I’m with you. There are a lot of terrible schools out there, places that no decent parent would send a child if they understood what was happening, but there are also a lot of great schools. My kids have gone to excellent public schools (and several are still in those good schools), where the focus is on academics, and the quality of the academics is exemplary. Those schools exist, and even in average schools, there are GT classes that provide a real academic education. Thanks for standing up for the truth.
I think of these discussions much like discussion of how safe it is to walk the streets in town. I agree with those in Baltimore, DC, the Bronx, Chicago, Detroit, and East LA who say the streets are dangerous, and I agree with those in smaller towns who say the streets are safe. The mistake is in generalizing from the streets/schools in my neighborhood, yours, or an anti-school/anti-ubran poster’s neighborhood to all the streets/schools. We are all at least mostly right for the streets/schools where we live.
Your schools may be good where you live but the ones here stink. Even the gifted program here is just average. I had to pull my kids out of public school. My son was falling behind even with 4-5 hour of help after school. My daughter was in the gifted program and was bored to death because she was forced to read books she had read 2 years earlier. The teacher was just plain mean to her. The other students didn’t like her because she was so far ahead of them.
I figured if I had to work with them for 4-5 hours on my own time we might as well teach them on our own. It burns me up that 75% of my property taxes go to these crappy schools and I can do nothing about it.
My son is now ahead of public school and catching his older sister. My daughter is struggling now because she was not challenged in public school and finds it harder to focus now. She is still ahead of public school by far but it takes more effort to learn then just to sit in a gifted class where you are not challenged. Even so she will get through calculus and organic chemistry by the time she graduates. Not sure what my son will get to yet he has not expressed his interest yet.
My kids would have been left behind and not achieved what they could have in our local public schools because they no longer care what they teach only how the kids feel. If you have good schools count yourself lucky. Our local schools are said to be good that is until you look at what they are teaching.
My experience with GT was good in GA but poor in NC.