[bcb]

Oh boy,
I'm not getting any work done tonight because of you

Alright. First of all, I appreciate that you've tried to back up some of your contentions.

I wouldn't go as far as to say you've proved your point, however.

In 2003, almost 1.6 million individuals (37.8%) aged 16 to 25
years were functioning at literacy levels 1 and 2.

First of all, your evidence regarding literacy doesn't show any trend over a given period of time. There is no back data to compare your data to. What I can tell you, though; in the past 20 years, educators have made great strides in early diagnosis of learning disabilities, especially in the areas of reading and writing.

More than likely there has always been a segment of the population that had literacy problems, but it just wasn't diagnosed. In the past, these kids just left school early because they couldn't 'hack it'. Now a days, with better resources, these same kids will graduate high school despite their difficulties in reading and writing.

Although Canadians are more educated than ever before,

numerous surveys of business leaders indicate that employers
are dissatisfied with their employees’ so-called soft
skills (including teamwork, communication skills and selfmotivation)
and with some of the skills necessary for their
jobs (including the management of information, use of
numbers and problem solving).

The above quote taken from your own data contradicts your notion that our education system is broken, or near broken, for that matter.

The physics teacher blamed poor performance of his students on:
"the Ontario government [for introducing] a new, content-intensive curriculum for grades K to 8 in mathematics and language, followed in 1998 by the science and technology curriculum."

Please keep in mind that this has no bearing specifically on the public system, as in Canada, private schools are required to teach the same curriculum as public schools.

As far as parts of the curriculum are crap, well that's a personal opinion and I believe that you also posted that there probably could be some change. We need to teach our children about real life things. Almost every person will get a drivers licence by the time they are adults. Vehicle accidents are the biggest killer of young adults yet we teach them nothing in high school. We don't teach them how to drive, we don't teach them the rules of the roads, we don't teach them how to respect the power of the vehicle. We all live in this society but we never teach our children the laws of the land. We do very little preperation on how to write reports, resumes and cover letters. Yes, they may cover it over a 2 day period in CALM class but these are very important. More important than reading Shakespeare IMO.

I agree that schools should make learning relevant to kids' needs.

At many Calgary high schools, private driver schools offer discounted rates if a large number of students sign up. If you are sugesting that I, as a math/science teacher should be teaching my students how to drive, give your head a shake!

Students in CALM class are required to create a portfolio including a cover letter and resume.

I don't like Shakespeare much either, but if we are going to do English class justice, the old guy is pretty hard to leave out.

All I am saying is that these people, police, PSE teachers, business people are the ones that are now dealing with them after they leave high school.

First of all, most kids don't have run-ins with the police. Second, while no one doubts we are in the middle of "generation me", you still haven't provided any concrete proof that kids are not prepared to enter the workforce.

This entire debate has been about whether it is right for the government to offer vouchers for children to enroll in private schools. Nothing you've provided indicates any support for that.