[ivylass]

I'm not entirely sure the "C" schools are much better. My son's middle school rated a C, and while we were flipping through a book for our daughter, "What every 5th Grader Should Know" (We're doing some home-schooling over the summer) my son revealed that he did not know Abraham Lincoln had been assasinated, nor when the Revolutionary War was fought. We are desperately trying to get him and our daughter into a private school...hopefully in a year from now, when he enters 9th grade.

[summer]

my son revealed that he did not know Abraham Lincoln had been assasinated, nor when the Revolutionary War was fought.

I am wondering if this was complete news to him -- or, if he did not know the meaning of the word "assasination"? Also, students often find it difficult to understand time periods in history; for that reasons, teachers are told to use aids like a visual time / date line, marking events so they better understand the period in history.

And, BTW, good for you that you are homeschooling, and keeping a close eye on the education of your children! There may be a good private school nearby, or, another teacher in your son's own school did a much better job teaching history than your son's last teacher.

[summer]

FYI -- See posts #61, #62 and #63. :)

[summer]

Update:

374 students in failing public schools signed up for vouchers

Wednesday, July 3, 2002

Associated Press

TALLAHASSEE — The parents of 374 students in failed public schools have notified the state they intend to use vouchers to send their children to private schools in the fall.

Some 8,900 students in four counties are eligible for vouchers because last month their public schools earned their second failing grade in four years.

Five of the 10 schools are in Miami-Dade County, three in Palm Beach County and one each in Orange and Escambia counties.

The deadline for notifying the state Department of Education was Monday. A toll-free number set up by the department took notifications until 8 p.m.

Now the parents have to find a private school. Private schools that participate in the program must take voucher students on a first-come first-serve basis and conduct lotteries if there are more students than there is space.

The state has about 1,600 private schools, which enroll about 350,000 students. Seventy-four of those schools in the four counties have signed up to take voucher students.

Palm Beach has the most interest in vouchers with 185 children signed up, followed by 95 in Orange, 92 in both Miami-Dade and two in Escambia.

In 1999, two Pensacola elementary schools became the first and, until last month, the only voucher schools under the 1999 law targeting failing schools. Forty-seven of the original 58 students from those two schools who took vouchers still use them.

Students with disabilities can also get vouchers — called "McKay scholarships" after state Senate President John McKay — to go to private schools. Also, students from poor families can attend private schools on a scholarship funded through a corporate tax credit program.

Parents have signed up 8,717 children for the McKay scholarship program — twice as many as last year.