Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I am not going to go into my sources. However a professional is just somebody who makes money in their field/craft. Does not mean they do a good job of it; but they make money from it. I already know what is what in my area. Everybody lives in fear of Racism and poverty. So in general you want to do well just go as far away from those two things as much as you can.
I get a lot of information from my daughter who is a teacher; I get some information from my boss who is involved in trying to fix the Detroit school system; I get information from local superintendents and principals whom I know; I get information from school board members who are friends (both local and not); I get information from another daughter who is a PhD candidate in developmental psychology; I get information form local papers; I get further information from articles that I find on the internet or that my daughters send me; occasionally i get information from a distant friend who is an education professor at a University; sometimes I get some information from posts by teacher friends on facebook (but most of that is chaff); I get information from our dealings with teachers, administrators, board members at our own kid's schools; I get information form personal experiences and from discussing experiences of other people (both as students and as parents).
Articles and studies I've come across and saved during my own research, friends and relatives who work or worked in various levels of education in different areas. A lot of my friends are K-12 educators or college instructors and professors. I've engaged in numerous discussions on education and learning models over the years. One of my good friends works in education research. My interest and concerns grew as my children approached preschool age, and even more so after I decided I wanted to teach at the secondary education and higher-ed level.
When it comes to researching schools itself, I use several rankings/ratings sites, review the data/statistics, reviews, socioeconomic breakdown, curriculum, programs offered, teachings models, etc. I spent months further researching the IB program when my oldest was given the opportunity to submit a portfolio for admittance into the district's IB MYP. I've researched other programs and schools with magnet programs (I attended a creative/performing arts magnet middle/high school, which I really loved) and wanted similar opportunities for my kids. I've also looked into schools with great STEM programs, but these are very difficult to get into due to the lottery system that many magnet schools use. I'm glad my oldest was accepted into the IB program. It's a top rated program that she'll thrive in, but it's also a very diverse school, which is important to us as well.
I employed these same research methods when I started researching graduate programs and grew more interested in teaching at the higher-ed levels.
I'm obviously not one of the people this is meant for - I have a PhD in my field and have worked in education for 30 years, plus I'm also a parent. But it seems to me that many people here get their information from newspapers and what they've "heard" from random sources. Even those who feel they are informed because they've read a lot really don't seem to understand much at all. Until you've been in the classroom, maybe in several classrooms, for at lease several years, you really can't understand the stuff you're reading or hearing.
Do you mean how, as a parent, I chose which school for my son to attend? If so, I used all the various websites out there, plus the schools' websites, and I check with local family and friends as well as the online mom communities I belong to in the area. Then my son and I went and visited each school we were considering. I had narrowed the list at that point, and to some extent, it came down to instinct, and where my son felt comfortable. So far, so good (he's in middle school).
Do you mean how, as a parent, I chose which school for my son to attend? If so, I used all the various websites out there, plus the schools' websites, and I check with local family and friends as well as the online mom communities I belong to in the area. Then my son and I went and visited each school we were considering. I had narrowed the list at that point, and to some extent, it came down to instinct, and where my son felt comfortable. So far, so good (he's in middle school).
Some of the titles seem innocuous but some of the posts are not.
I wasn't able, or rather don't have the time right now, to find some of the really hot ones from a couple years ago.
Well, yes, threads like those. But also just remembering back to my days as a teacher and then an administrator and parents or community members would come in and start with the: "I heard that..." And at least half the time the stuff they had heard was not even close to being reality. Compound that with the generalizations some of our posters make about American schools, and I just wonder how we have gotten to this place of the public having so little faith in our schools...in general.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
