Living in LA, this is not surprising, but rather pathetic. In Bell, CA for those not in the Golden State, has been in an uproar because city officials were pulling more money than the President or members of Senate. So, we lay off teachers -- but we build a giant planned city and call it a school. Some city contractor is getting major baller cake to build this monstrosity. No one makes any real bank increasing teachers' salaries or more books.

Well, many educated, middle class Asians have a very distorted view of Americans in general. If your only view of America is MTV and few ignorant tourists, you'd think we're all uber-violent jackasses. Sadly, there are plenty of educated folks in China, India, Korea and Japan who think young African American male in baggy jeans equals 'drug dealer' or 'rapper'. In college, I had plenty of overseas students from Europe and Asia who were shocked that there were African Americans who read books and didn't care for basketball. Come to think of it, there were a few folks from the Midwest who thought that way too. Not a lot, but maybe 5 or so cats treated my over read behind like I was some sort of pink poodle. They wised up by junior year. ;-)

Did you go to public school? Do you have public drinking water? Do you use electricity? Do you call the cops if your house is robbed? Do you use a public road? Do you eat meat out of a grocery store? If the answers to any of these is yes then shut up and pay your taxes. Your argument makes no sense.

You are an idiot. Taxation is no more theft than paying your cable bill. You're a citizen, you benefit from clean water, not getting blown up terrorists, the internet and a crap load of other things the government either pays for directly or has subsidized for development. Unless you like brown water and having the rent cops and firemen, stop whining. Please get over your Ayn Rand fantasy -- even Jesus told his disciples to pay their taxes. Roads provide voluntarily? By who? Whose gonna pay for the asphalt, upkeep or to make some knuckle head doesn't cause a 10 car pile-up because he's doing 110 at rush hour? And seeing as UNIX and ARPNET were both military (read government) creations, Slashdot wouldn't have existed with US taxpayers money.

Wow, I guess kids who aren't going to be politicians shouldn't have to take history or civics. Or because I had no intention in becoming the next Tennessee Williams or William Shakespeare then I wasted my time in AP English?

First, you miss one of the main points of public education is to develop well rounded, grounded citizens. Just "training kids in their inclinations" is counter to everything western thought has to say about education and would undermine our democracy (i.e. ill informed citizens who are trained to be very good drones and little more.)

Second, what harm will taking harder course in High School really do? Give you a taste of college? Teach that true knowledge takes real work? Make you a well rounded thinker? Oh, suck horrible things. High School is about learning....losing site of that for the sake of grades will leave you in the slow lane in the end.