because she had a breakdown after being subjected to verbal and physical abuse from her students. Oh, did I mention that her students were 6 years old?

That leads to number two: Parents are severely failing when it comes to raising children who understand that you don’t bite and spit at your teacher. Or attack them with a baseball bat, which is what a high school student here in Maryland did a few years ago.

It doesn’t take long for qualified teachers to realize that they are in for a world of abuse for a pitiful paycheck. So schools are very often left scrambling to find people with bare minimum qualifications (Are you a warm body? You’re hired!) to teach students filled with such utter apathy and contempt as to be uncontrollable. They also wield undeserved power over teachers. Many teachers are terrified of taking any kind of punitive action toward unruly students out of fear that they will be accused of some horrible misdeed. I’ve known teachers who refused to speak with a student in private without either having another teacher present as a witness or leaving the door to the classroom wide open.

Next there is the still unchanged truth that school is “danger and disease wrapped in darkness and silence.” Okay, so maybe that’s space according to Dr. McCoy, but I think it can be applied to many schools. Ten years after Columbine and I question what, if anything we have learned from the actions of those two shooters. True, school officials now take threats more seriously, but have they also taken seriously the scarring effects that perpetual bullying can have on the psyche and the soul? Especially on kids who obviously have very little parental supervision and interaction. I mean, come on, these two boys were stockpiling Terminator amounts of guns and ammo, trying to build bombs in their rooms…and their parents were completely clueless.

(I’ve said much more in my last blog about Columbine, and I will be posting a link to that blog very soon. I promise.)

So you’ve got terrified and sometimes under-qualified teachers dealing with unruly students who often lack any form of structure or discipline from their parents, interacting in an often bully-infested school culture. Is it any wonder students are dropping out at an alarming rate?

Of course, this is not the environment at all schools. But it is a recipe for disaster that I think is playing out in way too many cities throughout this country and that cannot be ignored any longer. Improved testing is not going to solve this problem. Government intervention isn’t going to solve it either (unless the Obama administration has some clever trick up their sleeve that is going to retrain parents in how to raise even moderately behaved children).

I truly believe that the change does need to start in the home. Parents need to become more involved in their children’s lives. Ask them about their day, teach them not to disrespect others, join them while watching television or playing a game, engage them in conversation. And if you just can’t be bothered with all that, then don’t have any kids. If you raise them correctly from the very beginning, 9 times out of 10, I’m willing to bet they’ll be a far better little person for it.

And then you send them off to school, where they don’t abuse their teachers or their peers. And then, just maybe, teachers will stop being afraid and will start returning to the schools. You know what, though? Start paying them better! Screw the millions thrown at athletes. If these undeserving demigods are really playing the sport because of their love of the game, switch their annual income down to match the median income of the state for which their team plays. We’ll see just how deep that “love” really runs. And send that extra money into the communities where it will actually do some good, including keeping college tuitions down low enough so that everyone can afford the opportunity to a higher education, not just the rich.

I know, I know – I’m dreaming on all these fronts. I just find it so freaking frustrating every time I hear statistics like I did this morning. We should be doing better by our country’s children than this. We need to do better. But what do we do? And is it too late for the current generations? Or has the damage already been done?