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Our local paper has devoted its entire front page and Perspective section to the debate over early childhood education and how it would help close the achievement gap. There are well over a dozen articles, but here is one of the most insightful:
That's what I proposed in an earlier thread. There just aren't enough foster homes to go around, and the idea of institutionalizing thousands of poor children in orphanages in order to give them a better foundation for their future probably wouldn't go over very well with the public.
If this is the case than I think we should stop telling ourselves we value education, as we lack the fortitude to enforce it.
It is also possible that we may not institutionalize as many as you'd think. Right now parents feel free to practice educational neglect because there are so seldom any consequences. If they saw that there were repercussions for doing it you might see some parents clean up their acts.
Fine, but don't expect these same parents to solve the problem. They don't know or don't care enough to do the job their kids deserve. So what about the kids?
Why the hell not??
I was born and raised on a farm, a very very simple life, not a lot of money to go around.
I didnt have much to go by from my own upbringing when i myself and wife had kids, but i knew i love them, took a long good look at myself, took the good things from my own experience and gave what i lacked from my own childhood. I forced myself to learn things that i didnt know about or things i overlooked, i still get it wrong occasionally but the main thing is, i learn.
I get it, where parents are just too deep in the rabbit hole and thats just tough, but at the end of the day, no one put a barrel on their head to make bad decisions, whether you like it or not, you have to make decisions and live with it.
I was born and raised on a farm, a very very simple life, not a lot of money to go around.
I didnt have much to go by from my own upbringing when i myself and wife had kids, but i knew i love them, took a long good look at myself, took the good things from my own experience and gave what i lacked from my own childhood. I forced myself to learn things that i didnt know about or things i overlooked, i still get it wrong occasionally but the main thing is, i learn.
I get it, where parents are just too deep in the rabbit hole and thats just tough, but at the end of the day, no one put a barrel on their head to make bad decisions, whether you like it or not, you have to make decisions and live with it.
You remembered your experience, you reflected upon it, and you reacted in a way that you expected would improve things for the children you brought into the world. You also got married to the person who bore your children and presumably stayed with her.
I'm talking about people who don't do those things with any kind of regularity. Of course they SHOULD do it. But they DON'T. After a few generations of this, the problem becomes almost insurmountable. And all taxpayers shoulder the burden. Mississippi gets way more money from other states than we contribute. Why aren't these states demanding more in return?
You acknowledge implicitly that the change is made one family at a time.
If this is the case than I think we should stop telling ourselves we value education, as we lack the fortitude to enforce it.
It is also possible that we may not institutionalize as many as you'd think. Right now parents feel free to practice educational neglect because there are so seldom any consequences. If they saw that there were repercussions for doing it you might see some parents clean up their acts.
Several years ago, our county's youth court actually sentenced a mother to jail for allowing her 7 and 9-year-olds to miss over 45 days of school. It got a lot of attention...for a minute. It never happened again, and school non-attendance is not prosecuted. The truant officers stay busy, and wayward children do appear for a few weeks, but there has been no "come to Jesus" moment for many parents who don't bother to make sure that their kids go to school.
Another problem is the vast number of students who are sentenced to attend school but not to pass. After a stint at the alternative school, I learned to ask students who came but did no work, "Are you under court order to attend school?" My hunch is usually right, and nearly every answer to the question is "yes". As a result, you may have a class where several students will be sent to the detention center or training school if they get suspended, but they have no vested interest in their grades. They are expert at going right up to the line where intervention is required, but they almost never go over. Usually something happens in the community that sends them back to "jail".
Several years ago, our county's youth court actually sentenced a mother to jail for allowing her 7 and 9-year-olds to miss over 45 days of school. It got a lot of attention...for a minute. It never happened again, and school non-attendance is not prosecuted. The truant officers stay busy, and wayward children do appear for a few weeks, but there has been no "come to Jesus" moment for many parents who don't bother to make sure that their kids go to school.
Another problem is the vast number of students who are sentenced to attend school but not to pass. After a stint at the alternative school, I learned to ask students who came but did no work, "Are you under court order to attend school?" My hunch is usually right, and nearly every answer to the question is "yes". As a result, you may have a class where several students will be sent to the detention center or training school if they get suspended, but they have no vested interest in their grades. They are expert at going right up to the line where intervention is required, but they almost never go over. Usually something happens in the community that sends them back to "jail".
Some of what you describe sounds similar to what I saw in public school. Kids who come to school, but have no vested interest in their grades. I saw this in one of my classes. On one side of the class, there were students who basically didn't care either way. They were there because they kind of "had to be there". This wasn't an alternative school. This was just regular public school. The students I"m speaking of basically sat in the back of the class using dip and spitting it in a half-empty bottle of Mr. Pib or Coca-Cola. I think what it boils down to is you have kids, who aren't being encouraged by their parents to stay in school, and kids who basically don't care either way, who view school as a waste. These were often the same kids who were contributing to the school's behavior problems. Personally, I don't know if I would be in favor of permanently expelling some students for certain repeated breaches. School is a very important institution, one that should be helping students become more learned and ready for the world ahead of them, for college, for what comes next. However, it does make me wonder what it would take to make a kid stay in school and take school seriously.
I think NCLB had the right idea in trying to set educational standards, but a one size fits all approach is not going to work with given the demographics of the US population.
Some people express their genius through carpentry and other trades by becoming master craftsmen; others through painting, theater & dance; some through athletics; its a mistake to assume that everyone is cut out to be an academic. Critical thinking is not limited to solving differential equations.
Outside of setting a benchmark for the 3 Rs, I feel the education system should be decentralized and more input allowed for local communities.
If a kid is unable to perform at the required federal standard for reading, math and writing then the kid should be required to go to summer school else get left back. Otherwise let the state & local communities figure out how to best educate their kids. If communities want to set up schools for the fine arts, trades or technology, then I would hope they will be successful in their endeavors.
This article (admitedly found on the POC, but the article does link to the DOE site) demonstrates how problematic trying to make everyone an academic can be.
Several years ago, our county's youth court actually sentenced a mother to jail for allowing her 7 and 9-year-olds to miss over 45 days of school. It got a lot of attention...for a minute. It never happened again, and school non-attendance is not prosecuted. The truant officers stay busy, and wayward children do appear for a few weeks, but there has been no "come to Jesus" moment for many parents who don't bother to make sure that their kids go to school.
Well there lies part of the problem oin your first sentence. If you're just talking about one mother one time of course it will have no effect. There need to be lots of people going, along with a lot of people losing custody for educational neglect.
Some of what you describe sounds similar to what I saw in public school. Kids who come to school, but have no vested interest in their grades. I saw this in one of my classes. On one side of the class, there were students who basically didn't care either way. They were there because they kind of "had to be there". This wasn't an alternative school. This was just regular public school. The students I"m speaking of basically sat in the back of the class using dip and spitting it in a half-empty bottle of Mr. Pib or Coca-Cola. I think what it boils down to is you have kids, who aren't being encouraged by their parents to stay in school, and kids who basically don't care either way, who view school as a waste. These were often the same kids who were contributing to the school's behavior problems. Personally, I don't know if I would be in favor of permanently expelling some students for certain repeated breaches. School is a very important institution, one that should be helping students become more learned and ready for the world ahead of them, for college, for what comes next. However, it does make me wonder what it would take to make a kid stay in school and take school seriously.
This is just one part of the equation.
Had those students been offered an educational track that they thought was of value to them, it might have been a different story. Did this school offer a vo-tech track which would have engaged them and offered them an opportunity towards self-sufficiency as an adult? If not, why not? Or was it yet another school with the narrow view that all students must go to college?
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