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.
The Wednesday after Labor Day weekend. .....as is the tradition.
"Why do kids need the entire summer off of school?"
My kids have done scout camp, church camp, tennis camp, band camp and a couple of trips. They also got to just relax some. All of these were learning experiences they couldn't have if they were in school. Structure is important, but too much is, well, too much.
Has anyone actually seen samples questions from this "horrible" FCAT? IT IS PATHETICALLY EASY!
Not only that you have multiple chances to pass.
This early start date is because the teachers are INCOMPETENT to teach children. It is also done by the only union of significance in FL to try and anger mom and dad.
Nobody even considered that some of these kids may be in summer custody with dad, or perhaps they did.
This Aug. 8 start date seems to have little to do with learning and much more to do with union politics.
Bingo, you hit that nail on the head with a jack hammer.
Bingo. More time for brainwashing...it takes a long time to wash a brain.
Marxists do not want children to spend much time at home. Ol' Karl new what he was talking about.
FMCDH(BITS)
We started school when you SHOULD, after Labor Day. Some counties around here even started their kids AUGUST 1st, for god's sake. And we don't have many snow days in Atlanta! It is utterly absurd. Whatever happened to summer?
..so take your kid out of public school!!!
Because a lot of kids don't get out the middle of May. They usually get out around here somewhere in the first week of June and then go back August 1st? That's insane.
Yes. All of my life we got out of school around June 5th and we NEVER returned until the Tuesday after Labor Day. This stuff is ruining summer and to me is frankly absurd. We went to band camp in August, not SCHOOL.
On this issue I disagree with Dave Barry.
Since 1986 the Virginia General Assembly has prohibited public schools from opening before Labor Day. Some exceptions are granted, such as to schools that routinely experience many weather closures or have special programs that include a modified year-round calendar. Such schools are reportedly seeing improved test performance. This year, the last day of school in Fairfax was June 24.
In Virginia this so-called "King's Dominion Law" was written to protect the tourist industry, to keep teenage employees working longer and to keep families in the parks longer. Question: why wouldn’t closing schools by Memorial Day and starting and ending the season earlier have the same financial impact?
Starting school after Labor Day and ending the last week of June wastes a significant portion of the school year:
1. Insufficient time to complete all required material before SOL, Advanced Placement (AP), and International Baccalaureate (IB) exams, which are given in early to mid May. Since all required material must be taught before these exams, classes are essentially over by mid May. For example, the AP BC Calculus exam was given on 3 May, over SEVEN WEEKS before the end of school in Fairfax. What is a calculus teacher supposed to teach for the last twenty percent of the school year, after all required material has already been covered?
2. Late end-of-school dates limit both teachers and students from taking advantage of various summer programs, many of which begin before most Virginia public schools close. As a result, schools lose many students prior to the end of the year as they start various summer training, education, or employment programs despite the official school schedule.
3. Since all Fairfax County schools are air conditioned, making kids go to school in a hot August when they have just taken a two-month break makes more sense than making then go to school in an equally hot June when both kids and teachers are burned out and they just want to head for the beach.
4. Many high school students are back at their schools in early August anyway to start athletic and band tryouts. This gives the appearance that Fairfax values preparing for football as more important than preparing for college.
School start dates are set by the school boards, who are elected by the people. Change the school board if you don't like what they are doing.
In Flordia the reason for early starts is to give more time for the FCAT. The school boards asked the FCAT board to change the test date. In the fashion of typical power hungry beuracrats, they refused. The response from the school boards was to achieve the same thing by starting earlier. It has nothing to do with the unions!
My kids started on Aug 1.
Of course they get a week off in October, a week off for Thanksgiving, two weeks off for "Winter Break" (can't say Christmas I guess), a week off in Feb, another week in April and out before Memorial Day. Works out the same, but gives more breaks in the school year and less time to forget things in the summer. I personally like this system better, the kids seem to do better with breaks in the year.
"Here?" I am in the Atlanta area, and ALL our schools were out the middle of May. My kids got almost exactly three months off. Just shifted back a few weeks.
>>>Why in the world would any parent drag their kids off on vacation in the middle of a hot scorching August?>>>
Which is EXACTLY why I like the new system better. I live in Georgia and don't want to take a vacation in August, but can plan our vacation in October during their week long Oct break and we can enjoy it better.
>>>Bingo. More time for brainwashing...it takes a long time to wash a brain.>>>
Can I borrow your tin foil hat? Jeez.
The kids get the same amount of time off through extended breaks througout the school year.
What stuns about all these whiners on this post is that noone comprehends the REAL reason school USED to start after Labor Day. Harvest. School was let out during the summer so the kids in America could help with the planting and harvesting so the families could eat. They knew the parents wouldn't let them attend anyway, so that is how this system of summer breaks started. Not to mention no AC in the building back then. Now that those two problems are taken care of, there is no need for that long of a break during the summer months and the extended fall, winter and spring breaks are given to better help the education.
