DUMBING DOWN OUR CHILDREN

I can no longer hold it in: 1) did you know that in Tucson, Arizona, there are no Book Stores in retail malls any more? They are gone. In Tucson I can find only ONE on the main drag. Asking several mall store managers the location of a book store INSIDE their mall, none could answer correctly. Zero.
     The School system in Tucson is lagging behind the national average. It continues to score below national averages in many scholastic areas. Teacher SHORTAGES are a scandal. The district entered the new school year dozens short, preferring to scout out northern cities, recruiting those teachers to contract them to teach here in Tucson.
     In the one book store I found in Tucson, a "magnet" school was holding a promotion to solicit public funds to supplement their revenues. I quizzed two of the male teachers who were recently recruited from other cities.
     One told me he teaches FROM COMMON CORE in the Tucson Unified School District. What little history is taught there, he said, was all American History (only) which included World War Two with NO mention of Germany, the holocaust or our involvement. The curriculum, he said, was our
" attack " on Japan. He emphasized, WE ATTACKED JAPAN. That is the course curriculum that is demanded by the school district, he said.
     I am deeply disturbed by the absence of bookstores in our malls. Thirty years ago, I counted at least 3 retail book stores in each of the towns retail malls. Now, there are none, and further, no one seems to either know it, or care about it. A total absence of caring on the part of any adult I encountered.
     Speaking with school teachers in the book store, I told them I had been an elementary teacher in Yuma and had witnessed Mexican school children being bussed across the border into American schools to be taught by us, at our expense. Brazenly crossed the border, no questions asked, stopped by no one, entering our schools, taking up school time, resources and no one questioned it. Speaking to the school teachers in front of me, I asked, " do you know who pays for that?"
     Bewildered looks:  " .....You do, ...and me."  The American school teacher looked at me

and said that he didn''t believe it. There was a young Mexican American boy standing in between us coloring a book. He was a student at the school these men were teaching from.
     " Oh, yes, " the young boy chimed in. " It's true, my cousin is one of those students that gets bussed from across the border. "
     " I rest my case,"  I told the two gentlemen teachers from the Tucson elementary school. We, the taxpayers of America blythly pay for educating kids from another country, no one knows about it, or cares.
     Apparently.
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