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Caroline D
Hollywood, FL
Recent Activity
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Caroline commented on the article |Why aren't the millions of alcoholics ever taxed along with the smokers when it comes to these "sin taxes?" (the latest tax on tobacco to fund SCHIP increases by Obama Admin) They cause far more damage to society and the healthcare system than smokers.
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Caroline commented on the article |US Chamber of Commerce: State-By-State Report Card on Education:
http://www.uschamber.com/icw/reportcard/default
Interested to see how your statre measures up?
Also be sure to check the OECD site for their analysis of how American education stacks up against our international counterparts.
http://www.oecd.org/topic/0,3373,en_2649_37455_1_1_1_1_37455,00.html
Warning: It's not a pretty picture for America -
Caroline commented on the article |
@Cooper
I say homeschool is a privilege and not a right because it is commonly accepted that an education is a right yet a homeschool education is more of a privilege since it requires sacrifice and dedication from the parents and a commitment from both parents and children. If children cannot appreciate the sacrifice nor honor the commitment, they lose the right to a homeschool education (which as you might be able to tell I find far superior to what currently is offered as "public education.") -
Caroline commented on the article |
@Cooper
Thanks for the link. I'll check it out.
Believe me, if I could have I would have homeschooled/unschooled throughout our son's school years. Not only was there opposition and even interference from friends and family but I see this option as a privilege and not a right...and my son took that for granted and put me in the position where I had to put him back in a classroom for high school.
This poor kid has run the gamut of trial and error schools and education delivery looking for the right match for him. We tried Montessori, public, homeschool, back to public, to a military academy for a year, back to private. Choosing a school these days is as hard as comparing insurance products or investments. Now I realize many parents don't have the luxury of choice (or fear making it so go with the easiest flow) so I'm grateful I did but all the same, I'm not impressed overall with the choices and we will all pay the price down the road for shortchanging these kids in educational quality. -
Caroline commented on the article |
@James FabianoThe study information you posted is interesting though frightening, certainly and I agree with most of your thoughts however I take issue with a few points:
Using Miami-Dade as a representative sample may not be best because of the high concentration of Hispanic students there.
I'm assuming you teach in FL. I live in FL and in our county, the so called "smart kids" are not being held back by the slower ones. They are favored not only by the schools but with classes. They are separated from the rest of the student population in Honors, Advanced, Gifted, AP classes and Magnet schools. Lord help you and your child if they DON'T manage to get into these classes and because they use the FCAT (cumulative) to decide who can and can't, a lot of really smart kids can't get in those classes (without their parents signing a waiver that is) and even some who DO qualify can't because of space/staff/resource constraints. If you transfer in to public from somewhere else without an FCAT history, you lose a whole year diddling in wherever they deem to place you class-wise and they virtually ignore any other testing or school records you might provide as an alternative. Our son attends private school largely because of this but also because he gets a better individualized program in a small private school where the teachers know his name, his strengths and weaknesses, care how he does, and involve the parents beyond sending notes home to tell us how to do his/her job for her at home on our own dime.
IEP's in our system are a joke. Ask any parent of a child who has one. It's an exercise in pushing paper and holding meetings upon meetings that get no where and accomplish nothing and they rarely follow the IEP and most parents don't have the time, money or resources to pursue action when they don't.
I don't believe the kids aren't being held responsible for their own learning as you stated. In fact in our area I would dare say they expect and ask too much from the elementary kids in the way of being responsible for their own education while at the same time, not offering a curriculum that is competitive internationally. As an example, they place a lot of reliance and spend a lot of time focused on these Planners they give the kids (as if the kids know how to use a day planner which incidentally is full of non-essential , busy fluff added by publishers that is distracting) but then they don't follow through with their own instructions for using it as intended (i.e. they require daily signatures but then don't check it or sign it themselves and miss communications from home) and along the way, academics took a back seat to the proper use of a day planner. I also disagree with your premise that all kids can't be placed in all classes (those without serious disabilities) not only because they in fact AREN'T when it comes to high school (Honors, AP etc) but because my own schooling experience was one where we all took the same classes (there were no codings, or smart versus regular ed classes) and you either sunk or swam. There was after school help, tutoring available but the teacher did not teach a variety of ways depending on the abilities in the class. The individual students performed up to the teachers and parents expectations and if they couldn't, they either availed themselves of the extra help or they left the school and went elsewhere. It worked for us. I believe children perform up to the levels they are encouraged to perform and I also DO believe that anyone (save the disabled) does better when challenged. It's the old tale of playing tennis better when you have a formidable opponent versus playing someone whose skills are less than your skills. The education I got from K-12th was much more challenging than what we have seen served up to our child as "education." Beyond the dumbing down of the curriculum that has occurred over time, the publishers of textbooks are responsible for their own share of non-learning with their overly busy, frenetic, "hyperactive-looking" sis-boom-bah textbooks that look more like magazines than texts. All that added "stuff" is really unnecessary.
