Posted on 08/07/2005 9:04:46 AM PDT by nuconvert
Posted on Thu, Aug. 04, 2005
School on Aug. 8? Are they insane?
BY DAVE BARRY
Here's a multiple-choice test:
When should the school year start?
A. Sometime around Sept. 1, when most of the United States of America has started school for many decades.
B. On Aug. 8 -- also known as ''smack dab in the middle of summer'' -- when the average Florida classroom is roughly the same temperature as a pizza oven.
If you answered ''A,'' you are correct. If you answered ''B,'' you are an official of Miami-Dade or Broward public schools. These officials have decided that our children need to start school on Monday, when children from normal places are vacationing with their families, or attending summer camp, or lying on the sofa picking their noses and playing video games, which is what God clearly intended early August to be used for.
Among the children who will be trudging into Miami-Dade schools on Monday is my 5-year-old daughter, who enters kindergarten this year. When my wife told me the date our daughter would start school, my fifth question was: ``Why?''
(My first four questions, in order, were: ''Aug. 8?'' ''Did you say Aug. 8?'' ''You mean, like, the eighth day of AUGUST?'' ``Are they INSANE??'')
I found out that the reason for the extremely early start of the school year is -- as you veteran parents already know -- the FCATs. FCAT is an acronym standing for ``(Very bad word) Comprehensive Assessment Test.''
These are standardized tests that are administered to all public-school students in Florida to confirm the sneaking suspicion among us older people that these kids today are just not as sharp as we were, dadgummit.
The FCATs have come to dominate public education in Florida. At one time, the purpose of the public schools, at least theoretically, was to educate children; now it is to produce higher FCAT scores, by whatever means necessary. If school officials believed that ingesting lizard meat improved FCAT performance, the cafeterias would be serving gecko nuggets.
So what they've been doing is starting school earlier and earlier, to give teachers more time to drill the kids for the FCATs, which are given in February and March.
Last year, school started in the third week in August; this year it's the second week. If this keeps up it's only a matter of time before we're starting the school year around Memorial Day, which means parents will have to go on their family vacations without taking their actual families, keeping in touch with their children by postcard. (''Dear Dylan -- Disney World is great! Wish you were here! How do you like second grade?'') Yes, it would pretty much destroy childhood. But think of the FCAT scores!
Some other ways we might improve our FCAT performance are:
1. Expel students who are expected to do poorly on the FCATs. The school could send the parents of these students a letter that said: ``We're sorry, but we do not believe your child is capable of producing the kind of FCAT scores that we need to maintain our average here at Coral Snail Elementary.''
2. Import students to Florida from places that tend to produce high standardized-test scores, such as Japan.
3. Cheat. Hey, this is Miami-Dade County! If we can't cheat, what's the point of living here?
4. Instead of starting the school year insanely early, give the tests later.
Ha ha! I'm just kidding with that last one, of course. What a crazy idea! But I sure wish we could find a way to avoid the gradual elimination of our children's summers. I suspect many of you parents out there feel the same way.
In fact, that gives me an idea: Why don't we all write letters to our school board members telling them how we feel? We could collect all these letters and put them in a big box, and then, on the day of the next school board meeting, we could throw the box into a Dumpster. Because I seriously doubt that the school board cares what we parents think about this; if it did, it would never have decided to send our kids back to school on Aug. 8.
No, probably all we can do is shut up, pay our taxes and take our kids to school on whatever day works best for FCAT purposes. On Aug. 8, I'll be dropping my daughter off, with her little lunchbox in her little hand. We prefer to pack her lunch; she's allergic to gecko.
bump
We start the last Tuesday in August and end the Thursday before Memorial Day. We take a week a Thanksgiving, two for CHristmas and on the last week of March. The kids attend about 163 days of school. That's because they have a longer school day, 8:00 to 3:30. We would end earlier but the school district won't let us, even though the kids have more than the required hours. Oh, my daughter is in a charter school.
I think it is a regional thing. I NEVER heard ma'am and sir growing up in CA, but we moved to GA four years ago, and my children are starting to pick it up from school. Sounds a bit odd to my ear because I am not used to it, but not rude or snotty, for heaven's sake.
What a wonderful mom you must be!!! My mom was well-known as some kind of supermom around the neighborhood. I REALLY appreciated this supermom of one of my students last year who helped me out a LOT. I wish there were some award we could give all the good moms there are out there. Without them there wouldn't be anything.
Unfortunately in this generation, women and men seem to have prolonged endless adolescence. The impetus to marry, have children and pass along the civilization is not there for much of the middle to upper middle class. People are too self interested and pleasure seeking.
When you have children you have to put your own needs second to that of the children. Their survival and socialization depend on it.
A civilization that warehouses children in day care so that the parents can wear designer clothes, have the expensive vacation and drive newer cars is a civilization that is creating a huge disconnect between the generations.
I wonder where we are heading?
My husband's aunt teaches school in Maine and regularly can't get to the family vacation home up there until the end of June because of the school schedule. I'm sure there are snow days and she probably stays a bit later to wrap up the year than the students do, but she definitely does not finish up until late June!
It has come to be known by the term "year-round school," but it isn't "year-round." Incidentally, I am also a teacher.
Ok, but it's still an opinion. Evidence please?
Florida ping.