You guys amaze me sometimes at the instant desire to jump on a conspiracy. It's posts like these that give libs their fodder for Free Republic.
This is his column as it appeared in today's local paper: (This was a labor of love as I had to type this out).
The real solution: Make them behave
Summer is the season when many schools redraft their curriculum. The process consumes several years. This gives experts the time to devise the next cutting edge fashion for writing these things, following which everybody gets to start all over again.
Sometimes, social and idealogical objectives get woven in. For example, Vermont's current statewide objectives mandate that students "make informed, healthy choices." One of our language objectives requires that "students respect diversity in dialects," another fine idea but not something that springs to mind when you're asking what your kid learned in English class today.
Teaching Tolerance offers articles and curriculum resources to assist schools as they veer further off into personal relations and social harmony. One contributor recommends that classes begin ever day with a 30-minute meeting, complete with handshakes, sharing and group activities. Another prescription for "community building" devotes "much of the first month" of eighth grade to having students "brainstorm" their "quality classroom" since they're the "experts" on education.
One district's violence prevention coordinator observed that many kids spend recess competing for scarce kickballs and engaged in the "old patterns of boys-chase-girls and vice versa." Rather than simply buying a few more kickballs and accept the hormonal fact of life that boys and girls tend to chase each other, she applied for a grant to institute the "Peaceful Playground."
New activities include a "peace maze" for "feuding" students. As kids follow the path, student "peace ambassadors" call out authentic prompts like "Tell how you feel," and "Hear how others feel." Officials reinforce "the importance of recess" by requiring that students make daily journal entries when they return to class.
The importance of recess?
"A Day Without Obsession" invites students to "rethink food and body obsession." A related action plan has students "brainstorm body image issues." These two diversions alone consume two class periods.
Another article condemns grouping individuals by ability when a school's advanced classes don't reflect the "demographics" of the entire school. Except you need to be advanced to succeed in advanced classes. Ignoring that reality in the name of "diversity" invites two destructive consequences, lower standards and students set up for failure. It sounds politically and socially open-minded, but it makes no instructional sense.
Another critique indicts white educators as "complicit" in the "failure of students of color" because they're unable to "drop the mask of privilege." This piece calls on me to embrace a "transformationist white identity" that acknowledges" my racism and then to devote my classes to "multicultural education."
A student contributor complains about school that don't devote enough class hours, assemblies, or seminars to sexual harassment. Except we don't need to waste more time retelling the ninety percent who already behave what the offending 10 percent aren't listening to. We need adults who are willing to take action.
An article about violence against gay students urges teachers to help make "gay and lesbian students as visible and as accepted" as the "Honor Society, the debate club and the football team." Except someone's sexual preferences, including their beliefs about homosexuality, are neither the proper issue nor my business. My job is keeping someone, regardless of his beliefs, from persecuting someone else because of theirs. For all the talk about peer mediation and peace, that job, actually protecting and defending students, is where schools are falling down.
There's a reason "the traditional method" for dealing with conflicts at school is "having an adult decide who is right and wrong and then determine the consequences." It's because adults are the adults. Being in charge is supposed to be one of the differences between us and kids. Unfortunately, that arrangement is out of fashion.
The commotion and bright ideas aren't just coming from liberal sources. Conservatives, in disputes over prayer, evolution, and foreign policy, claim they're simply trying to combat "liberal indoctrination." They're increasingly asserting their positions and demanding equal time.
The trouble is I don't have time for either side. I'm trying to teach kids to read and write. I'm trying to teach them about the chronology, personalities, and issues that are their nation's history. When we read stories in English class, we talk about cruelty, integrity, and compassion. We parse ethical dilemmas. When we discuss history, we recount our national glories, and we also acknowledge slavery, Wounded Knee and Manzanar.
Science classes can't do their job if they're obliged to give equal time to every interest group's hypersensitivity. If I'm oppressing somebody now in my classroom, show me. If not, let me teach my students the things everybody's saying they're not learning anymore.
And if children aren't treating each other decently in the schools we're running, the solution isn't endless lessons about tolerance. The solution is for adults at school and in our schools' communities, to stop tolerating indecency.
Poor Elijah can be reached at elijah@together.net
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.
Believe it or not, some schools in West Tenn. are starting tomorrow (Aug.8)!
I can't remember when they started this early. For some places in the South, it's been normal to start school Aug. 13th or so and get out in May. This year, starting on Aug.8th is WAY too early! People seem to be rushing the Fall season. Heck, I haven't even had my vacation time yet!
Reason #1337 to home school: avoid idiotic public school schedule problems, build your childrens' educational experiences into the life of their family, rather than fit the family schedule to the institutional imperatives of the local indoctrination centers.
Institutional schools are as obsolete as network television. They are the buggy whip industry of the 21st century, but with a tight grip on the taxing power of the state that will keep them rolling along, zombie-like long after their usefulness has ended.
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