The real problem with public schools

Sorry, but we ARE involved in our kids' school environment. We cannot afford private school, and cannot homeschool, so we're stuck. That being said, we have regular meetings with school officials. At which our desires and issues are duly noted... and summarily ignored.

EVERY SINGLE TIME.

Nuf said.
 
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Dennis Olson:
DISCLAIMER: The following represents MY OPINION ONLY.


"Class Presidents" are "elected" in HS, initiating the sheeple into the vagaries of a fake political system. The initiation into WHO a person is, and HOW WELL they "get along" becomes paramount. Institutionalized peer pressure is brought to bear. (You aren't wearing the right designer-label clothes; you're just an outcast.)
(/rant)[/quote]

You've hit it on the head here. This HS elected official business is the clique elite showing the rest who's in charge.
When I graduated, I didn't goto the reception, atht the local Country Club, where else. I figured why should I goto a function where I would again be looked down at because of who I was, or wasn't.

Later on in life, my wife wanted to goto the Class Reunion, (she graduated a year ahead of me). Ehh, well, I went, and it was the same of crap, we all just looked a little thicker. I remember having some words with a certain fella who though we was just it!! Turns out he became a lawyer, and appeared to make a name for himself. That wa sproven correct last year. He was charged with embezzelment of several million dollars. And was convicted, and jailed this year. Seems some people feel that the world belongs to them. (hehehehe)

Best Regards,
Don

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The most foolish mistake we could make would be to allow the subjected people to carry arms;
History shows that all conquerers who have allowed their subjected people to carry arms have prepared their own fall.
Adolf Hitler
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"Corrupt the young, get them away from religion. Get them interested in sex. Make them superficial, and destroy their rugged- ness.
Get control of all means of publicity, and thereby get the peoples' mind off their government by focusing their attention on athletics, sexy books and plays, and other trivialities.
Divide the people into hostile groups by constantly harping on controversial matters of no importance."

Vladimir Ilich Lenin, former leader of USSR
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Today, we need a nation of Minutemen, citizens who are not only prepared to take arms, but citizens who regard the preservation of freedom as the basic purpose of their daily life and who are willing to consciously work and sacrifice for that freedom.

John F. Kennedy
 
CMOS; we don't need more engineers. If we did, salaries would be growing faster than inflation.

As for doctors, the number is controlled by the AMA, which recommends the size of the graduating classes to the med schools (who pretty much must obey).

I found public school to be a massive waste of time. I am strongly in favor of the voucher system. Rather than try to fix an entrenched, powerful, leftist organization, let the free market solve the problem.
 
Pax said:
"This is one reason why nearly every public school teacher recoils at the idea of people schooling their own kids or sending them to private school. "How can kids be socialized if they aren't in public school??"

This question translates to, "It is the job of the public school to teach your child how to behave. Education is secondary to this goal."

- Don't know where in the country you guys are (or from what planet) but I don't teach 'socialization'. I teach science and math. Just for the record, I don't give a festering dump if a kid wears Armani or sackcloth, is the class president, God Almighty, or Oliver Twist. Either they do the work and learn the physics and mathematics or they don't.
-It wouldn't hurt my feelings a bit if you chose to home school your kids. That's your choice and your decision to make. If that's what you believe is best then go for it. In fact it would finally mean I would have enough chairs in my room for the kids I already have and could give them more individual attention.
I think some of you folks still have some leftover issues.
There are good public schools and bad public schools. If you live in Kookamonga, North Nowhere, inner city, or anywhere in Louisiana then your public school probably stinks. If you have a problem with the school system then VOTE and change it!

- Chadintex, you hit it on the head about the $%^&#!! stupid testing and all of the #$%*&^)!! time we end up wasting because of it. Standardized testing is such a big, stupid game the politicians use to line their pockets... how much do you think gets spent on all of that nonsense? That would buy me a lot of equipment I could use in the classroom. I would just be happy to be able to use the time to teach real concepts.
Yes, the standards are lowered to accomodate the slackers because that way the administrators can wave numbers around, get lots of publicity about how their programs are working out, and keep their high $ jobs. Reference my post a little earlier.
I will quit before this becomes a novel.


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Those who use arms well cultivate the Way and keep the rules.Thus they can govern in such a way as to prevail over the corrupt- Sun Tzu, The Art of War

[This message has been edited by Apple a Day (edited July 08, 2000).]
 
CMOS: I could've worded that a little more carefully (victim of public education??). If a kid has the potential and the desire to become a skilled professional then all subjects necessary to realize this goal need to be made available. I took algebra and more English and literature classes than I cared for and can honestly say that some 25 years later I utilize the skills learned in shop classes more on a day-to-day basis. I can't even estimate how much of the household budget I've saved by being able to do repairs and projects myself. Can't remember the last time quoting Walt Whitman came in handy.
 
