Opinion
Education Letter to the Editor

The Way We Were

August 12, 2005 1 min read
  • Save to favorites
  • Print

Are David Ruenzel and Larry Cuban [“Book Review: The Blackboard and the Bottom Line,” May/ June] forgetting what public education was like in this country before education reform? Public schools weren’t bad, they were an embarrassment! Thank goodness the business community, along with state legislators, stepped in to fix this disaster. Someone had to. Billions, even trillions, of dollars spent nationwide, and all those folks in charge never even had the wherewithal to have promulgated a common curriculum that teachers were “supposed” to teach to. Many of these fearless school “leaders” were more interested in having students feel good than be able to read and write competently upon graduation. Does anyone really want to return to those “good old days” of yesteryear, when we gave away high school diplomas simply for showing up for four years?

Paul Hoss

Scituate Public Schools

Scituate, Massachusetts

Events

Jobs Virtual Career Fair for Teachers and K-12 Staff
Find teaching jobs and other jobs in K-12 education at the EdWeek Top School Jobs virtual career fair.
Ed-Tech Policy Webinar Artificial Intelligence in Practice: Building a Roadmap for AI Use in Schools
AI in education: game-changer or classroom chaos? Join our webinar & learn how to navigate this evolving tech responsibly.
Education Webinar Developing and Executing Impactful Research Campaigns to Fuel Your Ed Marketing Strategy 
Develop impactful research campaigns to fuel your marketing. Join the EdWeek Research Center for a webinar with actionable take-aways for companies who sell to K-12 districts.

EdWeek Top School Jobs

Teacher Jobs
Search over ten thousand teaching jobs nationwide — elementary, middle, high school and more.
View Jobs
Principal Jobs
Find hundreds of jobs for principals, assistant principals, and other school leadership roles.
View Jobs
Administrator Jobs
Over a thousand district-level jobs: superintendents, directors, more.
View Jobs
Support Staff Jobs
Search thousands of jobs, from paraprofessionals to counselors and more.
View Jobs

Read Next

Education Briefly Stated: January 17, 2024
Here's a look at some recent Education Week articles you may have missed.
9 min read
Education In Their Own Words The Stories That Stuck With Us, 2023 Edition
Our newsroom selected five stories as among the highlights of our work. Here's why.
4 min read
102523 IMSE Reading BS
Adria Malcolm for Education Week
Education Opinion The 10 Most-Read Opinions of 2023
Here are Education Week’s most-read Opinion blog posts and essays of 2023.
2 min read
Collage of lead images for various opinion stories.
F. Sheehan for Education Week / Getty
Education Letter to the Editor EdWeek's Most-Read Letters of 2023
Read the most-read Letters to the Editor of the past year.
1 min read
Illustration of a line of diverse hands holding up speech bubbles in front of a subtle textured newspaper background
iStock/Getty