is it our civic duty to send our children to public (not private or parochial) school? (college, public school)

[The Dissenter]

Originally Posted by vicarebo

By that I mean, for the sake of the school, not the sake of our own child. Someone stated that sending a child to public school is similar to including all senior citizens in Medicare, regardless of income. The rationale is that if you take the wealthy seniors out of the system, the system will go down hill. So, do you think this is accurate? Do public schools need us, not just our tax dollars? I would love to hear from Informed Consent and Charles Wallace, as I have great respect for their thoughtful posts!

the only civic duty here is to make sure that your kid gets the best education possible. Public or Private

[Momma_bear]

Originally Posted by InformedConsent

There is way too much focus on one-size-fits-all, lockstep education in many public schools that is way over the heads of some students and so far below others' capabilities that it should be recognized as educational neglect, abuse, and malpractice.

This is true here in FL where the entire curriculum begins and ends with the FCAT. There is little for students who are capable of much more than FCAT while children who have trouble with FCAT have their childhood ruined by the stress of passing the exam.

Originally Posted by InformedConsent

I'm still thinking about the OP's civic duty question. The public school system is self-destructing because of educators' poor decision-making on too many curriculum, pedagogy, and policy issues. Is it our civic duty to expect parents to sacrifice their children to ill-conceived and unproven Ed School theories and ideologies?

I wish I could have my kids in public school. It would be so much less money. Their private school tuition is a fortune and I believe in public schools. However, there are flaws in the system that I cannot fix simply by being involved. My first obligation is to my kids. I would love to see the public schools here fixed so I could send my kids. But for now they will remain in charter and private schools. I don't think that means I am shirking any civic duty.

[Momma_bear]

Originally Posted by InformedConsent

I think there is some truth in that. The problem is that many public schools want to keep the highly achieving students and their involved parents, but then refuse to provide the education that those students and their parents are looking for - an education that allows them to develop their strengths and maximize their potential. Many public schools will only provide a lockstep, one-size-fits-all education that in reality fits only a very few.

I will say this again, NCLB is not the problem. NCLB goals and state standards are the bare MINIMUM acceptable achievement level - not the only outcome that schools should work toward. Students who are capable of moving beyond that bare minimum benchmark should be educated in such a way that they do so. Those who slam NCLB should really direct their anger towards public schools that refuse to recognize the fact that NCLB requirements are the FLOOR, not the one-level-fits-all ceiling, of our country's children's educational outcomes.

One of the problems with NCLB is that states are under so much pressure for ALL students to make AYP that they are hell bent on making sure that the kids pass the state tests. What it does is teach the minimum curriculum and ONLY the minimum curriculum to students. So while NCLB is not the only problem in public schools it is a huge contributor to the one-size-fits-all educatoin that is prevalent in public schools.

I think schools could still give excellent education and meet NCLB simply by treating NCLB as the FLOOR and not the CEILING (like you said). The problem with NCLB is not with the act itself as much as the state's reactions to the act.

In private schools kids take standardized tests also. The biggest difference I see between public and private schools around here are how the standardized tests are treated.

In private schools the parents get a note home indicating the dates of the test and asking parents to make sure kids are well fed and well rested on test days. This is a stark contrast to the hysteria that surrounds standardized testing in public schools.

[#Littledog]

Parents in good conscience have the right to choose whatever is the best educational route for their children. I agree with the previous post that paying taxes benefits the public schools which fulfills the "civic duty". The public schools are doing just fine in terms of financial support.

I personally feel if you choose another educational route for your children, you should be able to have some of the educational tax money back. I am pro-voucher which tried to get off the ground here in Milwaukee but never really materialized for regular middle-class families like ourselves. We would like to send our children to Catholic school but the taxes in WI are so high that we send them to public school. If we had a voucher system, we would take our $$ and put it in the Catholic schools. Same for parents who choose Montesorri, Waldorf, academies, home school, etc-they should not have to pay the same amount of taxes if they choose not to send their children to the public schools.

[sgresident]

I think first and foremost, that our responsibility is to educate our children. Truthfully, from a dollars and cents point of view, the more people sending their kids to private schools saves money for the public schools. they receive the tax dollars, but don't have to educate and provide space for the kids. I think that when we do send our kids to public schools, that we should make sure that our kids are receiving the best education available to them. this often means getting involved! there are numerous ways to do that. Keeping on top of the performance of the kids in relation to the district test scores is one way. You cannot put a value on parent involvement. You need it at home and at the school. Often, parents just think..I will send them off to school and my job is done! Not so, I still believe that the more involved a parent is with their child, no matter if they are just starting kindergarten or just starting their senior year, the better the child will be.

[skoro]

Of course not.

But every parent should be involved and active in their child's education. There are a number of ways to do this, and public or private schools are only two of the choices available. And there's no single option that's a good fit for every family.

[InformedConsent]

Originally Posted by Momma_bear

I think schools could still give excellent education and meet NCLB simply by treating NCLB as the FLOOR and not the CEILING (like you said). The problem with NCLB is not with the act itself as much as the state's reactions to the act.

The states' reactions are part of the problem because they've manipulated their tests and the scores required to 'meet state standards' on their tests to make it look like schools are improving when they're not.




Lake Wobegon, U.S.A. -- where all the children are above average
(Read the college prof's comment at the bottom of the article.)

Some other State Test vs. NAEP student proficiency percentage comparisons (source: UCLA's Center for the Study of Evaluation):

State - State % proficient / NAEP % proficient

Alabama - 83% / 22% (shown in graphic)

Alaska - 74% / 28%

Arizona - 77% / 23%

Arkansas - 62% / 28%

I'll stop now... Do you see what I mean?

