Posted on 11/27/2006 7:04:44 AM PST by meandog
Schools With Good Teachers Are Best-Suited to Shape Young Minds
There's nothing like having the right person with the right experience, skills and tools to accomplish a specific task. Certain jobs are best left to the pros, such as, formal education.
There are few homeowners who can tackle every aspect of home repair. A few of us might know carpentry, plumbing and, let’s say, cementing. Others may know about electrical work, tiling and roofing. But hardly anyone can do it all.
Same goes for cars. Not many people have the skills and knowledge to perform all repairs on the family car. Even if they do, they probably don’t own the proper tools. Heck, some people have their hands full just knowing how to drive.
So, why would some parents assume they know enough about every academic subject to home-school their children? You would think that they might leave this -- the shaping of their children’s minds, careers, and futures -- to trained professionals. That is, to those who have worked steadily at their profession for 10, 20, 30 years! Teachers!
Experienced Pros
There’s nothing like having the right person with the right experience, skills and tools to accomplish a specific task. Whether it is window-washing, bricklaying or designing a space station. Certain jobs are best left to the pros. Formal education is one of those jobs.
Of course there are circumstances that might make it necessary for parents to teach their children at home. For example, if the child is severely handicapped and cannot be transported safely to a school, or is bedridden with a serious disease, or lives in such a remote area that attending a public school is near impossible.
Well-Meaning Amateurs
The number of parents who could easily send their children to public school but opt for home-schooling instead is on the increase. Several organizations have popped up on the Web to serve these wannabe teachers. These organizations are even running ads on prime time television. After viewing one advertisement, I searched a home school Web site. This site contains some statements that REALLY irritate me!
“It’s not as difficult as it looks.”
The “it” is meant to be “teaching.” Let’s face it, teaching children is difficult even for experienced professionals. Wannabes have no idea.
“What about socialization? Forget about it!”
Forget about interacting with others? Are they nuts? Socialization is an important component of getting along in life. You cannot teach it. Children should have the opportunity to interact with others their own age. Without allowing their children to mingle, trade ideas and thoughts with others, these parents are creating social misfits.
If this Web site encouraged home-schooled children to join after-school clubs at the local school, or participate in sports or other community activities, then I might feel different. Maine state laws, for example, require local school districts to allow home-schooled students to participate in their athletic programs. For this Web site to declare, “forget about it,” is bad advice.
When I worked for Wal-Mart more than 20 years ago, Sam Walton once told me: “I can teach Wal-Mart associates how to use a computer, calculator, and how to operate like retailers. But I can’t teach them how to be a teammate when they have never been part of any team.”
“Visit our online bookstore.”
Buying a history, science or math book does not mean an adult can automatically instruct others about the book’s content.
Gullible Parents
Another Web site asks for donations and posts newspaper articles pertaining to problems occurring in public schools.
It’s obvious to me that these organizations are in it for the money. They are involved in the education of children mostly in the hope of profiting at the hands of well-meaning but gullible parents.
This includes parents who home-school their children for reasons that may be linked to religious convictions. One Web site that I visited stated that the best way to combat our nation’s “ungodly” public schools was to remove students from them and teach them at home or at a Christian school.
I’m certainly not opposed to religious schools, or to anyone standing up for what they believe in. I admire anyone who has the strength to stand up against the majority. But in this case, pulling children out of a school is not the best way to fight the laws that govern our education system. No battle has ever been won by retreating!
No Training
Don’t most parents have a tough enough job teaching their children social, disciplinary and behavioral skills? They would be wise to help their children and themselves by leaving the responsibility of teaching math, science, art, writing, history, geography and other subjects to those who are knowledgeable, trained and motivated to do the best job possible.
(Dave Arnold, a member of the Illinois Education Association, is head custodian at Brownstown Elementary School in Southern Illinois.)
"but we have managed to learn as we go"
This is something that is often overlooked. We all get to fill in gaps while we educate our children. It can be quite a lot of fun.
Bless you for what you have accomplished.
Well, we can disagree about this, but many school districts are losing students, which creates a financial crisis, which in turn causes more students to leave, which in turn...
What drives the departures is a growing recognition of government school failure. I believe that if the system lost between 15% to 20% of its students that the system would go into a financial death spiral and be publicly delegitimized. The government school coalition of special interests simply can't adjust to declining top line revenue. The process has been highlighted in recent media coverage of Seattle, San Francisco, St. Louis, and Detroit schools. Detroit is a good illustration - lost about 11k students last year, which blew a $100+ hole in the budget. The school board tried to bridge the gap by reducing, among other things, teacher pay, which led to a strike, which led to another 25K students leaving. I believe at some point 15%-20% parents will finally get the gestalt of the overall situation and act. If that happens, the system completely collapses. FWIW
"A simple retort to this is to ask: "Where has this happened?" Nowhere, it's never happened that voucher systems put a crimp in either private or homeschools."
"Well, then ask yourself this: When has a federal subsidy ever come without attached regulatory strings?"
