Posted on 08/03/2006 11:38:51 AM PDT by neverdem
The charters in our area are doing great, except it is very hard to get into them. We're on the wait list for one of them. We don't think we'll get in so we're going private.
The thing with the charter we're on the wait list for is that it was created by it's school district. The school district was having declining enrollment and some other issues. Instead of closing schools, they turned one of them into a charter. It did great, and attracted kids from outside of the neighborhood. The district was so happy, that they have turned several other schools into charters. All of them are doing great!
It is such a contrast to my district. My district actively opposes any charters that are proposed. When facing declining enrollment, they just up and close schools (my daughters included). It is such a horrible school district!
I agree. As I said in an earlier post, Shakepeare's intended audience was not incarcerated teenagers. People paid to see Shakespeare's plays, and those of other popular playwrights of his day, because they enjoyed them. The Elizabethan theater scene was "American Idol" meets "Survivor" crossed with "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy." As it were.
The great novels of the past, of various eras and nations, were popular, read voluntarily by the general public. They were not forced on prisoners of the state.
In my opinion, if literature is worthy of being described as "classic," it will attract uncoerced readers in every generation.
I don't know for sure if schools make money on special ed.
I can tell you as a parent of a child with a real special need (lots of brain damage as evidenced in an MRI) that my daughter and many others like her are shortchanged.
It seems the only way to really get the correct services for our children is to sue the school districts.
I think special ed needs to be totally retooled. For example, when a kid needs speech therapy. Well, the speech therapist works for the district. It kind of sets up a conflict of interest. The kid needs lots of therapy, and the district doesn't want to pay for the therapy.
I wouldn't even mind paying for some services on my own if they could be offered at school so that I don't have to drive my daughter all around after school to different therapies. Why not have a reading specialist at a school sight that a parent could hire. Why not have a speech therapist that the parent could pay for one on one therapy for.
There is so much wasted money on lawyer fees. I would much rather that money go to the kids.
LOL - husbands tend to have that "skill", too.
"A book you didn't want to read leaves your head the day the assignment is done and you will never consider it again - or consider reading it again either."
Wow, is that ever wrong. I can't count the number of people I've talked to - friends, family, coworkers - who talk about books they hated in school, only to rediscover them years later and finally "get it". A great example is "Moby Dick". Teenagers should never read that book; it goes right over their heads. It's not a book about whales; it's a book about what obsession can do to you.
There isn't a sixteen-year-old alive who understands that; there isn't a forty-six year old who doesn't.
Some people never DO consider reading those books again. They tend to be non-readers in any case, which includes far too much of our adult population.
Those are some excellent proposals. I read recently that our county's school system absorbs over 60% of all county tax expenditures.
I don't think tax reductions would make private education affordable for absolutely everyone, but certainly for most. For the poorest, churches and private scholarships could pay. For example, there was an interesting article recently about how the Diocese of Wichita offers tuition-free Catholic schools to every active Catholic family in the diocese.
Sometimes you don't know what you like. I think it is important to teach the classics.
My 7th grader son is not liking the books he has to read in school. I've been trying to get him to read some classics on his own. He finally read Tom Sawyer, and loved it. Now, he has Huckleberry Finn. I've bought a few other classics for him to read: Treasure Island, Robinson Crusoe, and some others. He hasn't started those yet because he is re-reading Harry Potter.
I wish that there were more literature choice at his school: a sci-fi/fantasy class, a classic novel, or a romantic novel class. My daughters would love a sci-fi/fantasy class as much as my son.
Many other great novels are similarly NOT, shall we say, oriented to the emotional level of teenagers.
A neuropsychologist that has tested my daughter told me that on average a elementary aged child only reads an average of 8 minutes a day in school. That is totally ridiculous.
My children read more than that in the bathroom every day! I'm always having to collect library books from behind the toilet and under the bathmat ("I don't know who left that there, Mom! I wasn't reading int the bathroom!"). It's annoying.
My 4th grade gifted daughter was soooo bored last year. She said that dad and I had taught her the math already, and that all she did was write paragraphs. The thing with the writing is that it was very specific, and it wasn't creative. My daughter now says she hates to write, and it first grade she used to write these very creative stories. They were multi-pages long and very entertaining. Now, she doesn't do that anymore because she thinks she doesn't like to write.
And she's probably not looking forward to the 5th grade either. That's a shame, but it illustrates that one size does not fit all when it comes to education. Kids (boys and girls) learn differently and after a while, the rote of the public system becomes numbing. I don't have the links but I've read that it takes about 100 hours to teach someone to read and write. So then the question becomes, "What next?" I shudder when I hear about school boards wanting to extend the school year for the entire year. Kids need more time away from classrooms, not less, so they can unlearn some of the bad attitudes and habits they pick up at the local PS.
My daughter is actually looking forward to school because she will be going to a small, private Christian school. It has art, music, PE, science, and Bible. There is so much more variety that I'm sure she will love it.
Be glad they read anywhere and everywhere! It's the start of a lifelong habit.
Yes, I think private scholarships and aid would work fine, as they have for decades in colleges. Also, even renters should realize savings from property tax reductions, since apartment owners' costs would be reduced. And of course everyone benefits if sales taxes and/or local income taxes are cut (the amount depending on the State).
There isn't a sixteen-year-old alive who understands that; there isn't a forty-six year old who doesn't.
And yet this is exactly the kind of classic material which is forced on teenagers in school. They don't comprehend it, they don't enjoy it, and the very best you can hope for is that in 20 years later they won't be too stubborn to read it again.
Some people never DO consider reading those books again. They tend to be non-readers in any case, which includes far too much of our adult population.
There would be many fewer non-readers if early reading experiences were made fun. The classics aren't.
"Part of the problem is that discipline is outlawed so that Ritalin has become necessary to control normal boys. All that is one reason that we are no longer producing the numbers of scientists that we once did."
Thank you! That's my point: that all children, boys in particular, need to run and play and expend all that energy so they can concentrate in school! All this fear of lawsuits is stupid. I had scabs on both knees all through childhood and I wasn't even a tomboy!
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