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Our public education system is trash. Families should have the ability to opt out of the public school system and receive a significant tax break.
Our country needs to overhaul the entire public school system. Stop the standardized testing. Stop putting ungodly amounts of money into failing schools. Stop stripping schools of arts, civics, phys ed/recess and humanities. Stop mainstreaming children who are not capable of striving in that environment. Stop piling on hours of homework because they can't get anything accomplished during school hours. End eight hour school days. Stop with low expectations of our children.
Why were you still a stay at home mom when your husband got a substantial pay cut? That's the time for you to step in and work at least part-time.
That's the first thing I did; we ended up worse off financially, paying for a babysitter while making hardly any money at a cruddy job. It was a band-aid solution, and we'd likely still be shoveling sand against the tide (and mixing metaphors) today. Going back to school was an investment in our future, which allowed us to claw our way up to solidly middle class.
Compare the Chicago suburban school districts (some quite wealthy) that have prepared their students well enough to meet all 4 benchmark minimums (last column in chart):
My kids never ended up attending the high school named in the tax bill I posted in the other thread because they wouldn't transfer the high school credits and grades my kids had earned prior to 9th grade in another suburban school district. Beings as they would be taking AP Calculus BC as freshmen, that left them with an insufficient number of high school math credits (minimum of 3 years) to graduate high school according to IL requirements.
I actually worked for several years to create a State Law in regards to that, specifically in subsections (c) and (d), located here:
Mine didn't attend A-T for grade school, they went to Catholic school, but I included the grades below anyway. They did attend public high school in Lincolnshire (Stevenson).
These are the highest scorest in the chart the Daily Herald put together in the article you've linked to, by the way. The last score drops significantly because of the low scores on the Biology ACT. My kids didn't go into the hard sciences, so not a big deal in my household.
That's the first thing I did; we ended up worse off financially, paying for a babysitter while making hardly any money at a cruddy job. It would have been a band-aid solution, and we'd likely still be shoveling sand against the tide (and mixing metaphors) today. Going back to school was an investment in our future, which allowed us to claw our way up to solidly middle class.
If you got a Pell Grant, it wasn't you're investment. You expected taxpayers to invest in you while you benefited from that investment for free.
Mine didn't attend A-T for grade school, they went to Catholic school, but I included the grades below anyway. They did attend public high school in Lincolnshire (Stevenson).
These are the highest scorest in the chart the Daily Herald put together in the article you've linked to, by the way. The last score drops significantly because of the low scores on the Biology ACT. My kids didn't go into the hard sciences, so not a big deal in my household.
Biology 101 is a required course for almost any college degree. And wouldn't you have to wonder, though, why even Stevenson can only prepare 53% of its students adequately to succeed in first year college courses?
If you got a Pell Grant, it wasn't you're investment. You expected taxpayers to invest in you while you benefited from that investment for free.
I got the Pell Grant for 1 year; the rest of my education was funded by merit scholarships and a small grant for mothers returning to school. My end of the bargain was getting straight A's (i.e. investing time and effort), and now it's come full circle with my tax dollars being used to invest in someone else's education.
Biology 101 is a required course for almost any college degree. And wouldnt you have to wonder, though, why even Stevenson can only prepare 53% of its students adequately to succeed in first year college courses?
I don't believe mine had to take Biology in college. They went into business.
When they were in school at Stevenson, 98% of the students went on to college with 93% of them graduating college.
Both of mine graduated with 3.7 something gpa's in both h.s. and college. Both are well on their way in the world and doing as well, if not better, than the kids they still hang out with who went to the two Catholic high schools they could have attended.
I don't know what happened the Biology score, but I saved myself a boat load of money sending them to Stevenson and I doubt the high schools fared any better score-wise.
I got the Pell Grant for 1 year; the rest of my education was funded by merit scholarships and a small grant for mothers returning to school.
Paid for by whom?
Quote:
My end of the bargain was getting straight A's (i.e. investing time and effort), and now it's come full circle with my tax dollars being used to invest in someone else's education.
The problem is that not everyone is given the same taxpayer-funded opportunity. We are not all afforded equal protection as is guaranteed by the Constitution. Some of us fund opportunities for others, and never get that money back. It's taken from us, meaning we have less to fund our own or our kids' college education.
If the tax base for that district is very low, then why should they have good schools? If the parents want good schools then they should live in high-tax base areas and low-tax base areas!
Sadly, it is fashionable for states to allocate resources to poor women and men who have way too many children who just use the. schools as a free baby sitter so they can sit at home and watch TV. Middle-Class and Rich children get cheated at the expense of these poor families with five kids. The middle-class and rich kids are going to future tax payers and they get shorted.
I totally agree with this. Why should parents who work very hard for their children share their tax and school dollars going to other schools in the same district that have to allocate money for things like English language learners, behavioral health programs for children of unfit parents living in section 8 housing.
It is terrible that states give poor school districts extra money for what amounts to a free child care service as opposed to wealthy, rich districts where the students will be the next generation of tax payers.
Why should wealthy students who have good parents have to share state and local resources with welfare families living in section 8 with 5 kids?
I wouldn't want my kids being forced to go to school with kids who have no intention of learning.
Just saying that in any nation, an entrenched oligarchy totally disconnected from the reality of the masses has been the biggest obstacle to progress and economic development in human history. Progress means change. And the ruling donor class dont want change. They seek to entrench the status quo to ensure their privileges and power cant be challenged, generation after generation. That's why a nation that wants to become prosperous must focus on high quality public education, even if the ruling elite in that country despise it.
"And the ruling donor class dont want change"
I think you should be working REAL HARD to get the non-ruling to CHANGE and ACTUALLY WORK to get an education so their kids are NOT in the same boat they are.
What a novel concept!
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