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There are so many flawed assumptions and weak logical connections here that it hardly seems worth the effort of going through them. I think most who read stuff like this can easily see the problems with it, but still, this sort of thinking is mainstream. Is it any wonder so many people are mistrustful of public education?
Let's do some Math:
Hours in school (7X180)= 1260
Hours at home with parents (17X180)= 3060
Hours at home rest of year. (24X185)= 4440
Total in school with teachers: 1260
Total at home with parents: 7500
Who should be more influential again?
Neither.
The point of this thread is about education. If I'm sending my child to school, I expect him to be educated THERE. I don't have the time nor inclination to spend an additional 2-3 hours with "supplementary" activities and kids need that downtime too.
Both groups are influential, just in different ways.
The point of this thread is about education. If I'm sending my child to school, I expect him to be educated THERE. I don't have the time nor inclination to spend an additional 2-3 hours with "supplementary" activities and kids need that downtime too.
Both groups are influential, just in different ways.
Some would ask why, if you have neither the time nor inclination to parent your child (which you state) and instead expect others to do so, why you became one.
You'll only read the above and then respond but I'll still write the following.
When school systems have massive numbers of kids entering whose vocabulary is 1/5 what is considered normal. Where some kids don't know their real names, where some are still in diapers, where they can't name three colors, count to 10 and don't sight recognize even one letter and then have to provide two meals everyday as well as prepare food bags for the weekend to send home, then those systems and kids are behind the curve and most will never catch up. That's why the number of hours is important, the schools have the kids for a small amount of time then they go home to the same dysfunctional environment from which they were spawned.
The above isn't even taking into account the explosion of SPED programs the last twenty years and the skyrocketing numbers of ESL over the last ten, many of the participants in which have not only to be taught English but also modern ideas about personal hygiene like use of toilet paper.
What no one ever takes into account is that we used to not pay attention to dropouts, now those kids are dragooned into remaining in school (I'm not encouraging dropouts) and guess what, they take the tests and get scored just like everybody else. And that impacts the overall scores.
My former system requires every kid to take the SAT. Care to guess what those average scores look like.
The real issue is one of focus, by both the schools and the families. The process of getting an education itself is no longer the priority for children. Sports, clubs, hobbies, jobs, vacations, etc. are all activities that used to be pursued once school and schoolwork were done. That is no longer the case. The typical student has two or three things which are prioritized over getting educated. For example, how many high school students go to practices everyday but don't do their homework? How many students are pulled out of their actual classes to attend games? How many kids are pulled out of school for a week at a time for vacations or band trips or whatever and their parents expect them to be able to "catch up" without actually being in school? When was the last time a students boss or coach told them it was ok to miss practice or a shift in order to study?
We no longer create a culture of education as the priority for children. In fact by our actions we show students it is rather far down the list of things that are important. So, you can't blame just one group for that priority shift, it is societal.
I have been thinking about this question for a while mostly because my sister is a teacher. She has taught public school for over fifteen years. She has taught at many different cities and a wide range of public schools that ranged from good to bad, and large to small. One thing she use to tell me was that she could always tell how good a public school would be based on the quality of the parents because the quality of the parents often reflected the quality of the students.
Now my sister has taught at some **** poor public schools, and she could always tell early on that her teaching experience at these public schools was going to be tough. My sister would tell me that home environment more than anything determines the quality of students. When you have large swarths of children coming from broken home environments that do not value education it makes for a tough teaching experience. For instance, at these poor public schools, my sister would rarely if ever meet any of the fathers of her students. Often times she and other administrators would only meet with parents if they were pissed that their child got punished but not if they were failing math for example. The students would act out and act extremely disrespectful to the teachers interrupting valuable classroom time and ruining the ability for other students to learn. The only exceptions to the rule were poor immigrant families usually from Asia. Many of these students were wonderful to teach had very involved parents and most would go on to good colleges.
The good public schools my sister taught at were the complete opposite. Mothers were very involved, most students had their fathers in their life, sure there were some disrespectful punks they never became a huge distraction. Overall, my sister could tell that most parents deeply cared about their children and wanted them to succeed academicallly, this alone made for a better teaching environment.
Anyways the reason I made this thread is because when we talk about poor public school education we rarely if ever blame the parents. Don't get me wrong there are terrible teachers and administrators out there, but ultimately the home environment in my opinion shapes a student more than anything. Teachers are not there to be a 2nd mommmy to students, if a child isn't learning to value education at home then there is very little a teacher can do for them. Throwing money at the problem doesn't seem to help either, a new shiny textbook isn't suddenly going to make a student who is constantly skipping class suddenly stay at school more. Only a parent can do that....
So my question is, why don't we hold parents more responsible for the quality of public schools?
The two are not mutually exclusive and there is plenty enough blame to go around.
Some would ask why, if you have neither the time nor inclination to parent your child (which you state) and instead expect others to do so, why you became one.
