I wonder how so many amazingly accomplished Americans, Jimmy Doolittle, MacArthur FDR, Einstein and on and on survived without white boards. Quite a feat, eh??? When the parents and teachers work together successfully to convince the children of the value of LEARNING–not just an education , as it exists today, but LEARNING, when they can convince students, for example, that algebra is the first step on the staircase to higher learning for some chosen fields of endeavor, when they can get the children to walk the halls between classes without embarrassing displays of love for each other, (conduct, often, that belongs in private spaces), when teachers are once again authorized to control students, when the parents work with the school administrations to manage the conduct of their children, then we will have a first step to developing good students. I come from a northern Christian school of many years ago.
How is it possible that so many of us older people lived to an agrarian calendar and have do and contributed so much to our country.
Ole guy, in a comment above, covers well some of the issues.
I could go on all day–but it boils down to this–your teachers are hamstrung in discipline by the very parents who accuse them of not doing a good job. I worked in the school district for a number of years and never got used to the disrespect our teachers have to stand.
Next, while I wholeheartedly approve of examining and using technology, I, again ask, how have we raised so many great scientists and talents without that technology. What is so troublesome about asking children to learn the 12s table?? Why is it necessary to administer test at the START of the school years. Why is that you all hold that today’s students will forget so much more over the summer break than students of earlier years?? What bis wrong with learning by rote? Will it embarrass you if your child remembers how to recite the Gettysburg Address 20 years after he/she graduates??

Get a grip –give the kids their summer. Take working parents problems into consideration,. Do not sit there and say–:Well look at me, I can cover my child’s needs, why can’t they?” Walking down a back country road and skinny dipping in a pond is part of the American education process.
Let them grow up the way we did–it produced so many good Americans, it is the best system.

Discipline, learning, fun. All good things.

Incidentally, “back in the day”, as you indicate, kids weren’t on ridelin…in fact, I’m not even sure if such meds were even relied upon to the degree they seem to be today…or, for that matter, if they even existed. This in only a personal view, but I feel that ridelin, or for that matter, behavior-modifying drugs of any sort, are employed more so out of social laziness than medical necessity…it’s easier to have the kid pop a pill than “square him away”. Whereas “back in the day”, a major segment of education, both in and out of the school environment, involved the fostering of self discipline and self reliance, today’s youth realizes, all too well, that no one is responsible for anything, there are no consequences whatsoever for anything, and it’s always some elses fault. We have arrived at this sorry state of affairs because, at some point in time, someone decided that we need to treat kids with, well, kid gloves…as though they’re made of glass. “Back in the day”, a parent could issue instructions to any kid, over the age of 10, who might have to come to an empty house for a few hours. If those instructions were not followed through, the parent simply “provided further instruction” on how to follow instructions. Today’s adults have no confidence in themselves, much less their kids, so they have to hover over them constantly, ensuring they’re “sufficiently burped”. At the same time, kids come to expect, to rely upon, a daily dose of chemistry in place of exercising a little self control. Result: helpless kids who can look forward to a life as helpless adults.