Also, I'd point out that "federal subsidy ever come without attached regulatory strings" is mostly irrelevent as every voucher proposal I know of is at the state level.
At the Federal level, there is that tuition tax credit idea, which I also favor (and you should too!), but it's not the same as a voucher, and it also, btw, would not add 'strings' to schooling.
Federal regulation is possible because of the hooks of the *public* school system. Loosen that monopoly and those hooks too will be loosened.
"To tell me I'm wrong because my objection doesn't match up to your imagined future is rather dubious."
It's not a matter of imagination on my part to tell you that in every use of vouchers and in every voucher legislative proposal, the result is more choice and more openness and less regulatory red tape. Moreover, these proposals don't impact homeschooling at all - Cleveland, Edgewood, etc.
The whole 'regulation' myth misses the purpose of why we regulate in the first place - we regulate monopolies because we can't think of better ways to make them perform. As a poster put it:
"If we had TRUE school choice, where funds were attached to children and not schools, less regulations would be needed because the consumers (parents and students) would regulate the quality of the schools. If a school were not satisfactory, parents wouldn’t send their kids to it, and it would lose money and either have to change or go out of business."
So, in sum, this is not a matter of 'imagination', it's a matter of changing the regulatory model from a monopoly one to a choice one. Let competition regulate quality, not red tape!
Vouchers is just a vehicle but the overall goal should be to give parents and students choice and control over education. Do you agree with that vision and ideal? Then it is a matter of asking how best to get there. I'm all ears if you have a better idea than vouchers as a way to get the $500 billion and 50 million child school system moved away from the Stalinist Govt socialized monopoly system.
"Well, we can disagree about this, but many school districts are losing students, which creates a financial crisis, which in turn causes more students to leave, which in turn...
What drives the departures is a growing recognition of government school failure. I believe that if the system lost between 15% to 20% of its students that the system would go into a financial death spiral and be publicly delegitimized. The government school coalition of special interests simply can't adjust to declining top line revenue. "
I dont quite understand the financial math here. The revenue is tax money, which is still there whether the student is in public or private school.
If a student leaves, the property tax money is the same, so the $ per pupil can go up. There may be some state and Federal money they lose ... but it still should work to the schools benefit on a $ per pupil basis.
My school experience was the same as yours! I don't think I was ever in a class of less than 30 (one teacher who taught everything - music, art, phys ed.), nor was any building less than 100 years old! And yet -- surprise -- I got an excellent education! My current school district thinks every child should be attending classes in brand new, Taj Mahal buildings. You should see the schools they have built for millions when the old ones are still in good repair and could still be used. Ironically, the one building that they said could absolutely not be used for our students anymore was rented out to a neighboring school district when their new building was being built. Good enough for other children to use, but not for ours.
A greater portion of the funding comes from state and federal government funding which is based on student population. This is one of the reasons that public schools dislike homeschoolers. If the student is not in school, the school loses money they count on.
"if homeschooling is so great, then why won't other industrialized countries (such as Japan and Korea) encourage the idea as well?"
Think again. You learn a new thing every day - homeschooling in Japan! ...
http://www.hslda.org/hs/international/Japan/200110010.asp
http://washingtontimes.com/world/20040408-104636-3867r.htm
Trained professionals? Spare me.
The majority of teachers come from the bottom sector of college classes. They never had a passion for learning, and their experience in colleges of education is unlikely to instill that passion. They spend years in stupid pedagogy classes, often ending up with sketchy knowledge of the topics they are supposed to be teaching.
A well meaning amateur with a good curriculum could meet or exceed the performance of these supposed "professionals" a good deal of the time, I would imagine.
Furthermore, some of these "professionals" have an agenda, personal or political, and they choose public education because it gives them access to kids.
Combine that with the latest fads in education, such as mainstreaming everybody, and forbidding grouping of children by ability. This form of educational socialism holds back and penalizes the capable student, as teachers, more and more, teach to the lowest common denominator.
Furthermore, though teachers like to call themselves "professionals" when it suits their purposes, they don't behave like professionals when it comes to bargaining for salary and benefits. They behave just like any blue collar working seeking more money for less work.
Well meaning amateurs with a real interest in the well-being of the child, or mediocre "professionals" with an agenda? Not a hard choice to make.
I don't know what "real world experiences" are necessary or healthy for children, but I doubt there's many to be found primarily or solely in the public school system. Public schools are, IMHO, very poor imitations of the real world. At best, they might be able to imitate an undergraduate university environment, but I doubt many even achieve that.
Kids that are not G&T do much better in homogeneous groupings: Private or public school classrooms.
How do you define homogeneous? Almost all my classes were racially, socially, economically, and intellectually diverse. And every fifty-five minutes I got to run through a crowded hallway into a completely different, equally diverse grouping; each class had its own teacher with his or her unique methods and expectations. (Asides: Is homogeneity the new diversity? Is it a characteristic of the "real world?" Does it inculcate positive attitudes or thinking?")
Colleges have a lot to offer that parents cannot afford: good libraries, science labs, computers, etc.
And schools don't?