You'll only read the above and then respond but I'll still write the following.
That's not what I said. I said I, nor my child, should have to do an additional 2-3 hours of "supplementary" work after school hours if schools are doing their jobs. Again, I'll cite other more progressive countries who don't take such an approach and are doing better than we are. Kids need their down time and parents have other things to do besides clean up for schools' incompetency and unwillingness to do their job correctly.
Quote:
Originally Posted by North Beach Person
When school systems have massive numbers of kids entering whose vocabulary is 1/5 what is considered normal. Where some kids don't know their real names, where some are still in diapers, where they can't name three colors, count to 10 and don't sight recognize even one letter and then have to provide two meals everyday as well as prepare food bags for the weekend to send home, then those systems and kids are behind the curve and most will never catch up. That's why the number of hours is important, the schools have the kids for a small amount of time then they go home to the same dysfunctional environment from which they were spawned.
A few thoughts...
We are always going to have children behind the curve. That doesn't answer why your average, normally raised child needs 2-3 hours of supplementary work.
In countries like Sweden and Finland, they handle issues like this without putting the load on all students in the form of supplementary work at home. They don't expect parents to act as pseudo-teachers at home. Why can other countries achieve these things and we can't? And yes Sweden and Finland have their poor, their downtrodden though I'd wager a guess its not as significant since they have a lot of social welfare programs that target many of the issues you and I are discussing.
Quote:
Originally Posted by North Beach Person
The above isn't even taking into account the explosion of SPED programs the last twenty years and the skyrocketing numbers of ESL over the last ten, many of the participants in which have not only to be taught English but also modern ideas about personal hygiene like use of toilet paper.
What no one ever takes into account is that we used to not pay attention to dropouts, now those kids are dragooned into remaining in school (I'm not encouraging dropouts) and guess what, they take the tests and get scored just like everybody else. And that impacts the overall scores.
My former system requires every kid to take the SAT. Care to guess what those average scores look like.
I hate to keep referring to Scandanavia, Finland and Iceland but they really do have great models of smart education that works for all.
For example, Finland doesn't even have standardized tests. They are a waste of money and encourage cheating, teaching to the test, etc. Lets get rid of them here. Dropouts? Lets do what other countries do and allow teens to choose their paths at 15-17 years of age - tech/vocational, academic, etc. That would cut down on the number of dropouts.
Don't think other countries with successful education systems don't deal with all the same issues we do here - they have non-native language students, special ed students, poor students from bad homes, etc. But they attack these issues in such a different way (a smarter way IMHO) that actually works AND doesn't punish other kids or put the onus on parents to educate their kids at home.
Some would ask why, if you have neither the time nor inclination to parent your child (which you state) and instead expect others to do so, why you became one.
You'll only read the above and then respond but I'll still write the following.
When school systems have massive numbers of kids entering whose vocabulary is 1/5 what is considered normal. Where some kids don't know their real names, where some are still in diapers, where they can't name three colors, count to 10 and don't sight recognize even one letter and then have to provide two meals everyday as well as prepare food bags for the weekend to send home, then those systems and kids are behind the curve and most will never catch up. That's why the number of hours is important, the schools have the kids for a small amount of time then they go home to the same dysfunctional environment from which they were spawned.
The above isn't even taking into account the explosion of SPED programs the last twenty years and the skyrocketing numbers of ESL over the last ten, many of the participants in which have not only to be taught English but also modern ideas about personal hygiene like use of toilet paper.
What no one ever takes into account is that we used to not pay attention to dropouts, now those kids are dragooned into remaining in school (I'm not encouraging dropouts) and guess what, they take the tests and get scored just like everybody else. And that impacts the overall scores.
My former system requires every kid to take the SAT. Care to guess what those average scores look like.
Illinois requires that every 11th grade student take the ACT. Even the supposedly "great" public school districts in pricey neighborhoods that spend upwards of $15,000 per student per year end up quite close to the national average, which is pretty pathetic (21 out of a possible 36).
Magritte I'm not going to quote your entire post but will one thing:
You don't think parents should act as psuedo-teachers but yet society expects teachers to act as psuedo-parents.
I don't know how old you are but I'll be 63 in a couple months. We had hours of homework every single night. What is different now is that we also had study halls during the day to get some of it done,now most schools don't. We tried it one year and it was a disaster (partly because the teachers covering them wouldn't let the kids do other work but did what they called "Study Hall Lessons". Also, it's now frowned upon to have students start their homework in class instead of teaching what's called " bell to bell".
Instead of blaming teachers for this you need to place the blame where it belongs, on Departments of Education, School Boards, educational theorists in academia, the Gates and Broad Foundation as as well as Pearson Education, not to mention the parents who demand it. For every parent I had who complained about giving too much homework I had 10 or 15 who complained that I didn't give enough.
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