"I often wonder what constitutes "reading at grade level"."
That is a very good question. When I discovered that teaching children to read using a good phonics curriculum is a relatively trivial exercise and my children began reading everything, I began to wonder that myself. In other words, the boys were far ahead of what passes "grade level" in the ever-so-wonderful suburban district that we live in, and the question that I had for myself was whether this was a real achievement or just the intellectual equivalent of a normal child winning the 100 yd dash at the Special Olympics. So...I went to the local homeschool store and got used copies of the first edition (1836) of McGuffey's Readers (Mott Media reprint) and discovered that what passes for grade level today was far surpassed by those poor children in the 1830s and beyond who lacked central heat and air, indoor plumbing, electric lights, adequate medical care, certified teachers trained in the latest "learning strategies", expensive school buildings, and, most tragically of all, world-class school sports facilities (you say you don't have $100 million in district sports facilities? How can you expect little Rugbert to learn?).
Dear achilles2000,
"When I discovered that teaching children to read using a good phonics curriculum is a relatively trivial exercise and my children began reading everything, I began to wonder that myself."
Part of what turned us off from school is that our older son was in Kindergarten, an allegedly good Catholic school, and the teachers were actually discouraging him from figuring out the reading thing. He was getting too far ahead, and they were unhappy about that.
He sorta half-picked up reading in spite of it all during Kindergarten. We encouraged him at home, but because of the dual-authority thing, "But the teacher doesn't want me..." it was a struggle.
We began homeschooling him the following fall, for 1st grade. Within a week or two, it all clicked in his head and he went from sorta reading not too bad for a first grade to being a real, heavy-duty reader. I'd had a habit of reading to him most every night since he was little. We read "The Hobbit" and the "Lord of the Rings" together. We'd started "The Chronicles of Narnia" at the end of the summer, and we were a little ways in when the school year started.
Once he put it all together, in the first few weeks of 1st grade, he decided that I wasn't reading enough of the "Chronicles" to him every night, and he started reading it on his own. He was done the entire series of books by Christmas.
Humans are built to learn this stuff.
Often, schools do little but interfere, inhibit, and prevent.
Students often succeed in spite of their schools. Especially public schools staffed by NEA shills.
sitetest
I understand your frustration with seeing all the money schools spend on the trappings and comforts while failing to address real academic achievement.