Posted on 01/17/2019 6:57:12 PM PST by BruceDeitrickPrice
Some of my articles generate lots of comments from angry parents who had to fight with an unresponsive school system year after year. People not familiar with how bad K-12 has become might find these comments both revealing and scary. They tell the truth about K-12, a truth-in-the-trenches you won’t find in our media. (Sad to say, our media seem to feel it’s their job to wrap academic decline in a protective silence. Shhhh, Don’t Disturb The Saboteurs!)
Here are comments left on an article about reading:
“I had the Sisters of Mercy. Everyone read at least at grade level and most far above. We were tested annually. One five-foot-tall Nun controlled 40+ Bronx kids because she knew that she had our parents’ support.” Street Wise
“Dominican sisters, with a first grade class of 85 kids, one sister. We all learned, and were taught cursive writing (in addition to all the other subjects cited by R) by second grade. Writing in ink with a fountain pen began in third grade…..A kindergarten teacher complained that my child’s excellent reading ability was age-inappropriate and it was HER job to teach, not mine. My child was ahead of the class, and the teacher said this made her job harder.” Lorilu
“I was going through some old family documents and came across some postal money order receipts dated c. 1920. I couldn’t believe the beauty of the postal clerk’s handwriting on a simple receipt. A simple postal clerk in, of all places, West Virginia.” SFLBIB
“My son came home with lists of sight words. I taught him how to sound them out phonetically instead of memorizing them off flashcards like his teacher recommended. Of course, he started sounding out words in class as well. His teacher asked me about it and I told her that I wanted him to be able to read all words, not just the ones the district wanted him to. She talked about him ‘getting ahead’ of other students as if it were a bad thing. Fortunately, this teacher went out on maternity leave soon after.” gillyo
“Can’t have him getting ahead. That would be unfair to the lazy students. I remember my daughter having equations with two unknowns in math. They were teaching some bizarre method of guessing at the answers and adjusting based on how far off the answers came. I taught her how to solve simultaneous equations and get the answer directly. She thought it was much easier than the goofiness they taught. The teacher wouldn’t let her use the proper method, because it wasn’t in her book.” Mannie
“As others have commented, my wife and I had to save our son in second grade from his teacher who had a PhD in Reading. With phonics in hand we were soon reading The Hobbit together. All parents have to make sure their children can read BEFORE they go to any school.” Star Tripper
“The Fed Department of Education saw how beneficial it was for democrats to keep blacks illiterate in poor schools, so they’re using the same system to dumb down the white kids in the suburbs. They use many different patented names, like ‘Common Core’ or ‘Equality of Education’….Don’t let anyone tell you that teachers and administrators don’t know how damaging this is to your children, because they all do, every…single…day your child spends being indoctrinated, rather than educated.” AppraisHer
“Illiteracy abolishes hope among the slaves.” IzzatSo
“I actually complained about an A my son received for a writing assignment in 7th grade. I told his teacher that my 4th grade teacher would have given me a “D” on the same paper in 1968. She was amazed as no parent had ever complained about an A before. I told the principal that that’s a big part of the problem. Just give kids an A and the parents will shut up.” gillyo
“When my kids entered kindergarten, sight words were being taught through a program called Writing to Read. I was aghast. My mother who taught phonics to her kids almost had a heart attack. My kids were taught at home and then sent to school to appease the government. My daughter innocently told her government owned teacher that ‘you people are just trying to hold me back.’ I was called into the school to discuss the incident. From that day on the teachers knew to back off of my kids. Soon after they were in private schools….at the expense of summer vacations. It was the right thing to do.” dianecee
“I sat through one math class where the students were being taught 3 different ways to complete a problem and the focus was more on ‘here are the three ways we can solve this’ rather than focusing on one method and then using the other two with any child who could not learn to complete the problem 3 different ways. Again, let’s confuse the heck out of them.” Rikka7
“You are absolutely right, Bruce. It’s like the teachers discussing Common Core math standards at a parent/teacher conference saying that if a child writes down that 4 + 4 = 5, if they can explain how they come to that conclusion then the answer is correct. What lunacy!” JRR7
“I remember my sons proudly showing me their sentences or stories, that had horrendous grammar, punctuation and spelling errors, and were marked 100% or A. To quote the teachers, ‘We grade on content.’ So sorry for my children, they got their kudos from me for content, them had to sit down and make the corrections. I never bothered trying to educate ‘educators,’ because I was just a HS grad. But I did ensure that my children were taught, by me, the things that would help them become functioning adults.” Whattheheck70
“This just hit the college level. University of Washington’s Tacoma Writing Center has instituted this ethic into their writing instruction…I can’t believe this is real.” DB
Bruce Deitrick Price explains ed theories on Improve-Education.org.
K-9 plus vocational schools would be better.
Yes, these stories are very scary.