When I was in High school, which was only a couple-3 years ago:
I was kicked out of Honors english for "Challenging the Teacher's Intellectual superiority",really, thats what his note said, I ASKED QUESTIONS.
My history/social studies teacher was unaware of the root causes of WWI and WWII.
My senior year my english class read "All Quiet on The Western Front" The teacher, didn't see how the outcome of WWI effected interpation of the novel. (he also didn't know who Kaiser Wilhelm was)
Half the senior class was enrolled in a special ed class of some sort, *I* actually took a class that consisted of ADDITION SUBTRACTION AND DIVISION!..the class was called "consumer mathematics".

...I think Im going to be sick.... MY kids will be homeschooled.

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Big Guns again
No speakee well
But plain.
--H.C
 
I just graduated from HS just over a month ago. I recieved a better education working as a professional computer geek for four years during HS than I did at school. I think that is rather sad, but thats the way things are these days. On the upside, when guidance counselors/teachers would lecture us on the importance of college and how we are not going to be making 40k a year right out of HS, I would reply with "You are correct, I got offered 55k BEFORE I graduated." The look on their faces was priceless.

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"There are roads that must not be followed, and battles that must not be fought.." --Sun Tzu
 
It's a damn shame. I received an excellent public school education and then college education at government schools in Brooklyn, NY. Then politics blew it all to hell and gone. My old schools suck and articles in the trade papers try to find a way to return these schools to quality.

We have done it to ourselves.

When our daughter was in middle school, they got rid of the honor roll and tried to get rid of the advanced placement classes so as to not upset the other kids. The good kids were to be mixed in with the nonachievers to act as tutors for them.

My wife asked at a meeting about posting an honor roll and was told by some wimpy a**ed guidance counselor that such a roll would upset the others.

However, the damn school had no problem with giant displays over the football team's mental giants and the bimbo parade cheerleaders.

Now some of those kids were good students but what was the message we sent?
What do we value?

As a teacher, I know that if you are too tough you get talked to. I support evaluation of teachers and you shouldn't be abusive and illprepared but on the other hand, give bad grades - get bad raise.

Just look at textbooks. I teach Visual Perception - it's quite techy. I have been using xeroxes of a 1993 book because the market for the tough book that visual scientists love has dried up in most colleges.

Thank you, God, that a new edition is coming out because of pressure. But it won't be a big seller.

We have done this to ourselves.

My kid's history teacher in High School couldn't even pronounce the names of Civil War battlefields.

FAH!
 
Dennis,

"Nuff said" about what? I taught in public schools and I can tell you that teachers and administrators do respond. They won't responed to one person, but when you get a group of parents making demands and actively getting involved in municipal elections they change their tune. I don't buy the idea og not being able to do anything.

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So many pistols, so little money.
 
Deleted.

Apple a Day said it better than I ever could. Thank you AaD.

[This message has been edited by Country Boy (edited July 09, 2000).]
 
Tecolate, Apple a Day ... (and presumably other teachers hanging around) ...

I'm sorry you were offended by what I said. It was not aimed at teachers and especially not at you as individuals. Let me try to clarify ... though I'll probably just dig myself in deeper. :)

My whole point was that parents -- not government employees -- are ultimately responsible for what children learn.

This is particularly true when it comes to social and moral education.

Most schools are socially unhealthy places for children to be. Don't take this personally; it's a simple statement of fact. Schools aren't designed to teach kids to think for themselves. Rather they are designed to teach kids to go along with 'the group' and to bow to authority.

No teacher has to be 'evil' or 'out to get' a child in order for the entire atmosphere at the school to tear down rather than build up the child's moral courage and social learnings.

A child's academic learning is important to his or her future success. This is true for moral and social learning as well. All three are equally important.

Too many parents choose one of those three learnings as the paramount, and ignore the other two. That's not a good idea. It leads to a community of people who have an ongoing need for group approval and never learned to think for themselves.

That in turn leads to a society where some popular idol can yell things like, "Enough with the Second Amendment already!" and have everyone in the crowd roaring approval ... because the members of that crowd were ignorant of history, frightened of facts, and lacked the moral and intellectual courage to think for themselves.