Are you actually comparing a college library to a public high school library? Every university library I've been in was one of several dedicated buildings, had multiple floors, and at least one was a federal depository. In addition to the usual subjects, some maintained rare books, and I think all had subscriptions to academic journals and other periodicals, and they maintained bound volumes of those periodicals going back decades. My high school library was a room with a few shelves (of mostly fiction) that teachers' aides had to walk through to get to the AV equipment. Students weren't even allowed to use it during lunch, and the vice principal regularly swept through to kick out students without passes. (I never volunteered the fact that I didn't have a pass, so he left me alone.)
Maybe I was just deprived in high school, or spoiled by university libraries, I dunno. But I doubt most high school, public or private, have libraries comparable to those of a college or university.
That's a new one on me. Never heard of it....or if I did, I decided that it just wasn't important enough to file away. Guess I'm just unenlightened. :-)
Gotcha. So the city is basically subsidized by us outside of Detroit.
These kinds of disaster school districts are another great reason for school choice and school vouchers.
I have no idea, frankly. Don't ask me how to solve the problems of 50 million schoolchildren. I have, however, found a very workable solution for my four (plus a nephew).
Is that selfish? Perhaps. Is it individualist? Definitely. Is it a free-market solution? Absolutely. Can it work for everyone? Definitely not. However, it can work for more than are currently using it.
Not all of the tax money is left. Every state that I am aware of pays districts a per capita amount for each student. If the the number of students goes down, the funding is reduced. Now, you are right that the per student amount goes up because part of the money is from local taxes. Nevertheless, you need to understand that the system is a spoils system. What really matters is topline revenue, not the per student spending. If schools were run in an economically rational manner, then suitable adjustments could be made and the system would survive on a smaller scale. But, again, this is a spoils system. When topline revenue declines some element or other of the special interest coalition must take a hit, and this they will fight to the death to avoid. So, for example, in St. Louis a rational financial restructuring could not take place because it would have closed some schools and eliminated some jobs (the school board meetings nearly ended in riots). In SF the board needed to close 25 schools, but was prevented by various interests from closing more than 12. Consequently the financial problems of the SF district are continuing to grow - and more families are leaving. In Seattle they needed to close or consolidate a number of schools, but the opposition was so strong that it is unclear what will happen - other than the fact that a capable superintendent was effectively forced to resign for trying to fix the district's financial problems. In small town America a number of districts are struggling to lure heomschool and private school students back because of the financial issue. The system has heavy fixed costs (bonded indebtedness), union contracts, and a number of other things what make it impossible, as a practical matter, to adjust financially.There is a lot of financial pressure building in the system already. A few more departures would just hasten the inevitable ;-)
WOW! Talk about being arrogant! When my son was young and we homeschooled we didn't weren't in the "upper-socio-economic strata" and didn't live in an area with good public schools (though we didn't live in the ghetto either). We also couldn't afford a private school. My husband worked days and I stayed home with my son and taught certain subjects and I worked nights and he taught the rest. I think you need to get your head out of your NEA butt long enough to get some air - the gas is affecting your brain.
I agree. I'm also all for homeschooling, if the parent has a solid grasp of the core aspects of education. I once heard a friend of mine- very nice lady, but not the sharpest knife in the drawer by any means- proclaim "I'm gonna homeschool my kid", and I shuddered over that child's future.
"Ah yes, Esperanza Rising ... haven't read it yet but it's one of the biggies here at our school."
LA schools? A slam dunk!
"I had my kids read Bud, Not Buddy"
That was one as well my son read ... also, they gave out 'HOOT' environ-propaganda, where the baddies are developers and the goodies are activists..
"It's really hard to find a book for our kids that isn't part of the whole liberal canon"
There are 10,000 books out there that would do. But they are in the 'classic' literature. Our kids read the 'illustrated classics' for a large number of these stories, and I would recommend them far above the clap-trap the Public Schools foist on them.
Basically, any "Newberry Award" winning book is a "Liberal PC seal of approval".
"I don't have a single 13 year old who could even comprehend The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe."
that is sad indeed. The CS Lewis Narnia series should be required reading for all kids. Our kids read them, but this was out of school and before they went from the Christian private school to the PC public school.
May I make one small suggestion. Get the Aesop's Fables, free off the internet, and use that. Great moral instruction along with reading. I loved it and my kids love it now.
What movie did you see that character in?
Pathetic. Pathetic. Pathetic.
Let me repeat: Pathetic.
These arrogant educators are so transparently self-serving. Pathetic.
Let it go, meandog.
Have you seen this? Talking about a target rich environment here!
You seem to indicate that the key then is to boost teacher salaries so school systems would attract the better qualified for the classroom (something I advocate). The well-meaning amateur does not, in a lot of cases, even know where to get the proper curricula much less teach it. Leave teaching to teachers, I still say...I'm certain that you wouldn't want to practice your profession before a home-law-schooled judge...(in remembering the story of Texas Judge Roy Bean once having a lawyer horse-drug for objecting when Bean's pet bear growled during the saloon/court testimony)
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