State of Education Today

As I think back to my career as a student and my transformation to a teacher then administrator, I wonder what has happened to education. I spent many a day listening to my teachers, learning from them in a boring uneventful way, most of the time. I walked away with the knowledge of how to add, subtract, multiply, and divide as well as read, process,synthesis, etc. You get the picture, I was prepared for the future, what ever that may bring. The problems I faced verses the problems my sons' face are much different. Now they are up against the NCLB, Minnesota State Standards, and Common Core wall and teachers are focusing on how to make their teaching better by spending more time in meetings and less time with students...how this makes sense, I am not sure, but to the district, it does. Gone are the days of coming in early or staying late to give additional help. Now it is, I have a meeting and the district says I have to go. This is by no means restricted to only the district I live in, but is a virus spreading through out the state of Minnesota. Charter schools are popping up with themed programming, enticing the parents and teachers into their school.  The goal of a charter is to out-perform the local district.  The question is are they?  If not, what needs to happen to get the schools to begin to not just out-perform, but to share, collaborate, make it better across the state!!??  It is not about one being better than another, though competition naturally breeds that, but it is about the state of education today. How do we get the "entire" student population to care about learning instead of asking, "when am I ever going to use this?"  How do we teach relevant topics, skills, and citizenship in a way that will make sense to our children and involve the community as well.