[MAXIALE02]

Originally Posted by Everdeen

A hard sell on what?

I don't know yet. I haven't had time to actually talk to the person calling but I keep getting emails and voice mail. I have time set aside today to see what she's so urgently trying to tell me. From what I understand, online virtual academy is free (not including the time the parent puts in educating the child).

My impression is that the virtual academy staff gets paid based on the number of students enrolled. Do they get the same amount as a brick and mortar builder for each student? These are some of the questions I feel compelled to ask her when I do get adequate time to speak with her. I will be composing academic questions
later today. Do you have any suggestions for me??

[ecd3easy]

Originally Posted by ScoopLV

Even that list is skewed. They take all the top schools in the country, and simply throw those results out because they're so much better than average. And I can understand why -- these are private schools that can pick and choose exceptional students. Of course they're going to lead the pack.

Think about your anecdote about the 7th grader taking 8th grade classes. "We had nothing to offer her."

My point to all of this is we need to step up for those students who are far ahead of their peers. We have nothing to offer them. Our best school is more than 500 places down on a national list that already dismisses the top 500 or so schools in the country as "too good."

Students can still receive a good education. Motivated students with ambition can even achieve excellence (but they'll be doing that on their own). At the end of the day, the yardstick for school system excellence is the percentage of students who go on to top-tiered universities. And we are woefully lacking in that regard. And that's why I will not use the word "excellent" or "first-rate" when it comes to CCSD.

Is CCSD perfect...NO...not by a long shot. I favor breaking the school district up. However, each year many CCSD students get into top-tiered universities. How can that be considering the HORRIBLE education the EVERY single school delivers in CCSD?

The only way to truly measure school districts is to eliminate private school students. Students whose parents are famous, donors of said school, and or politicians. Then you accurately judge the school districts. I went to high school in the North-East, there are MANY, MANY back door channels into Ivy League schools and other top-tier universities.

[ecd3easy]

Additionally, any top-tiered public university (i.e University of Texas or University of Michigan etc...) are required to take certain amount of students from in-state which would further skew these so-called rankings. So they only to truly gauge the students would be to use only private universities and exclude said students.

[aardogfsu]

I think Scoop is right on. There is nothing excellent or even very good about the school district here (from what I've seen and heard). I moved from an "average" public upstate NY state high school in the middle of 11th grade to a South Florida high school that was public and considered "best in the area"...teachers, students curriculum...it was night and day...learned absolutely nothing the remaining year and a half. Had zero homework, ever...and compared to upstate NY, it was a jungle, slept through classes and went fishing to get straight A's.

People have a warped sense of what is excellent....compared to what?

[NLVgal]

My youngest attended Northwest Tech. (magnet school) and received a very good education. I'd even say it was excellent by some standards. He's in NY at college on a nice scholarship. My oldest attended Shadow Ridge, which I found to be average to good. I once had to break up an argument between them in the car.... about physics.

Interestingly enough, if you've ever read "Freakonomics," the correlation between successful people / students and the unsuccessful was predictable by one thing, and one thing only. The number of books present in the child's household. Children whose homes contained lots of books, statistically did very well.

[ScoopLV]

Originally Posted by aardogfsu

People have a warped sense of what is excellent....compared to what?

Thank you. This has been my point all along. I have impossibly high standards. I'm the first to admit it. But the world was not conquered by Ivan the Bland, Alexander the Mediocre or Genghis the Ho-Hum.

Furthermore, I think it is shameful that we do not have a school for our gifted students. After all, they're the ones who have the best shot at fixing the horrible mess that we have saddled them with. Las Vegas is squandering the most important resource on the planet -- brilliance.

Perhaps the nay-sayers are right. Perhaps there is no future Stephen Hawking or Robert Goddard or Grace Hopper in the valley. But what if there is? What are we doing for that student? Nothing, that's what. Surely with a population as large as ours we can find some resources for the kids who are doing calculus by the age of nine.

[lvoc]

General rule of thumb. upper middle class schools are reasonably good.. True virtually everywhere. Las Vegas is no exception. Deals with the parents and the students.

It is the bottom half of a school system that dominates the ratings...and the bottom of the Las Vegas school system is relatively dismal.

Send a kid to ATEC or LVA or Coronado or GVR or the magnet program at Clark. They will graduate and do well in college.

Send them to Western and hope they get a reasonable job when they fall out.

[von949]

Originally Posted by ScoopLV

Thank you. This has been my point all along. I have impossibly high standards. I'm the first to admit it. But the world was not conquered by Ivan the Bland, Alexander the Mediocre or Genghis the Ho-Hum.

Furthermore, I think it is shameful that we do not have a school for our gifted students. After all, they're the ones who have the best shot at fixing the horrible mess that we have saddled them with. Las Vegas is squandering the most important resource on the planet -- brilliance.

Perhaps the nay-sayers are right. Perhaps there is no future Stephen Hawking or Robert Goddard or Grace Hopper in the valley. But what if there is? What are we doing for that student? Nothing, that's what. Surely with a population as large as ours we can find some resources for the kids who are doing calculus by the age of nine.

How would your wife rate the school district? She has been with it for a while right? Would she teach more effectively if she taught at Deerfield? Is CCSD holding her back?

[ScoopLV]

No, her biggest beef is the waste and the inefficiency of the management. If they would actually let her TEACH for eight hours a day, she could reach more children more often and reinforce the language skills more effectively.

Instead, it's all about stupid standardized tests and IEP meetings. We've been together for nearly 20 years, and I still don't know what IEP means. Individual Educational Program? I'm guessing that's what it is.

Anyway, "No Child Left Behind" is an abject failure and we should abandon it. As for districts, she has taught in Nevada, Florida and New England. CCSD is better than South Florida. But it's not in any way shape or form what they do in New England -- we're not even in the bush league compared to a typical Norman Rockwell district.

[von949]

Originally Posted by aardogfsu

People have a warped sense of what is excellent....compared to what?

I still say that there are excellent teachers in our school system. I doubt anyone on here can deny that.

Those better school systems are out of reach because thay are hundreds of miles away so what do we do? We make the best out of what we have. I just need CCSD to give me 50%, I can make up the other half at home. Some people want 100%. As a tax payer it would be nice to support a school system that excels that much but it's not happening any time soon.

Last month sometime our teacher found out about one of her students that were not eating dinner at home(parents were never around at night). Came in every morning starving. He would always ask for other student's food and take home whatever he could. Long story short(especially since I don't know all the details), this is just another one of those issues that distract our Clark county teachers from teaching.

There are some difficult situations going on out there and we expect teachers to deal with them between 8am and 3pm.

This 4 year old will be entering CCSD next year.

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