Ok, its an insanely early hour of the morning cuz I just got back from Lord of the Rings so bear with me and my two cents.
First of all, I would like to preface this with the fact that I consider myself an extremely fortunate person. I grew up in a great household and community, and I went to really good public schools. While I may complain about the shelteredness of my suburb (hey, they filmed Pleasantville here if that gives you any indication of what it's like), it has shown me a lot suprisingly. Like many other people said, I think the problems with today's youth come more from the home and family rather than the abilities of a teacher. (I have a speech about this if anyone wants it, they can IM me).
Growing up in a good environment (which doesn't neccessarily mean the perfect 2 parents, as long as its nuturing and teaches you good work ethic) I think you're definately more prepared. Once you have that strong base, I think one realizes that you can only get what you put into it. There were horrible teachers at my school, good people who just couldn't teach; and there were also amazing teachers who changed my life. But many people didn't take advantage of the good teachers, didn't take advantage of what the class taught them in both the world of acadamia and real life.
As I told most of my high school teachers when I came back to visit a few weeks ago, I am so grateful I took every opportunity I could, challenged myself to the fullest, and soaked up everything I could. People thought I may have been crazy for having such a busy schedule and heavy workload but I couldn't waste golden oppurtunities. Not to sound egotistical at all, but I consider myself smart and I continued to challenge myself and that's why I got so much out of high school. On the issue of homework, it might have seemed like busy work to so many people, but I did it all usually without slacking (yes, I know I was one of those people in high school that y'all hated). Everything thinks that since I'm asian, its my parents who force me to do everything. In reality, they told me to have more fun and not pressure myself so much, that it was OK to get a B.
Now that I look back after finishing my first quarter of college at what I consider a wonderful university, all those pesky homework assignment, all those challenging classes, and all those activities I did were all 100% worth it. The emphasis may now be more on midterms and finals but everything in high school taught me discipline and self motivation. It's incredibly tempting to go out late on a weekday or find anything distracting in the dorms to avoid work. It's so easy to skip class because no one tells you what to do or not do your reading because you don't have a hw assignment on it.
And guess what, even at UCLA, there were tons of kids doing all this because they coasted throughout high school sheerly on their intelligence and still thinks it works. Well now a lot of those kids are failing out of classes and are on academic probation because reading the book before your final to learn it all just doesn't hack it. It is my sole belief that you can not get by in a good college purely on your smarts. I've been blessed with the chance to meet such a diverse group of amazing individuals coming from different neighborhoods and I see a common bond between all the successful ones. They all have that internal drive, that was most likely instilled into them at an early age because when you're on your own in a totally new environment, the only person you fully have to keep you in check is yourself.
And despite my lovely speech on self motivation, I don't want to undermind the public education system in my valley of California. Thanks to my teachers, especially the one history & gov teacher that completely changed my life. I'm thinking that if this whole lawyer thing doesn't work out, I would love to teach politics and gov.
Now that I've written a novel, I will go to bed. Feel free to contact me about what you think, I think this is a really great topic and I love to debate.