LH- While I don't agree with what you are saying exactly, I think I understand and agree with the principle behind it. You want your children to be able to think for themselves and not just believe what they are told. Critical thinking, in my opinion, is one thing schools ARE NOT teaching enough of, and I think this a big failure of schools which is caused from thoughtless mandates like NCLB and linking a teacher's pay to a student's letter grade. (Grades do not necessarily measure real learning). Also, I think it is great that you actually care what and how your kids learn. Many parents do not. Or they are so busy/distracted/whatever that they may act like they care but actually do nothing to ensure their child's success in school. This is why I believe there needs to be free, high quality daycare (yes, I think it should be mandatory) because there are many kids who probably have never been read to before school starts, so they have missed out on a HUGE learning opportunity that most likely, they will never be able to "make up" for with later education.

Also, I wanted to point out that education/ the world is changing. You can google anything and have an answer to your question in 30 seconds. Education is shifting so kids know how to understand and synthesize information in a changing world. It's great if someone found drilling in school beneficial to them, but research shows not everyone learns this way. There are only a few good hours in a school day and teaching kids to write perfect cursive is not a good use of time in today's world (especially since there is so much pressure to get your students to perform in other areas).

Also, if I may share a big pet peeve of mine, it's that a lot of people think they are experts on education who have no training or background in it. Being a student and the study of pedagogy are very different things, and many teachers today are highly qualified to teach. Yes, parents know their kids best, but a good teacher will communicate with parents in order to help their students more. Teaching is based on science, not anecdotes or feelings or how we were taught as kids.