I tutored a sophmore in high school recently in mathematics, chemistry and cellular biology. I was utterly appalled at how convoluted the teacher's procedural explanations were in math, and how crazily the subject matter bounced around - yet demanded ridiculous levels of detail - in chemistry and cellular biology. There was simply no way for the student to grasp functional relationships, because they seemed to be deliberately destroyed by the curriculum organization, which demanded rote memorization of thousands of apparently disconnected facts.
It was so extreme, it was evil - teaching, in order to prevent comprehension. ALL of the students had private tutors (no surprise). And this was at a highly accredited high school in a wealthy area. It's just madness.
The parents were doing tons of afterschooling and private tutoring. The school actually sucked!
I am on Free Republic, nearly every day trying to get others to see that NO ONE really knows if a “highly accredited” government school is indeed “highly accredited” BECAUSE: ( I am shouting.)
AFTERSCHOOLING AND PRIVATE TUTORING BY PARENTS AND THE CHILD, HIMSELF, IS *** NEVER NEVER NEVER*** MEASURED!!!!!
It has **NEVER** been measured!
Fundamentally we may be spending up to a quarter of a million dollars per child for K-12 government schooling and NO ONE knows whether or not the schools actually teach anything. All that “help” with homework ( afterschooling really) and the child's own efforts doing projects and studying IN THE HOME, is likely the real education.
Government schools send home a curriculum. The real work of getting an education is done IN THE HOME!!