The public schools would do well to study other public system in other countries that work and/or some of the private schools here that work and try to mimic them. They also would do well to join the 21st century in technology and the use of it (as well as the teaching staff's knowledge of it. Most kids I know run circles around the teachers when it comes to technical skill and knowledge) -
Caroline commented on the article |
@Cooper
I was a real fan of John Holt and other "unschooling" authors during the years I was forced to homeschool (or unschool) our son as a result of damages done by traditional schooling. Or as we liked to refer to it...."delight driven learning." I would have preferred to have him finish his education that way but had issues arise in the high school years that necessarily caused us to place him back in a private school. My favorite memory of those years was the Ancient and European History studies we did (he's a real history buff) while traveling abroad and working with an archaeologist. It made me so happy just to see my son so relaxed and happy and engaged. He learned more in those years than any time spent in a classroom. One of the sad realities of "school" is the restriction it places on the calendar and allowing families to travel except at peak and expensive travel times. -
Caroline commented on the article |
@Joe
One more thing I forgot (in response to your comment about wanting "stuff" to teach math). Have you seen the "Math-U-See" program? Our son has a specific math disability and this program was a Godsend for him. Lots of "stuff" to make it comprehensible. -
Caroline commented on the article |
@Joe,
Interesting observations and insights, thank you. A few points:
1. The whole money finagling is an issue I could get into ad nauseam but won't at this juncture.
2. I don't know about where you are but in my area, parents aren't welcome at school "per se" no matter how much the schools pretend to be inviting. They only want you in so far as THEY deem proper and for the help and money they need...beyond that, they treat you like a terrorist or criminal and want no input from you about your own (my) child, the school, their teaching methods, curriculum or anything else. You will fast find yourself "frozen out" if you dare broach those subjects with your child's teacher or as one teacher told me to my face when I tried to work with her, "Oh I see; you're one of THOSE parents (meaning involved). If you're going to be crawling up my A-- all year I'll do to your child what I've done to others with parents like you....he will be invisible to me." This was in response to my being annoyed with her at not even bothering to read the file we gave the school about our son when we moved him to this school, ignoring the ed psych's recommendations, his past records, reports from other teachers and medical personnel. She said she didn't NEED to read it. She of course denied having said any of this at all when I reported her to the proper authorities in the school and district and they all were shocked and told me she couldn't have said such a thing because she was such a popular teacher. We have been involved in our son's education ( he would tell you "too much so"), as much as we were permitted to be, since he entered school. Sometimes it seemed I spent more time dealing with the school and his teachers than my own life and schedule...and one of my points is that parents really shouldn't NEED to do that in order for their child to get a quality education. In fact, parents like this are now labeled "helicopter parents." I got a quality education and my parents were only present for parent teacher conferences. Needless to say, we gave up on the public system and mortgaged the house to get him a better environment in a private school.
3. Our son had state insurance and they would NOT pay for services he needs. We paid.
4.Most of the better/best "teachers" I've known never trained to be teachers. They were people for whom teaching was a natural born skill and passion. They loved kids, realized the different learning styles in all people and taught to how the child learned best, sought help when they needed it (and weren't too proud to admit they needed help), and spent lots of time engaging the parents in a TWO-WAY communication street. Of course they also were not in a public system where there is very little freedom to be that kind of teacher. I don't know where you are but here in FL, our teachers spend the better part of the day and year teaching to the FCAT....PERIOD. Our schools are designed to feed children into the public state university system and to "keep the bodies here" (but they won't tell you that however college admissions staff WILL. College admissions staff will also tell you that an A student here is comparable to a C student in the top 25% of school systems by rank elsewhere). The state (here) also lies about the education quality but that's a whole 'nother can of worms.
5. As for the year round schooling; other countries who outscore us on academic testing have it. I was also referring to the system where school may be open year round but that doesn't mean YOUR kid is there five days a week/52 weeks a year. They spread the coursework out in units or some other word I forget they use but basically, the kids do intense coursework in only 2 or 3 subjects at a time for shorter segments, and with more breaks (and longer breaks), usually including some kind of practicum or independent study as well. There also is a whole host of electronic delivery systems where Johnny need not be "present" at school at all. I do believe our system now, such as it is, is antiquated and there indeed IS too much government interference. And NCLB is an unqualified disaster IMHO.
I can sum up my feelings on education in this nutshell: A child is born with an innate curiosity and love of learning....and schools kill their creativity, their curiosity, their spirit (and for some their self-esteem and even their intellect) little by little overtime until most see school as drudgery, teachers as enemies, parents as nuisances and the world as a drag...or at best a distraction to what they would rather be doing. At best...they are high priced Nannies. -
Caroline commented on the article |
Parents have been screaming to the rooftops to schools and education officials FOR YEARS now about how bad the schools are and they have been ignored so I'm sure today's illiteracy report will both make them furious but also offer relief over FINALLY having their opinion validated.
