‘57% on Welfare Lack Basic Skills’

I am getting extremely tired of hearing about the “failure of the California school system” in regard to 57% of people on welfare who lack the basic skills to be productive.

My husband has been teaching in California since 1959. During that time, his math students’ grades have declined--not because his teaching has become worse, but because the students do not study. He will assign problems and give the students some time to work on them in class. If they are working on problem 5 (with 10 problems to do) when they leave class, they will still be on problem 5 when they return to class the next day.

No wonder California students can’t read, write, or do math. In order to learn, one must study--there isn’t any easy way to learn--and California students (with exceptions because there are good students) do not want to study. They want to learn the easy way--with no effort on their part.

Let’s put the blame where it belongs--not all on the teachers (because they work hard preparing for their classes) or all on the school system--but on the failure of the students to study and the parents to make them study. Schools have the students six hours a day. According to my math, that leaves 18 hours (3 times as many) that the parents have them. How can the schools counteract a ratio like that?

MARTHA BRAUN

Garden Grove