Some basic eco, when they shrink class sizes, your going to hire more teachers, but standards aren't exactly high to begin with.
In NYC, you could poll the teachers and really get depressed. I didn't major in education (I'm not a teacher, alot of friends from college did go into teaching though) but we talked it over and I remember talking to a couple of professors, who felt that acadamic standards had dropped so low, that in essence you were getting or graduating folks who are simply not qualified to teach.
Here in the archives you might be able to find the article about a teacher who paid a guy who was mentally disabled to take a qualification test.......and was caught do to a large spike in the score.
The teachers union rep near me (we've met a few times) is stubborn that every teacher is good, but also blames the students and the city for everything wrong (i.e. the kids are dumb, the parents of the kids are dumb, the city doesn't pay us enough to teach dumb kids, and the tests are to hard).
No teacher union will ever (or has ever) placed the blame for failure on any teacher, they will always blame the test and the student.....failing that, then try and cheat.
For real evidence of that, check out Steve Levitts book "freakanomics", it comes with empirical data to show how the teachers boosted student test scores by cheating....because they simply couldn't boost the scores on their own merits.
Extending the school year or starting earlier and using the tests as an excuse has been a talking point with the teachers union for sometime, its blame the test and try and get it either lightened up or get the parents outraged so they join the teachers side.
When you have standardized tests, you can do better comparisions and evaluations of progress, when they aren't standardized, its more difficult to judge (and because its standardized, the teachers have to usually teach up to the test as opposed to dumbing down their own tests).
I disagree with your post but the above statement was LOL funny!
That and stretching it out for the federal dollar. Ask your board why there are so many 1/2 days.
I want my summer back. I want my kids to enjoy all of summer. But it is going to take more than one pissed Mom to get things changed.
Simple, so they can be kids. By my calculations, if our district ditched all of the 1/2 days for conferences and such (i.e instead of 10 1/2 days during the year use 5 full days) my kids could have another week of August to enjoy the summer.
But that will never happen as they will only get federal funds for the days they are in session x number of hours.
It is their way of playing the system for your tax dollars. They are using your kids to fleece the system with all of those 1/2 days.
As for standardized tests, schools are required to meet rigorous standards. Test security is so strict that violating it in any way can get you fired. The tests are kept under lock and key, and you have to read and sign a document explaining procedures and penalties before you can take possession of testing material. The teachers do not score the tests. In fact, some schools require teachers to switch classes, so that they aren't testing their own students.
Additionally, any student who is in your school on test day, regardless of whether or not that student transferred in the day of the test goes on that school's scores, and affects the measurement of adequate yearly progress, per the stipulations of the No Child Left Behind Act.
Do incompetent teachers exist? Yes, of course. However, you are indicting all teachers, and in that, you are incorrect. I don't have a problem with you pointing out problems with education. I do have a problem with blanket statements that claim no teacher anywhere is doing his or her job.
"Student" isn’t a job description. Therefore your question is irrelevant.
Let me guess, you have 5-6 rugrats and are only too happy for the government to baby-sit them for you at some else's expense?
Property taxes are high enough already, thank you. Its not like the schools are putting out a high quality product either.
"I'm not convinced that kids need 12 years of school either."
I think the amount of school is fine, but that kids should start specializing long before college. If somebody knows they want to be an engineer, they shouldn't have to suffer through sociology, art, and french language class for four years of high-school. Same goes for any other profession. That would probably get more kids to stay in school, too.
You go, partner.
My daugher just started school today. I'd much rather have her in school year round, with several 2-3 week breaks throughout the year. It just makes more sense.
If that was your point originally, you should have been more specific. Until you just stated such, I didn't even know you had a point.
As for standardized tests, schools are required to meet rigorous standards. Test security is so strict that violating it in any way can get you fired. The tests are kept under lock and key, and you have to read and sign a document explaining procedures and penalties before you can take possession of testing material. The teachers do not score the tests. In fact, some schools require teachers to switch classes, so that they aren't testing their own students.
Correct, see NYC, Long Island, and Chicago Illinois for how these were broken (and caught, the long island case was simply pathetic).
In High School, I actually saw the guys bring in the test from an armored car, they have security, its also known that there had been incidents of cheating, which have been caught and resulted in prosecution.
Do incompetent teachers exist? Yes, of course. However, you are indicting all teachers, and in that, you are incorrect. I don't have a problem with you pointing out problems with education. I do have a problem with blanket statements that claim no teacher anywhere is doing his or her job.
I do not think all teachers are incompetant, I do think that many are, I also do believe that there are good teachers, but they are sacrifised on the altar for the bad ones.
I do believe that standards are not high enough for teachers graduating college (and I say this with my friends who are teachers also having the required masters) and that the courses in college are being dumbed down for these future teachers, and the union is protecting them at the expense of the students while blaming every other circumstance under the sun....including students and parents.
Rather then the Union admit that college standards are to low, or admit that some of its teachers are not qualified, or note that spending more money and shrinking class size isn't a dashing success, it.....blames the test and says start school early.
No, I'm the oldest of seven homeschooled children. I didn't go into public school until 10th grade, and, as I said before, I found the long summer breaks, while very welcomed by my lazy side, to be detrimental to my ability to recall necessary information for compounding classes (math especially).
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