Public schools wouldn’t be so bad, but like everything else, they’re increasingly being controlled from Washington.
NCLB changed everything, and for the worse. Challenged schools, like those in inner cities, struggle so much to meet the NCLB accountability benchmarks that it’s all they concentrate on. There’s very little real learning going on there - it’s all about the test.
The kids are turned off. In my inner-city school district 40% of the high school students are chronically absent (miss 15 or more out of 180 days of school). That’s 1 day in 12. That’s enough to get anybody fired from their job quickly, yet 40% of the kids do this. So how are they supposed to learn when they don’t come to school? Of course parents do nothing about it, and neither do the schools. What are they supposed to do, fail ‘em and have their failure and sickly graduation rates drop even further?
But who can blame the kids? The teaching is about nothing but the tests. And the rare creative teacher has no chance. The curriculum is set by central admin. Exactly what will be taught on each and every day is predefined for every teacher. Frequent standardized testing is then used to measure progress. Teachers complain that there’s so much testing there’s no time to teach.
I attended public schools and received a good education. My kids, now in their 30’s, went to public schools and received a fair education. If/when I have grandkids I will lobby my kids not to send them to public schools. I’ll do everything I can to see that they attend private schools or are home schooled. I’ll pay for it myself if I have to do so.
I truly pity the poor folk in our inner cities who have no choice but to send their kids to these institutions of failure. They have no chance.
Why is teaching the test a bad thing? Doesn’t the test check for things like basic math proficiency?
I was homeschooled, took standardized tests throughout. My mother never “taught the test” at all, but I always aced it because I had been educated. I just don’t get how “teaching the test” means uneducated, and educated means flunking the test.
Public schools wouldn’t be so bad, but like everything else, they’re increasingly being controlled from Washington.
The second statement makes me doubt the first. You will have a difficult time showing that the location of the government control of a school is decisive.
It would be much easier to prove that the following:
We have a bad education system because:
a) Parents do not directly pay for the education of their children. (this is a consequence of basic economics)
b) Fathers have abandoned the family. (the data for this is overwhelming)
‘Who can blame the kids?’ you ask.
I have pictures engraved in my mind’s eye of the High School kids where I volunteered. I ran a program bringing speakers in at lunchtime to tell about their jobs. A dozen or so kids would show up. The rest — you guessed it.
Those kids did not want to be in school. They did not CARE to learn what was taught. They are given the opportunity to have LIVES, by getting a free education. Does it have to be fascinating? NO, it does not. Does it even have to be the best teachers in the world? NO, it does not. It is just life skills — how to add, how to read, the history of our country.
That school was turning out bottom-feeders by the droves. And, guess what? I DO blame the students. Granted, there were many poor, passive teachers putting in their time, thinking union thoughts — ‘That is not my job.’ ‘I don’t stay after school — I don’t get paid for that.’ The Principal was great, and he asked much of his staff. The union slugs resented him for that very reason.
BUT — still, with all the mediocrity, those students still have something that young people in many parts of the world do not have: a free education, books provided, buildings to cover them in bad weather, electricity.
Oh, it was so disgusting. I homeschooled AFTER teaching in public schools; this was a brief foray back, and I will NEVER return.