[Mr. Mulliner]

This might be a good place to grouse about my latest dealings with public education, something I've not had to deal with for a long time. After looking at my job prospects during the past month since I relocated my family from Asia, I decided that I would set aside my negative attitude towards public education and apply for a teaching job in the field of ESL (English as a Second Language). There are supposedly a fast-growing number of jobs in this field around here and since I have an MA in linguistics, several years experience teaching English, was an editor for a professional ESL journal, and developed and taught a training course for people wanting to learn how to teach ESL, I thought I had a pretty open door.

WHAM! That was what it sounded like yesterday when a big door was slammed in my face. I had talked to an administrator at a nearby school district who confirmed that she was trying to fill a position for an ESL job. She admitted she was not at all satisfied with the one applicant she had and was immediately impressed with my experience. But soon after I sent her my resume, she responded that her supervisor (probably the superintendent) would not give her permission to even consider me for the job. Regulations dictate that if one person with a teaching license applies for the job, they cannot hire someone who does not have a license no matter how much experience they have.

In the past couple of weeks, I've heard from several people who complain about the stupid hiring rules the public schools operate on. They set up barriers to keep out the best and brightest and thereby make themselves all feel especially qualified because they alone can get these high-paying jobs.

My attitude was already pretty low towards the whole system after yesterday's rejection, but when my daughter came home from her first day in public school in her life yesterday (she's 14 years old, homeschooled since age 5) and said that she's supposed to sell magazine subscriptions to raise money for the school -- not for any particular function such as a band trip, but just to go into the school coffers -- I blasted the whole system and almost got sent out of the house for my tirade.

Anyone else have similar experiences with our public schools?

[jimkress]

Good post.

[goodieD]

Excellent article. I was so impressed by my husband's intelligence (gained via homeschooling) that I decided to homeschool my eldest daughter when i began having trouble with the public school system. I'm glad I did, and I would recommend homeschooling (or private school carefully chosen) to any parent. We need to get our kids out of these socialist indoctrination factories!!!

[Aquinasfan]

Good job Korth. Since you never had the "pleasure" of attending a government detention center, you may never fully appreciate the benefits of homeschooling. It's been 22 years since I graduated, and I'm still angry about they did to my head. I figure it took me about ten years to undo the damage on my own.

[narses]

Re-ping. Sorry about that. I searched and didn't see this one. Mea Culpa.

[Korth]

Please add me to your homeschool ping list(s).

[Gophack]

This is a GREAT article. God willing, I'll never send my kids to public school. I have them in an excellent parochial school, but if I found we couldn't afford it, I would definitely home-school.

However, a word of caution to conservatives and Christians ... we DO need to care about public education. 90% of children are educated (or not ) in public schools. These are the same children who will be cops, firefighters, teachers, doctors, lawyers, politicians, salesmen, you name it -- as our children. We must care about the quality and character of public education, and not merely throw in the towel because of the big bad government bureaucracy that makes fighting bad education almost impossible.

I think one problem with public schools is that as parents pulled their kids out for a better education, there were fewer parents involved in their kids education, and in making sure the schools performed. It became a downward spiral. Yes, some schools are better than others and yes, some parents are more involved than others, but I honestly believe that if parents complain, the schools encourage them to send their kids to private school ... because they don't want dissent.

[Khepera]

Here is something you may find interesting

[Tribune7]

bump

[ladybug_joy]

My name is Tiff and I am doing a debate on Homeschool vs. Public School. I have read a lot of opinions and stories on this site and others, but I can't seem find some hard evidence from research or well documented magazines. I am debating for homeschool and I was wondering if anyone would know of any websites or research that I could look into.