Kids drop out because schools (to use the vernacular) SUCK and they are bored. Special Ed kids do NOT fall through the cracks...they are virtually shuttled aside by schools and administrators in favor of focusing on the kids who will improve the school's test scores and ultimately the amount of federal and state dollars they get as a result. Throwing more $ at Early Childhood Ed isn't the solution. Sp Ed kids are being horribly ill-served (is that a word?) by our current educational system. I should know; I have a Sp Ed kid and we have had to fight and bite and scratch and claw and scream for his rights to an education. We've tried homeschool, public, private, tutors and more and it doesn't help either that most insurance companies won't cover any services they need to address their specific issues so parents are left to let the children flounder and fail or go bankrupt trying to pay themselves. Among these special needs students are the millions of non-native English (ESOL) speakers (non English speaking) who are choking schools and classrooms. There are too many of them for the budgets allotted to the schools they attend. The staff are mostly not trained to deal with them (or are burnt out). They aren't being served well and they are dragging down scores nationally and internationally as a result.
Our teachers rank among the bottom of their graduating classes (and are often not even as smart as the kids they teach); their wages are abysmally low so that the teaching profession is populated by these non-qualified people, most too burnt out to care anymore. You can become a teacher with a D-average in the subject matter you intend to teach! States won't hire qualified people who aren't trained to be teachers and have no certification but are smarter than the idiots in the classroom who ARE teaching! We need a system to give people certification for their expertise or work experience rather than excluding qualified folks simply because they didn't sit through "teacher school classes" (most of which are useless anyway or not in-depth enough to really give the person a firm grasp of the subject. 8 hours of pop psychology is not enough to understand child development and yet parents with lifetimes of raising kids don't qualify to teach because they didn't sit through the 8 hour pop psych class. It's ludicrous!). We need to expect the highest of standards and knowledge from our teachers and then PAY THEM what that kind of expertise deserves.
Teacher unions virtually assure that bad teachers stay in the classroom and do no more than minimally required by law. I was on a School Board once and we were forced through legal arm-wrestling to re-hire, with back pay, a teacher who had been physically and verbally abusing students. I had a union official tell me that he would "start caring about children when children started paying taxes." Salaries, insurance and pensions take precedence over kids and teaching to these Unions.
My parents dedicated their lives and income in service to children. My father in law is a lifetime school administrator. My sister and sister in law are teachers (one of them a Sp Ed Administrator), My family has several members who are or were Sp needs students. I have a Bachelors and Masters. I know a thing or two about what I'm saying and what's wrong but government can't fix it because government CREATED this mess or at best, allowed it to grow and fester and all they do is throw money at it and hope it goes away. Sadly, Obama plans to do pretty much the same so we can't expect any real changes there. We are still operating our schools as if this is the Industrial and Agrarian age when it's not. We should have year round school and kids need to be educated to be more than just tax-paying worker bees. Bullying by BOTH students and teachers MUST be addressed in a REAL, tangible way for learning can not take place in an atmosphere charged with fear, stress, and violence. Contrary to what schools claim, it is NOT being addressed (other than superficially as required by mandates and laws...meaning they hand out pamphlets and do posters about bullying. Big Deal! Tell me, why is it that the upper crust and those lucky enough to get grants or scholarships send their kids to PRIVATE school? Why is homeschooling now growing by huge numbers among parents teaching for NON-religious reasons? Even the Obama kids are going to Sidwell. They wouldn't DARE put them in public school after the Chicago Univ Lab School! Talk about a major step DOWN!
If you want to truly change our educational system and make it better, you MUST totally overhaul EVERYTHING...from the teachers and Unions, to the physical plant, to the curriculum which has been so dumbed down as to become virtually useless now, to the assessments, the teacher colleges, the accreditation process, graduation requirements, everything. And most important, you need to return to a classical curriculum and get rid of these federal and state mandated "feel good" classes and social services, and underwater basket weaving type classes to keep the "failures" busy until graduation. You need better Administrators. You need to stop categorizing kids as "smart and college bound" or "dumb and regular or voc-ed" (and YES WE DO STILL DO THIS!) because not only do the kids clearly understand what all the coding and classifications mean no matter how you disguise them (and labels sometimes cause the outcome) but the schools also them concentrate on the "upper echelon" of students and everyone else is on their own. What we have done to generations of children since about the 1960's is no less than educational fraud and personal abuse in my opinion. It's a shame they can't sue, class-action, for the damage done and the losses accrued to them as a result in lifetime opportunities and wages.
