More Americans than ever have a lack of confidence in the government school system. ABC News writes:

Twenty-nine percent of those questioned in a Gallup poll said they had a “great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in public schools. Forty percent had some confidence while 30 percent expressed little or none.

When Gallup first measured confidence in public schools in 1973, 58 percent reported having a strong belief in the country’s educational system. Since then, that number has steadily tracked downward.

There’s a reason for this.

Public schools are failing Americans all across the country.

For example:

On June 12, Superior Court Judge James Chalfant ruled for the plaintiffs. He noted that the current system of review gave 99.3% of the district’s teachers the highest possible rating in the 2009-10 academic year, when only 45% of students performed at grade level in reading and 56% did so in math. In a bit of judicial understatement, he said this process “provides little meaningful evaluation.”

One of many stories you can find dealing with American schools’ failure to do the most basic of their responsibilities: educate children.

There’s also this:

At Morganville, New Jersey’s Asher Holmes Elementary School, in the Marlboro Township Public Schools, the wee ones have been promising their devotion to teachers and educrats. Really.

The pledge as reported by Marlboro-ColtsneckPatch is:

I pledge allegiance to Asher Holmes and the Marlboro Township School District and to the teachers who help us learn, all that we need to know for the future. We promise to respect ourselves and others, to try our best and always be proud of our schools.

The pledge is recited, hand-on-heart, while facing the flag, just like the usual patriotic devotional, which is also recited. Apparently, kids have been going through the motions for ten years, ever since the thing was penned by a fourth-grade teacher. Nobody bothered objecting until parent Valerie Kaufman stepped forward at a Board of Education meeting to say, “WTF?”

And one more reason is the failure of schools to get rid of bad teachers.  Remember the teacher who yelled at a student and told a student he could go to jail for disrespecting President Obama?

She’s keeping her job:

The Salisbury Post reports that Tanya Dixon-Neely was suspended without pay, but that she will return to school next year. As a condition of her return, she reportedly will be required to start what was described as a “monitored growth plan.”

Superintendent Judy Grissom said in a statement that the teacher fell short of the school system’s standards, but expressed a desire to move on from the incident.

There are plenty of alternatives to public schools.  Private schools, charter schools and homeschooling are all better alternatives.

And people are realizing it.