Posted on 09/16/2008 5:15:53 AM PDT by raybbr
Link only - AP
O good friend of my father recently retired from teaching Science in public high school. He had his fill. He was called to the Principal and Superintendent’s office many times because he too many students were failing his class.
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Good for you! You and your friend were honest.
The other teachers who give inflated grades are liars.
The principals who demand it are liars.
The teachers who cooperate with this corrupt system are liars.
High School Cirriculum
1. Sex Ed
2. Gay, Lesbian and Transgendered Studies
3. Global Warming
Right now she's working on a proposal to take to the school board to allow teachers to carry concealed.
The best way to slam the NEA:
Vouchers, tax credits, and privatizing universal K-12 education.
My Dad retired for teaching 10 years ago.
He became very tired of being a parent as he had already raised 3 children.
Kids were unprepared for his class from prior grades and he ended up re-teaching basic ELEMENTARY SCHOOL-level concepts in 7th and 8th grade.
Took his pension and blew out, he will never enter a classroom as a teacher as long as he lives.
The ag town he lived in rural Ohio, due to illegal immigration became a cesspool of gangs and garbage, the old stock of UK/Germanic/Scandanavian farm kids that used to go to good colleges (some even Ivy Leaguers and a lot of OSU) were now being passed without learning anything. Teachers were forced to pass unruly kids and deal with “urban” problems they, for 150 years, had never dealt with. He was used to helping someone win the State Science Fair, build a rocket, work with fish/plants/animals for ag research (we also had a working farm) and knew our neighbors and church goers.
He was very sad to leave the small, rural school where so many of his students re-visited him after HS and college graduation. He now looked at grafitti and test scores a full 25% lower than in the 1980’s...
My Dad retired for teaching 10 years ago.
He became very tired of being a parent as he had already raised 3 children.
Kids were unprepared for his class from prior grades and he ended up re-teaching basic ELEMENTARY SCHOOL-level concepts in 7th and 8th grade.
Took his pension and blew out, he will never enter a classroom as a teacher as long as he lives.
The ag town he lived in rural Ohio, due to illegal immigration became a cesspool of gangs and garbage, the old stock of UK/Germanic/Scandanavian farm kids that used to go to good colleges (some even Ivy Leaguers and a lot of OSU) were now being passed without learning anything. Teachers were forced to pass unruly kids and deal with “urban” problems they, for 150 years, had never dealt with. He was used to helping someone win the State Science Fair, build a rocket, work with fish/plants/animals for ag research (we also had a working farm) and knew our neighbors and church goers.
He was very sad to leave the small, rural school where so many of his students re-visited him after HS and college graduation. He now looked at grafitti and test scores a full 25% lower than in the 1980’s...
My kids resent it at times, but this is why I do all kinds of additional work with them beyond what they’re learning in school. I focus on English and writing skills. I give them weekly spelling tests that I come up with myself and make them learn the definitions. I think of topics and make up my own projects and assignments for them to do and then we have a discussion about them. They at times just hate how I am because I’ve read with them almost every day since they were 5 but they get good grades and can speak much better than their peers. The oldest has been a straight A honor student for years and in the AP track at his high school.
We’ve told them since they were young that being born white males, they will have to study harder and work harder and still be discriminated against so they better make plans based on how the world is rather than how they would like it to be.
This is one of the reasons Community Colleges are making money - they are becoming high school two, the not-so-musical.
I'm not surprised that community colleges are going to have a lot of students who require remedial work- they tend to attract a lot of students who aren't quite ready for regular colleges.
It's a function of the expansion of the opportunities for kids to go to college- some kids are going to be borderline on their academic qualifications. I doubt you're seeing too many remedial classes at UCLA, for example.
Do you mind if I ask, did you ever consider skipping the government school and homeschooling? It sounds like you do a lot of what homeschooler parents do, but have your kids at the local school during the day which seems like a waste of time to me.
I agree the current generation can trend that way. Who taught them to be so? Stop blaming kids for being a product of their parents, teachers and other role models.
High schools reflect the surrounding communities. A high school in an area where most of the parents are married, educated professionals will be geared towards graduating kids who are going to go down the same life path. Meanwhile, high schools where the community consists of uneducated dropouts is probably going to end up producing more of the same.
Look at the high schools in Montgomery County in Marlyand or Fairfax County in Virginia and compare them to the schools in DC, or schools in certain parts of the country where high school football is taken more seriously than AP courses.
“Stop blaming kids for being a product of their parents, teachers and other role models.”
OK, but they’re not my kids.
You may be right (if a bit harsh), but the reality is - in some schools, you either give the grades you are told to give, or you don’t have a job. If your desire is to teach, and you are pushed out the door because you were not a “team player”, it is quite difficult to find another teaching job.
That being said - the entire public schools system is so corrupt and broken that I believe there is no way to fix it in its current form. Yes, administrators lie, schools lie, and some teachers lie. But the majority of teachers I have known have been honest people who were placed in a very difficult position.
IT is called being “between a rock and a hard place’.
My kids resent it at times, but this is why I do all kinds of additional work with them beyond what they’re learning in school. I focus on English and writing skills. I give them weekly spelling tests that I come up with myself and make them learn the definitions. I think of topics and make up my own projects and assignments for them to do and then we have a discussion about them. They at times just hate how I am because I’ve read with them almost every day since they were 5 but they get good grades and can speak much better than their peers. The oldest has been a straight A honor student for years and in the AP track at his high school.
LaurenD,
What you are doing, and have done, is homeschooling! ( AKA: "afterschooling")
What you just described is what I did as a homeschooling mom. But....When your kids do well in school and raise the overall standardized test scores who takes the credit for the "blue ribbon" school? The **teachers** of course! Who do the teachers blame when parents don't do tons of afterschooling? The parents!
Go figure! ( sarc)
**ALL** academically successful children are homeschooled ( afterschooled).
I have never met a single exception. When I quiz the parents about their academically achieving children, in every case, the parents tell me what you just wrote above. This is even true for the academically successful immigrant child. These immigrant parents have relatives and friends that tutor and support their kids at **home**!
By the way, I do know adults who have not been stellar students, or whose parents were not supportive, go on later as adults to succeed academically. ( I am one.) But...I have never met an academically successful child ( who was institutionalized for their education) whose parent was not doing everything I did as a homeschooling mom.
I guess I don’t know any kids like that. The ones I know have a lot to say and they’re pretty articulate if sometimes a bit illogical.
STILL CAN’T READ AFTER HIGH SCHOOL??????!!!!
School was plenty bad when I was in it, but you didn’t have illiterates graduating.
“OK, but they’re not my kids.”
I didn’t say they were your kids. Blaming the kids is a cop out and will not solve the problem.
What else do you expect from something run by a leftist union?
My daughter was admitted to Cal Berkeley back in 1998. They had jammed classes for people who couldn’t do basic algebra. Even today she still shakes her head...
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