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.
Let me tell you, as one of the "Ms. Board Certified Fastidious Fanny" who teaches in an urban school, not the upper middle class utopias, this affects us as much as it affects you. If you were doing your job effectively, and figured out how to get your students engaged in "the game" as you call it, then you wouldn't have to worry about wanting to move to a cush job in Palos Verdes. Maybe you're in the wrong profession. This is what makes me so mad. YOU, as somebody who doesn't want to help, probably get to move to a school with a class load of 20 students who want to learn where you can read the paper all day. While, like what's happening now, I'll be in a class with probably 9 students on IEP's out of 34 or more students, because of my NB cert. The awards in education go to the lazy. Have fun in Palo Verdes.
[URL="http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jEfLzvCMhD6B_TFxCPZ5GHU_O-4QD984AL6G0"]The Associated Press: Obama wants to turn around 5,000 failing schools[/URL]
I might be willing to concur with this plan if a part of it would be to replace those of us who sweat it out on the front lines of urban decay with the braggarts from schools in upper middle class utopias. Sure, I'll go teach in Palos Verdes and have Ms. Board Certified Fastidious Fanny come down to the East Los Angeles area. "Wazzup chica? You got some rolling paper?"
The best analogy I can come up with is a game of Monopoly played by hungry, beaten up, hormone driven, drug anesthetized players. They don't want to play the game. Gee, big surprise. So what do you do? I guess the problem was that particular game. You rip the game board out from under them and replace it with a new game. That should solve the problem. Right? WRONG!![/quote]
If it were possible for there to be an overhaul of parenting, and that overhaul actually occurred, I think we'd find how little an overhaul of education is needed.
Education isn't the problem. Educators/educational institutions having to play the the roles of parents, counselors, social workers, day-care providers, dieticians, standardized test prep specialists/proctors, and, oh, yeah, in their spare time from all of that, effectively teach kids whose parents aren't backing it up at home or supporting anything the educational institutions do are the problem.
However, I still stand by my observation that removing disruptive students from settings that are conducive to disruption (particularly peers who are equally disruptive) will help mitigate some of the behavioral problems. Perhaps, as noted above, I was a bit too zealous by stating with "100% certainty" that these means would be successful, but I still stand by the fact that they are highly successful, and I can say that from personal experience. Of course, a seasoned teacher may have another take on the situation.
But what do you do when the disruptive ones equal or outnumber the non disruptive ones? That is a problem in many schools.
As a child I was quiet and studious and got to experience this type of thing when the teachers would seat a problem child next to me hoping I would rub off on them. My mom actually had to go to the school after I came home with marker on my blouses and bruises on my arms. I was to shy to speak up in class, and this was back in the 60's in "good" school districts, so I can only imagine how hard it is with some of the kids today who get sent to public schools because the schools HAVE to take them.
I think schools should be able to remove the disruptive ones from the school itself. It may just take sacrificing some for the benefit of the others to make public schools work they way they are supposed to. The rest will have to be handled differently...and I have no answers for them. But it's true that they will drag down the others, not visa verse.
I am very much against any budget that gives the biggest piece of pie to serve the fewest individuals. It's maddness.
Well, since I originally posted this thread we've seen the debacle emerging in Rhode Island - Fire all the teachers! How dare they score so low on standardized tests - but wait, did the teachers take those tests? Do 15 or 16 or 17 year old individuals bear any responsibility for academic performance? At my high school in Los Angeles County you might ask whether adolescents ought to bear any responsibility for their behavior at all. We've seen an alarming increase in violent incidents on campus which have coincided with a new disciplinary policy of "counseling" and personal intervention over against tangible penalties. We seem to have adopted some kind of "noble savage" ideology that implies that children emerge in this world in a state of perfection and are corrupted by civilization. As the inane lyrics to that pop song go, "... let them lead the way." The children can do no wrong. What are we going to do about the teachers? Tsk, tsk, tsk.
Here in the Los Angeles Unified School District, we've seen the same thing happen at Fremont High School - we call it, "reconstitution". Check out their website: SaveFremont.org -- Our superintendent summoned the teachers there to the auditorium and waved the finger of shame at them. Yes, there are some incompetent teachers at every school, but using teachers as scapegoats is a bit like saying the problem on the Titanic was a lack of toilet facilities in third class.
The point I was trying to make in my original post was that if you exchanged teachers from one high performing school with the teachers from a "program improvement" school, the results would be NIL. The test scores would remain the same because the problem is NOT the teacher.
To improve the schools we need to start improving the communities that surround the schools. Schools need to change, but education can only be responsible for so much. We need community relations to improve and have a support system that the kids can reach out to when they leave school........
There are many problems with schools today. One is that schools have forgotten about the ones that really matter, the children. Schools have become political and have forgotten about the children. You have teachers who refuse to take the few minutes after or before school to help that kid who is having a tough time academically. As a teacher, I saw this as MY JOB. I used to come in at 6:30 a.m. and leave at 5:00 p.m. because I was either preparing for the day or tutoring kids who need help. I would frequently bring work home.
Then you have parents who are being forced to work two or three jobs to make ends meet. These parents are struggling to survive. I have seen that these parents typically want their children to be successful. This is affecting their children a great deal. Then you have the parents who just don't care and are continuing to have children to increase the size of their welfare checks.
You have communities who have no idea what is going on in the public schools. There are community members who just don't seem to care about education.
You have society and parents who are failing to teach our children morals. Children often are not taught that there is a difference between what is right and what is wrong. You have media saying that it acceptable to socialize in class and disrespect your teacher. Teachers on TV are frequently portrayed as someone that children can walk all over. Children are exposed to violence on TV.
I don't really think the government can improve public schools. We really need to work together to make sure our kids can have a better education.
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.
[/quote]
We love to bite the hand that feeds us.
