It starts at home... (El Paso: homes, middle school, versus)

[HookTheBrotherUp]

Campuses in 9 El Paso-area districts don't meet academic standards - El Paso Times

How do private schools in El Paso fair? It is hard to blame just the districts, I think the most fault lies with parents who leave their kids with abuelita who watches novelas all day. Just kidding, somewhat, but you get the idea.

[alucard]

I would like to see the average adult take those damn tests. I have three kids in three different schools. My kids passed on their end. The middle school my daughter attends didn't make the grade. Not her fault. Not my fault. My son's high school was one of the two that did make it. They don't teach the crap on these tests until about 3 weeks prior. Then they keep changing what tests the kids will take. I think they put too much pressure on these tests. Sure..some kids and their parents don't give a rat's patoot. Some teachers don't either. But I think they really need to re-evaluate these damn tests they are putting out. My daughter was reduced to tears in preparing for her exams. The new tests have more questions and are now timed. Plus, some kids just have a hard time at taking tests. As for private schools, they are not federally funded so they do not have to report their results so who knows how they fair. I can't say where the blame lies. I can just give my opinion from one parent's point of view. My youngest will be taking his first major test this year and I'm already worried about it.

[malamute]

Originally Posted by HookTheBrotherUp

Campuses in 9 El Paso-area districts don't meet academic standards - El Paso Times

How do private schools in El Paso fair? It is hard to blame just the districts, I think the most fault lies with parents who leave their kids with abuelita who watches novelas all day. Just kidding, somewhat, but you get the idea.

In the public schools there are kids who do quite well on these standardized tests -- and they're been in the same classrooms with the kids who aren't learning much at all. It would be interesting to know what are the differences in the home.

Imagine a breakdown by family -- you'd probably find that siblings from one family all do well on these tests and siblings from other families do poorly. And if you examined what goes on in the homes of the high performers versus the poor performers, you might find there are homes where books are provided, parents read to their children, are very involved with their children, prepare them for school, make sure they know the basics and others just have children.

What I don't like about this whole approach is that it gets the teachers teaching to only one portion of the kids. There is so much pressure to get a class to pass, the strategy is to break down the students into the group that will pass with no problem and they can be ignored as they will score high no matter what and the group that won't pass no matter what and can also be ignored and their focus is on those students who with enough repetition and drills might pass.

And it is hard to blame the districts because it's not only the children who they've had year after year that are included in the scores, they've got tons of students who have recently arrived, can't speak the language, and are actually a reflection of how well a whole different set of schools has done preparing them.