A good friend characterizes the current K-12 schools as “failure factories” that turn out students who cannot adequately read, are ignorant of science and history and have no exposure to music or the arts. We both attended a small town public school in tbe 1950s and 1960s where were taught to read with phonics and participated in band starting in fourth grade. Nearly all of our classmates were either in vocal music or band. Despite some shortcomings we
both agree we got a pretty good education which was far superior to what passes for K-12 today.
We have one like that here in CNY. They STILL do that.
Shhhh.... don't tell anyone.
The BoE will be sure to shut it down.
This ping list is for the other articles of interest to homeschoolers about education and public school. This can occasionally be a fairly high volume list. Articles pinged to the Another Reason to Homeschool List will be given the keyword of ARTH. (If I remember. If I forget, please feel free to add it yourself)
The main Homeschool Ping List handles the homeschool-specific articles. I hold both the Homeschool Ping List and the Another Reason to Homeschool Ping list. Please freepmail me to let me know if you would like to be added to or removed from either list, or both.
Looks like the only successful kids graduating from public schools were homeschooled by their parents on the side.
Any success is despite public education, not because of it.
“A kindergarten teacher complained that my child’s excellent reading ability was age-inappropriate and it was HER job to teach, not mine. My child was ahead of the class, and the teacher said this made her job harder.” Lorilu”
Happened a few times with my kids too. I simply used PHONICS and nothing else to teach them to read, when they were 3 years old. Needless to say they were years ahead of their grade level, and went on to great careers (also having them 6 years ahead in math didn’t hurt either).
But yes, teachers DO NOT appreciate parents educating their kids. In my case, it was Christian schools, but still this ‘problem’ with my children popped up now and again.
But, thankfully, those days are over...that is, until they have kids!
““Can’t have him getting ahead. That would be unfair to the lazy students. I remember my daughter having equations with two unknowns in math. They were teaching some bizarre method of guessing at the answers and adjusting based on how far off the answers came. I taught her how to solve simultaneous equations and get the answer directly. She thought it was much easier than the goofiness they taught. The teacher wouldn’t let her use the proper method, because it wasn’t in her book.” Mannie”
OBVIOUSLY make sure your kids are taught the PROPER way to do problems like these. In this Common Core example, it’s probably best that the kid know the stupid way (otherwise no credit), but then be sure to check the answer the proper way.
Both my children go to Catholic school. The oldest was a very fluent reader before kindergarten. Th youngest struggles with reading (though at an age appropriate level) in her current 1st grade. Same parents, same methods. Each has their own strengths but the teachers at their school are always appreciative.
““As others have commented, my wife and I had to save our son in second grade from his teacher who had a PhD in Reading. With phonics in hand we were soon reading The Hobbit together. All parents have to make sure their children can read BEFORE they go to any school.” Star Tripper “
This is ABSOLUTELY CRITICAL. If you teach your kids the CORRECT method of reading, which, of course, is PHONICS, which, of course, our schools refuse to teach - then they’ll be great readers, for life - and there is not a damn thing that the schools can do to ‘unteach’ that capability. The schools are simply OUT OF LUCK, your child will not be dumbed down - but, of course, the others still will be.
“My daughter innocently told her government owned teacher that ‘you people are just trying to hold me back.’ I was called into the school to discuss the incident.”
Thought I was making it up when I questioned the motives of the schools - in this case EVEN A KINDERGARTENER knew she was being screwed by her school. My dream is that PARENTS can finally figure out the same...but they don’t seem to give a damn.
” I never bothered trying to educate ‘educators,’ because I was just a HS grad. But I did ensure that my children were taught, by me, the things that would help them become functioning adults.””
It wouldn’t matter if you had a PhD. You, as a parent are DESPISED by public school teachers - particularly those who educated their children before the teachers could get their hands on them. Sure, they’ll smile at you at parent/teach ‘conferences’, because they have no choice, but put a few drinks into them and ask them what they REALLY think of parents, and you’ll get the real answer.
Nice job keeping them out of public schools! They will ALWAYS appreciate that.
The mistake these parents are making is in sending their children to pubic screwls in the first place. It is a waste of time or worse, it does damage.
Public education is a fraud on the taxpayers made possible in part by curved test scores.
The only academically successful children I know are homeschooled ( even if they attend school.) This is true even for immigrants.
As you know, metmom, I have posting this for **years**. So?....If the only academically successful children are homeschooled perhaps, government schooling is a complete waste of money and always has been. Worse than money, it wastes a major portion of a person's life! Thirteen or more years is **more** than 10% of a person's expected life!
Over many years I have challenged posters on this site to provide links to studies that show how much is learned in the home as compared to material learned in the classroom. No Freeper ever has. I concluded that government schooling is a massively expensive system that was never tested for effectiveness.
The school will take full credit for the parent’s hard work.
I have never been to a parent-teacher conference that wasn’t a **complete** waste of time for both me and the teacher.
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