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For the past 21 years I have taught economics to more than 14,000 college students here in Central Florida.
During that time I have made a concerted effort to glean information from my Valencia students as to their educational background preceding their arrival in college.
Drawing from a sample size this large multiplied by two decades multiplied by hundreds of thousands of test answers has put me in a good position to offer the following advice to any reader of this paper with children in Florida's K-12 public schools. Get them out now before you ruin their life.
While this may seem to be a bit harsh, let's look at the facts.
First, my best students every year are in order — Chinese, Eastern European, Indian and home-schooled Americans, and it is not even close when comparing this group to American public-school kids.
While I don't neccessarily think that public school will ruin your children's lives, at least not in every circumstance, I do believe that more people
need to be taking a serious look at homeschooling.
It's not the right option for every family, but more options should be available to EVERY family than just the public school where you live. I'm a big advocate of the voucher programs because this will give families the ability to put their kids into whatever school fits their families needs. Louisiana is getting outstanding results from their programs. It's time we started doing this is ALL states!
Maybe this should be moved to the Education forum?
I had the same experience as the CC instructor that wrote the article. Some of my best students are home schooled high schoolers. They have a few traits that make them good students: self motivation and direction, enthusiasm and participation. They are much less shy about asking questions when they don't understand the material. They are independent and will often ask for extra material to read. The best homeschooling parents encourage their kids to follow their passions: so they will come up to me and want to know everything about say, tigers or DNA fingerprinting.
As a downside, they do tend to be more socially awkward. They don't always work well in groups. Other students in the class tend to think that they are "weird". Fortunately, community college is a great atmosphere for them: they can take advanced courses (sometime for free), and the students are much more respectful than high school students are. There have been a few homeschooled students that I know would've been beat up daily in a public high school. My students just roll their eyes. No one gets a bruised collarbone from rolled eyes.
In practical terms, most students can't be home schooled. Most parents are not going to have the time or ability to do so. The real question is: how do we get these traits infused in public school students?
Generalizing is never good. There are thousands of public school systems that do an excellent job. There are some that do not.
I think there is more that don't vs those that do.
NCLB and AYP mandates have not helped. If anything it has done more harm than good because the focus is all on meeting those numbers to get your Federal dollars and that means lowering the bar.
I think there is more that don't vs those that do.
I disagree. The ones that don't though are large and make the news.
Quote:
NCLB and AYP mandates have not helped. If anything it has done more harm than good because the focus is all on meeting those numbers to get your Federal dollars and that means lowering the bar.
Yeah, I agree with that. IMO most systems dont take that stuff anywhere as serious as the federal government does though.
I think public schools should be as selective as private schools when they decide who they will teach. This should apply from 8th to 12th grades. This selection should be based on ability, attitude and willingness to do the work required to learn. We are simply wasting our money trying to teach the stupid, recalcitrant, obnoxious and lazy any subjects beyond basic reading, writing and arithmetic. Those subjects should be sufficient for someone to do basic industrial and construction work under the foreman's close watch.
The kids that want to learn should be taught as much as possible by involved and enthusiastic teachers working with the willing instead of being babysitters for the bored.
I think "vouchers" for parents homeschooling is another waste of money. Improve the schools instead of passing on the work to parents or putting public money into private, frequently religious, school's coffers. I strongly object to public money getting into ANY church’s hands for any reason.
I disagree. The ones that don't though are large and make the news.
Yeah, I agree with that. IMO most systems dont take that stuff anywhere as serious as the federal government does though.
The schools I've been working in do. Those Fed dollars mean alot to their budgets. Come March it's all 100% about that damn state test and nothing else.
The schools I've been working in do. Those Fed dollars mean alot to their budgets. Come March it's all 100% about that damn state test and nothing else.
Sorry for you. Yes, the money is important but here is my experience. The kids are taught through the year. Yes, the teachers are told to get the kids ready for the test but when my daughter comes home (and I know others that do this) and we ask if she has homework and she says she has to study for this test, we allow her to go do what she wants.
Since she is taught during the year, she does fine without the addition time taken away from other things. (Not that they aren't taught all during the year where you are at).
In my opinion it's not the schools, it's the parents lack of involvement in their children's education and social life.
For many this is true. In other cases it's the schools. There is no one problem.
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