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when teachers in the public school system send their own children to private schools, what does that tell you about the teachers confidence of having their children getting an education in a public school?
I know of 2 teachers in my school district that have their children homeschooled. that told me alot about the school system here.
Like I said before, I can't knock people for saying the hell with this & taking their child's education into their own hands.
Alphamale you bring up a good point. When I was in middle school, like 1990, 1991. I noticed my school started offering after-school, care, then breakfast, and I'll never forget how absurd my mom thought it was that schools are now offering breakfast. Her explanation was that is the parents' responsibility to feed a child NOT the schools. I believe it is the parents responsibility to teach a child manners like having respect for a teacher, and keeping your mouth shut when the teacher is talking, NOT the schools.
Another point I would like to bring up is that our society, our US culture, does NOT encourage learning. I have never lived in another country, but I've had the privileage of talking to those that do at length and one thing that strikesis me that many have a passion for learning. How many students have that passion in the US? I would say 99% of kids in the US go through the motions at school. I was one of them when I was in school. We encourage kids to be on the football team, be on the soccer, be prom king, be prom queen, be popular, be the first one at school with the newest iPhone, and while I believe there's nothing wrong with sports or proms. None of those things encourages learning. We keep throwing money at education yet US students are closer to the bottom in the world not the top. Until our society as whole encourages learning, (parents included), the current situation won't change
Alphamale you bring up a good point. When I was in middle school, like 1990, 1991. I noticed my school started offering after-school, care, then breakfast, and I'll never forget how absurd my mom thought it was that schools are now offering breakfast. Her explanation was that is the parents' responsibility to feed a child NOT the schools. I believe it is the parents responsibility to teach a child manners like having respect for a teacher, and keeping your mouth shut when the teacher is talking, NOT the schools.
Another point I would like to bring up is that our society, our US culture, does NOT encourage learning. I have never lived in another country, but I've had the privileage of talking to those that do at length and one thing that strikesis me that many have a passion for learning. How many students have that passion in the US? I would say 99% of kids in the US go through the motions at school. I was one of them when I was in school. We encourage kids to be on the football team, be on the soccer, be prom king, be prom queen, be popular, be the first one at school with the newest iPhone, and while I believe there's nothing wrong with sports or proms. None of those things encourages learning. We keep throwing money at education yet US students are closer to the bottom in the world not the top. Until our society as whole encourages learning, (parents included), the current situation won't change
Do you have a passion for learning? If so, who inspired you? If it was your parents, why do you assume other parents don't similarly encourage their kids to learn?
This thread, with its whole-sale condemnation of public education -- Whoopee! Let's ALL home-school! -- absolutely astounds me. While I agree that many public schools are troubled, many other public schools are providing an excellent education to their students.
This thread, with its whole-sale condemnation of public education -- Whoopee! Let's ALL home-school! -- absolutely astounds me. While I agree that many public schools are troubled, many other public schools are providing an excellent education to their students.
"Excellence" is in the eye of the beholder. It's the Lake Wobegon syndrome. Many think their schools are great and it's everyone else's schools that are bad, ineffective, inefficient, dumbing everyone down, etc.
The actual fact is that the top students in the US rank last compared to the top students in other countries.
Where are you getting this information, and what specific knowledge and skills were being measured? I'd really like to give the primary source(s) a look.
Wish they would tell em that in my town . Here they refuse to even consider more then 13 per class. The result, we pay more to teach 3rd graders then a yr at UNH.
Are you really begrudging a professional with a Bachelor's degree a measly $26,000 per year? Do you honestly believe that a teacher who earns what amounts to $16 an hour (salary/180 days x 9 hours per day) is overpaid?
Where are you getting this information, and what specific knowledge and skills were being measured? I'd really like to give the primary source(s) a look.
The US participated in the testing of advanced students that one year and declined to participate in such testing after that. We already know our top students are way behind those of the rest of the world's industrialized countries.
Comments by Pascal D. Forgione, Jr., Ph.D., U.S. Commissioner of Education Statistics:
Quote:
"For years, people have taken comfort in the notion that while the performance of all our students may be only average, our strength lies in our top students. Many people feel that our best students perform better than the best students of most other countries. I believe TIMSS shows this notion to be untrue.
...What does this tell us? To me, it says that our concept of “advanced” is different—and lower—than in other countries. Furthermore, I believe that this is a gap that widens over time. We have empirical evidence from the increasingly lower relative international standing of our students from the fourth to the twelfth grade in both mathematics and science. And we have further support for the idea of a widening gap from the curriculum experts who tell us that topics typically covered by ninth grade in most countries are not covered until the eleventh grade in the United States. If these assessments are correct, then we may be suffering from a curriculum drift, where the level of rigor of our curriculum fails to keep pace with international standards during the years of middle school and high school. The impact of this possible gap on achievement would be obvious. I ask you, the science education community, to examine science curricula and achievement to determine whether we are maintaining an appropriate level of rigor across grade levels."
Thank you. I did a little research after my last post and found a summary of Forgione's comments. I appreciate the primary source and am looking forward to reading it.
Something I find interesting is that it appears that our kids do pretty well until the end of middle school when they seem to fall off a cliff, especially in light of recent changes I'm seeing in our elementary curriculum. My youngest is now in fifth grade at a public school. His teacher has integrated science, writing, and vocabulary instruction. Most of his day is spent performing classroom experiments and writing about his observations and conclusions. It will be fascinating to follow his progress as he moves into middle school next year.
I agree except where are the books? My children (1st and 3rd grade) don't bring home books. (Catholic school) The teachers/school send home some pages torn out of a workbook and a note to look at a web page for further help. I bought the old SRA Reading Lab off CL and SAXON Math Lab. Both of my children love learning from a book and especially love the SRA Reading Lab.
Also, what is wrong with the Rote method? Why have schools continued to down play the idea of just memorizing facts at a young age to help develop a child's memory? My friends in S'pore and Japan say that skill is still being taught there and their children are doing very well and love school. Also, how come I don't see more homework in math, spelling, grammar? Where are the Spelling rules? I can still remember being in the 3rd grade having to copy them off the board and memorize them.
I spend a lot of time and money buying good books, printing more homework assignments for my children and can only consider the American education system a total failure.
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