When students who should be failing automatically advance to next grade from elementary school through high school, problem keeps getting worse. By graduation day, some students who graduate can barely read their own diplomas. In effect, these students get a counterfeit diploma that is nothing more than a twelve-year attendance record.

What does automatic promotion teach children? Many students tend to set their standards no higher than what their teachers or school expects of them. Automatic promotion lets students coast along with little or no effort, knowing they will advance to next grade even if they never study or do their homework, or receive low grades on their tests. Automatic promotion also tells kids they can succeed in life without effort or perseverance.

Besides creating millions of graduating illiterates, automatic promotion tells kids that mediocrity and laziness are ac-ceptable. It tragically sets children up to fail later in life when reality smacks them in face -- when they apply for college or a job. These are not lessons that schools should be teaching our children.

Article Copyrighted © 2005 by Joel Turtel.

So how do school authorities solve this discipline problem? Too often, they pressure parents to give Ritalin (or similar drugs) to “calm” children down or make them “focus” on their work. However, school authorities needed a way to justify using these mind-altering drugs on children. They found this “justification” by going along with psychiatric establishment’s claim that millions of normal, active, or bored kids who might be having temporary medical, emotional, or other stress problems at home or in class, have an alleged mental illness called ADHD.

By claiming that normal but disruptive children have a mental illness, school authorities feel justified in giving kids mind-altering drugs to “correct” problem. Indeed, many well-intentioned teachers and principals have come to believe ADHD rhetoric so strongly, that they sincerely believe they are helping children they think have ADHD.

Well-intentioned or not, schools also get many important benefits by taking easy way out with Ritalin. School districts today are strapped for money because many States are running huge budget deficits. Schools can’t spend time, money, or effort it takes to find out what makes problem kids act out. They don’t have resources to give these children intensive, time-consuming psychological counseling, or test them for all real medical conditions that might be causing problem. So pressuring parents to give Ritalin to their normal but “unruly” kids to “quiet” them became typical American quick-fix for solving complex problems.

Parents, don't let public schools pressure you into giving your children potentially dangerous mind-altering drugs. It is far more likely that your public school has PSTD (public school teaching disorder) than your normal child has an alleged disease called ADHD. Consider taking your children out of public school and homeschooling them.