The biggest part of the problem is that our public school officials can't figure out how to provide intensive, targeted instruction to raise struggling students' achievement without putting everyone else's education on hold at the lowest 'passing' level. That's why colleges and employers are encountering greater levels of increasingly dumbed down college students/employees.

Our public school system is self-destructing because it does not/will not effectively educate capable students.

[Charles Wallace]

Originally Posted by vicarebo

My daughter was interested in Andover too, but I guess I was a bit like your parents,lol. I can't imagine being the type of parent you are describing. But maybe I phrased the question wrong. Do you think if a parent chooses a non-public route to educate their child they are shirking their civic duty. Even if they are involved in their child's school?

I believe that the duty to one's child supersedes the duty to one's city. That means that if a parent genuinely IS shirking her or his civic duty by not sending her or his child to school (something I'll address in a minute because I don't entirely agree with that conclusion), if not doing so is in the better interests of the child, it is the right decision to make.

Here's why I don't believe that keeping your child home is a failure of civic duty in the first place, though:

1. Economic advantages

I'm a homeowner who (obviously) pays property taxes, and from my property taxes the schools in our district are supported. As homeschoolers, we've borne the burden of our child's education ourselves while simultaneously spending the tax money to support a service our child does not use. That means that we are actually enabling more money per child to be distributed to our district's schools given that the money is coming in, but the child is staying home.

2. School advantages
Overcrowding is a major problem in our district as well as in the specific school for which we are zoned. By keeping our child home, we reduce the problem -- not by much, clearly, but every avalanche is made of single snowflakes, if you get my drift.

Another way in which our homeschooling benefits the school is by a reduced need on their part to provide academic accomodations for our child, which would most certainly need to be put in place. Those accomodations would, even at their cheapest, cost time and resources to work out and implement. The state would not be providing extra money or resources for these accomodations, so we save the school time, effort, and money by keeping our child home.

3. Other Advantages
I believe that the duty to one's country supersedes the duty to one's city; therefore, whatever would benefit the country, even if it did not benefit the city, would be the right choice to make.

I believe that in homeschooling our child, even if we are shirking our civic responsibility (something I do not agree with, as I said above), we are not shirking our duty as citizens of this country.

A democracy cannot run effectively without a well-informed citizenry whose speech is not only free but intelligent. Unfortunately, I do not believe that as a whole, the U.S. educational system is teaching its students at the level of rigor they would need to in order to be that intelligent, well-informed citizenry. Obviously, there are some sterling examples of fine public education in this country, but I can only sit in envy and wish that those schools were the norm and not the exception.

Good teachers everywhere around this country struggle to teach their students some of the true basics -- how to read, how to write -- and find that NCLB has concentrated so much of their attention and effort on getting those few "bubble kids" over the hump from inadequate to proficient that the others are being neglected once they have mastered that very low set of basic skills. By concentrating so much time and effort on raising the floor, they've forgotten to hold up the ceiling.

This is regrettable beyond words, because many of the intelligent, hardworking kids in this country are emerging from high schools with an understanding of history -- to say nothing of other disciplines -- that recent reports have shown to be sadly pathetic at best. Without knowledge of history, literature, philosophy, science, logic, rhetoric, it's very difficult to do much more as a citizen than accept the surfaces of what you see -- or what you're being presented. Without historical knowledge or the tools of thinking that philosophy, science, literature, logic, and rhetoric give you, people are that much more easily led and controlled by their elected officials, not all of whom are honest and not all of whom are interested in doing what is prudent. A democracy is not the rule of the herd by the herd; you cannot have freedom of the sheeple.

In short, others may have different ideas -- again, one of the founding principles of a democracy -- based on their different situations. For us, and for our situation, we're acting in the service of a higher duty than the civic.

Hope that helps.

[Charles Wallace]

Originally Posted by vicarebo

Yeah, I don't know much about it either. I just didn't have a rebuttal when this person said that! I guess you could also look at the Chicago public school system as an example, maybe. The system gets plenty of money. But if you are able, in most cases, you will send your children to private school. Has this always been the case? Were the schools ever good? Until I am convinced otherwise, I happen to think you pay your taxes but do what you feel is best for your own child. Most of us want to raise good, well-educated, productive adults that can contribute posititvely to society.

I'm not entirely certain I agree with this argument, but one argument I've heard advanced is that it's your obligation NOT to send your child to public school if you can afford to do otherwise, just as it's your obligation not to take welfare money if you can afford not to be on welfare. Again, I'm not endorsing this argument; I'm offering it for public consideration.

[Charles Wallace]

Originally Posted by Marlow

Not sure where you saw the argument, but I think generally the idea is that if everyone, including people with resources to send their kids to private school, kept their kids in public school, the overall quality of the schools would go up. When higher income, involved parents (not that the two always go together) pull their kids out of public school, it leaves the children of lower income parents there who don't have as many resources (time, money, whatever) to invest in the school. Along with that goes the idea that kids with resources and parental involvement are going to do well in school and will positively influence the other kids.

"A rising tide carries all boats" or whatever that expression is.

I'm not entirely buying this one, given that I worked at a public school in an affluent area and it was a disaster, behaviorally and academically. I couldn't wait to get out of there. The parents weren't interested in their children's academic achievement -- they were very interested in their children's grades, and their money was used to intimidate the administration into pressuring teachers to inflate scores, essentially. The children of parents who were lower-income never did that, and in fact, showed far greater respect for the teachers than the higher-income ones, who essentially treated teachers like peons and looked for legalistic loopholes they could exploit to their children's advantage. In one example, a teacher had one assignment written on his whiteboard in class, but had forgotten to add it to his online lesson plans. The parents and students asserted that their child, therefore, "didn't have to do that assignment" because it differed from the plans on the board in class. Things like that.

Obviously, this attitude is not necessarily true of all schools, but it makes me believe that richer is not always equivalent to better.