Basis Charter School will have a new campus in Chandler. Are you gonna send your kids there?

[hts]

So it's mid-Jan now and we're approx. halfway through the school year.

We withdrew our 4th grader from our local GHA after just 4 weeks and enrolled him in another local charter school. We weren't crazy with the 2-ish hours of homework per night, but we didn't move him because of the academics, but rather other school policies that we disagreed with and don't want to get into at this time. We're all much happier with the new school.

As for our 6th grader, he just finished pre-comps at BASIS and he's excelling there. He only studies for around an hour (if that) per night, and is getting all A's/B's (6 A's, 2 B's on his last report card). I suspect if he worked a little harder, he could obtain straight A's, but he has other activities (boy scouts, guitar lessons, baseball/flag football, etc.) that keep him busy as well, so we're not terribly concerned.

We are planning to send our 4th grader to BASIS next year for 5th grade. Overall, we're delighted with BASIS and are passing on Great Hearts.

[abad]

excuses, excuses. I am from a third world country. What I read about Bliss is excellent. More home work is nice. You Americans are just spoilt. ( no offense intended). Schools don't mater at all, its the parental involvement. Full 100%. That the secret.

[azriverfan.]

Originally Posted by abad

excuses, excuses. I am from a third world country. What I read about Bliss is excellent. More home work is nice. You Americans are just spoilt. ( no offense intended). Schools don't mater at all, its the parental involvement. Full 100%. That the secret.

Third world countries offer poor education. They emphasize math and science and little else. Their placement is based on one standardized exam that they take at the end of the year. The children only study. There are no sports, arts, music, or literature to distract them. They go to school and come home and study. I understand they work hard but they also receive very little in terms of a real education. Their professors don't teach. They force them to memorize large bits of information throughout the year and answer essay like exams (similar to law school with blue books). The more they write down, the higher their score. There is little to any thinking involved, it's all just rote memorization. This is why people from third world countries don't do well on multiple choice tests because MC tests require that people think and answer second and third order level questions. This is why people from third world countries have trouble passing the United States Medical Licensing Exam (USMLE). They become doctors in their country but can't pass our exams to practice here. The USMLE doesn't allow you to just regurgitate information, you have to apply concepts and think. It's not easy to do if all you had to do was memorize notes and then write it down.

Third world countries would provide a better education if they were able to. Unfortunately, they are handicapped by a large population and no resources hence the reason they only teach math and science because they lack the resources to teach anything else. Furthermore, there are no jobs available in fields outside of math and science and most people either become doctors or engineers. Are Americans spoiled, yes we are and thankfully so. Unlike the third world approach to education, I don't see the terms "liberal arts, music and sports" being worthless.

[sonkiaz]

AZriverfan,

Some of your points are correct but not all. You're right that the third world countries (TWC) focus more in math and science, but little in literature arts, music, or sports. One of the main reasons is the funding for the education is a lot less than US. So we cannot compare oranges to apples, but we have to compare the US education with other industrial countries. Recently US students are ranked number 25/36 of the industrial countries.

I am from a TWC and got high school education in 1970's. We did not do multiple choice tests, but a lot of oral or writing tests. For math tests, 85% cames from text books and 15% you had to think out of the text book. You will never get A if you memorize the study materials only. If you are good in memorizing but not problem solving, math and science are not your main majors. Starting from the 10th grade, student has to choose which fields that he/she is good at: math+physics, bio+chem, history+social studies, or literature arts, etc ... some can choose vacational schools. For science, we did not have a real lab as US students.

Back to US. My son is attending a elementary school rated 10 by GreatSchool.com and in grade A school district in Arizona. His third grade's math is still doing some multiplication in the 2nd period. When I was in the TWC, at the end of the 1st grade, I was able to do multiplication of 10.

US education is not as good as some parents thought/think. We should do something about it. One of the main things is US parents have to put their children education as number 1, above music or sports, and get involved. As a TWC educated parent, I have my kids joinging swimming club, playing tennis, running, mountain hiking, and learning piano etc. But I always emphasize school works first to my kids.