Posted on 12/07/2016 8:43:10 PM PST by kevcol
The billionaire philanthropist chosen by President-elect Donald Trump to be his education secretary, Betsy DeVos, has expressed her preference in the past to give Christianity a bigger part in schooling in the United States.
.
.
.
In the recording, the Devos couple reportedly discussed how they are motivated by the Christian faith in pushing for reforms in how the youth are educated in the U.S.
(Excerpt) Read more at christiantoday.com ...
Catholics? Southern Baptists? Mormons? Pentecostal? Lutherans? Adventists?
Forget about government run schools. Make it easier for parents to home school or send their kids to private school.
Bump!
I have to agree. Leave schools to locals, restore competition, make home education or private schools acceptable and affordable.
I like a school voucher system. If you’re not happy with the school your kids go to, find one you like, turn in your voucher, any taxes collected on your behalf go to that school, not the one in your neighborhood.
That introduces competition. If you want to see education improve, watch what happens when they have to compete for outside funding.
Take the professional emphasis off sports. Too many dumbasses allowed to finish school without getting a real education simply because they can play football. Make passing grades or you’re off the team, good at football or not. Ban team scouts from all schools. Ditto for band and choir, passing grades or you’re out.
No federal funding, local property taxes only. State funding? Maybe...up for discussion...
Get the government out of it completely. Dept of education needs to be shut down entirely.
I wasn’t happy with the public education system when I was subjected to it, these days it’s absolutely horrid. Everyone doesn’t learn at the same pace, find a way to put them in school in a way that they can stay with kids who learn at the same basic pace. Someone like me who was reading college textbooks at age 10 should be in a much faster paced group, someone like the school bully in 4th grade who had failed 2 years already should be part of a slower paced group.
No more passing a kid to the next grade even if he didn’t learn the material. If you don’t pass, you do it again.
No “participation trophies”. Winners get trophies, losers go home disappointed and try harder next year. It worked for over 200 years.
I had a customer in Louisiana who was a teacher, she was not happy she couldn’t fail a student who made failing grades, they went to the next grade anyway. She had no level of discipline, kids were pretty much out of control. They put a TV in so they could use it to watch televised lessons, all they wanted to watch was “Swamp People”.
Nonsense. No calculators in school. No cell phones. No TV in the classroom. If they want to use televised lessons, keep the TV in a separate location. Emphasis on reading, writing, and mathematics. In English. History and Civics should be required. Most schools don’t even have PE any more, bring it back.
In high school, restore Industrial arts classes, and start including a how to get a job class, which would also teach how to put together a killer resume and do a good job interview. Include some sort of career assistance, to help kids with no idea which direction to go to decide what to do once school’s out. When I got out of high school my parents were yelling get a job...I had no idea HOW...teach that. What you want to do and how to go about it.
I can’t think of anything else but I’m willing to bet I’;m missing a few points...
I'm a fan of vouchers but I like the idea of tax credits or deductions as well.
Done
What is your point?
Hey, Betsy, just get the Feds out of the schools and help shut down the Dept. of Indoctrination.
. . . the Laws of Nature and Nature’s God . . .
. . . endowed by their Creator . . .
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the World for the Rectitude of our intentions . . .
. . . with a firm Reliance on the protection of divine Providence . . .
“Catholics? Southern Baptists? Mormons? Pentecostal? Lutherans? Adventists?”
The Christianity that formed the bedrock of the Republic, which has ALWAYS afforded enough common ground in the United States for people to agree on.
And no, Islam has never been a part.
Chute em!
“That introduces competition.”
Public schools are prevented from educating students due to being hamstrung by Federal and Supreme Court rulings — the goal of which is social engineering and has nothing at all to do with education, as they will cheerfully admit. That is aside and in addition to the liberal orthodoxy that has the same goal, which they cheerfully admit.
People would be amazed if they knew the intrusion into public schools being conducted by the Justice Department currently. I have seen their legal memos. They begin with “The United States has found that you have not complied....”
You support School Vouchers?
Raise your own darn kids! Wealth transfer schemes are failure. They ALWAYS fail. Dream on getting your neighbor to raise your children. The quality will suck.
If you understood economics, you would not be hoping for pink unicorns.
Once Govt gets the tax money free, THEY SPEND IT, not you. The best part of voucher failure is that school taxes ALWAYS lead to poorer education.
That is the beauty of failure. Caring parents always home school. Public school parents fail their children because watching their TV is more important.
Caring parents have more successful children because they don’t wait around for their neighbor to raise their kids. lol.
Have you sent your neighbor a thank you card? I knew you did not.
Agreed. What is important is an educated public, not public education.
I agree with nearly all that you have written but I have a few differences.
For sports, band, and others extracurricular activities the student must maintain a ‘B’ average with no ‘D’ grades in any class.
The teacher should be able to maintain class discipline. I’m a dad who has a wonderful son. We always had him in private school k-12. When he was five I sold my businesses and became a full time dad while my wife continued to work. He was having problems reading in first grade and I went to the classroom to volunteer to help. The class would not settle down and the teacher (who was a very nice lady) could only hold up her hand and say “Now class, 1, 2, 3.” That was the only tool or method that she was allowed to use. That didn’t satisfy me, I gave her a minute or two and then interrupted with a loud “SIT DOWN, SHUT UP AND PAY ATTENTION” It was hilarious for me to see all those little faces look up at me with shock. Teachers should be given the tools necessary to teach an unruly class.
I disagree with you about calculators in class. In the first four or five years there shouldn’t be calculators, after that they are very useful. My son graduated last spring summa cum laude with a Bachelors in Mechanical Engineering with a Math minor and a focus on robotics. I can’t begin to tell you how proud my wife and I are. He naturally has to use a calculator in his work.
When he was in elementary school he had to prove that he was proficient in all basic math functions before he was allowed a calculator. In addition, I insisted that he learn to do all basic math problems in his head (I didn’t allow him to write them down). If I remember correctly, he started with a calculator in 5th grade.
Sight reading should be eliminated and rooted out of all schools. That was the reason my son was having trouble with reading. He liked Harry Potter (it kept his attention beautifully) so when I brought him home from school he would sit on my lap with the first book and we would sound out each word of a sentence, reread the sentence then move on to the next sentence. We would reread the entire paragraph before starting the next. After about an hour my wife would come home and he insisted that she sit down immediately and listen to him read what he learned. He and I did that every day for an hour or two. We started in April and ended in October. When we finished the fifth book (all that there was at the time), he was sitting across the room reading straight from new pages with only a rare pause when he came upon a new word. I can tell you for certain that if he continued with sight reading he would be illiterate today. I thank J K Rowling for creating a fantasy world that enticed my son to learn to read. Restructuring my life to spend time with him was the best thing that I ever did. I eventually worked part time in the day when he was in school and returned to work full time when he was 10.
English classes should be about the parts of speech, sentence structure, the rules of writing such as comma and apostrophe usage. When I went to school fifty years ago all I got was “read a poem or short story and discuss it.” I learned very little. I’m embarrassed to remember when my son proof read and corrected an amateur fiction book that I wrote. I learned at 61 that there existed definite rules that apply in regards to the usage of commas. Who knew? Sending him to private school, and especially Mr. Brooks, was worth every penny.
I read on another thread that Betsy DeVos favors teaching Christianity in school. I wholeheartedly agree, there needs to be a moral compass installed in children beginning very young.
This is getting long winded and I need to get back to bed.
I applaud everything else that you wrote.
Said Ronald Reagan.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.