I think this all comes down to decent paying jobs and a livable wage. Kids who suffer in school have families suffering at home, parents working several jobs just to keep the roof over their heads and food on the table, who have no time to be with their kids and help with school work, and be the "american nuclear family" so famously referenced by a lot of older conservatives.
wanna know why family and community is degrading? because EVERYONE is too busy trying to make basic ends meet to do much of anything else - including keep their kids focused on what is important.
Everyone knows what the issues are, no one wants to fully admit them, and then make the changes needed, simply because it will cost money, effort, and require uncomfortable amounts of change.
I mean ffs, everyone is tweeking out about teachers sending home permission slips to let the kids eat teacher bought oreo cookies like its the worst offense against freedom imaginable. what if mom doesnt want her kids eating sweets? kid eats a cookie, goes home tells mom, and the teacher is in trouble because he didnt inform the parents and get their permission. Some seriously seriously simple reasons behind it, and they cry destruction of freedom.
thats what were up against - if something is going to be required of them personally, then they dont want anything to do with it aside from to continue doing shit how its always been done, and complaining about how everything is broken.
Everyone is talking about spring break and how you shouldnt let your kids go on spring break because morals. Well, what the fuck else does anyone have to do? literally everything costs money, and the conservative fuck faces in the world think it should.
not long ago, i heard conservatives freaking out saying parks should charge to pay for themselves because its their money being wasted on something they have no interest in and how dare they!
oh and fuck PBS, because my money.
When i was a teen, the community actively petitioned to have anything that attracted young people to hang out at, instead of doing drugs and getting in trouble, shut down, or removed. skate park? gone, city ordinance against anyone above a certain age playing at the park - tried to put an age limit/chaperrone rule on kids hanging out and playing basket ball or swimming at the community center. As it sits now, as an adult, i watch the cities slowly creeping in on the disc golf parks - practically the only fucking free thing left to do anymore if you are above 12 years old.
what the fuck are these kids supposed to do, go to school, go home, do heaps of homework, and then what? most play video games or surf the net these days - if they arent chances are theyre out hanging out being bored with their friends in the same situation someplace else - what happens when you're bored? well, youre going to find something to do and aside from board games and a few other activities, your option is pretty much drugs, booze, sex.
we face staunch refusal to participate in our own society. Its always "someone else fix it for me because im not going to pay a cent to make it happen" with the most vocal conservatives.