And that's a very bad thing.

pax

"Nothing is more rare in any man, than an act of his own." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson
 
One last rant and then I'll leave everyone alone:
No one is more frustrated at the school system than the teachers. We are the little Dutch boy with our finger in the dike... and all the other fingers, our toes, nose.... but the school system is not a seperate entity. It is only an extension of a society which seems to be really screwed up. The state of our embattled school systems, right to keep and bear arms, etc... attest to that. It's just another symptom. The good news is that it can be fixed. Vote early, vote often. Get involved with your local schools and raise Hell if you don't like something. The teachers will cheer.
The first day of class every year I give my kids the liar speech. Everything I teach them is a lie. Everything they have been taught thus far has been a lie. Science is a living critter and it changes, grows. People will look back at our theories in a hundred years and laugh at us and how backwards we seemed because new and better theories will come along. Everything I teach in class will one day be disproven... so I am payed to LIE. I lie because of my own ignorance and because I have to because of a curriculum. As a teacher I emphasize certain things because I believe they are more valid and useful. There are certain things I don't teach because I am not allowed. That is true of everyone whether they are a professional educator or not. We all lie and we all have a reason for telling lies. Your homework for the rest of your lives is a)to question EVERYTHING we say b) to ask WHY we say it and what our agendas are and c) to PROVE that I'm a liar because then you will have to understand the WHY and science/society will advance. I get a lot of wide eyes when I start the speech. I have had a few administrators and other teachers ask me what the heck I am telling the kids but no parents have ever complained.
Oleg, I am not sure you intended to but you sure lit the fuse on this topic. :D


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Those who use arms well cultivate the Way and keep the rules.Thus they can govern in such a way as to prevail over the corrupt- Sun Tzu, The Art of War
 
Apple a Day,
Thank you for having the courage to share the truth with your students.
I would have loved for my girls to have been students in your class.
Maybe there's some hope out there after all... :)

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...defend the 2nd., it protects us all.
No fate but what we make...
 
Tecolote, I tried that 'communicate with the teachers, etc.' stuff. Just about every time it came down to trying to nail jello to the wall and blaming the kid by innuendo. Since we weren't in the class daily there is always some element of doubt and poor teachers know how to hide behind that. Fortunately we were able to offset a lot of the difficulties, get the kids through high school, and into college where real teachers tend to work. As someone said, school is about socializing the little monsters (usually in ways I didn't care for). As I said before, public school is now the enemy in my opinion.

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The whole isssue of days attended in a school year has dropped dramatically since the early 1900's College attendance was 204 dayS in 1914, 195 in 39,191 in 64 and then a huge drop in to 156 in 1993.That is nearly one year gone in a four year degree.

Most of the public schools and even more of the colleges teach socialism. Previously they taught about western
Culture and the disiplines of science, math, literature, law, even moralilty among other things.
Now they drift ever further from teaching about the “evil white males” from the past, reguardless of their
Contributions to society. Colleges need to bury intellectualism as it creates rationalism that interferes with
the politicization of youth.

CMOS I completely agree, they teach you to feel, instead of education. Now it is feminism, afrocentrism, and the self-estem movement. These garbage courses further pull resourses from real education. Take this example from R Bork (the former federal judge, and where most of this info was found) “Students in the seventh and eighth grades are asked how “Columbus’s description of the peaceful and pleasant nature of the Carib Indians contrasted with his treatment of them?” One wonders whether students are to be informed that the Caribs’ predations against their Indian neighbors forced the latter to migrate or that the Caribs were cannibals who tortured and ate their male captives. Never mind, since Columbus was a European, it is the Caribs on whom victim status in bestowed.”
 
pax said: <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>"How can kids be socialized if they aren't in public school??"[/quote]I won't even get into how incredibly, *$&#%%$, freakin' ticked this statement makes me. :mad: Although, I'm sure you all have an idea ... I get this statement from relatives who disapprove of homeschooling. I usually answer with "School is the only place children can socialize? Do you think he's locked in a closet at home and can't socialize unless he's out of the house? And do you really want children learning their social skills at a public school?!?"

Apple A Day wrote: <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>It wouldn't hurt my feelings a bit if you chose to home school your kids. That's your choice and your decision to make. If that's what you believe is best then go for it. ...[/quote] I think most teachers don't mind homeschoolers. Many openly support us. It's the administrators that have the attitude with homeschoolers. When dealing with me, many administrators act as if I have a highly contagous form of leprosy. Perhaps they see their jobs threatened, or feel that they are expected to treat us this way. I don't know. What I do know is that they reaffirm my conviction to homeschool each time I have reason to contact one of them.

Dennis O wrote: <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Public schools in our society today have one MAJOR GOAL. That is to mentally beat children into submission to "authority" [/quote]My son decided to take an enrichment course at the school this summer. He was in school for only 3 weeks. Only 3 weeks! And yet I managed to get repremanded and told I wasn't a good little sheeple. Now I wasn't doing anything wrong, or irritating. In fact, when I brought it to the attention of someone higher up I got an apology and was told that person never should have said anything. But the point is that I don't bend with the rest of the crowd and the majority of those in charge in education don't like that attitude. They do their best to "beat" it out of the kids (I mean figurtively, not literally).

The teacher my son had this summer was wonderful, and he really learned a lot. The teacher asked me why I homeschool. We had a nice discussion. I eventually confessed that one reason I homeschool is because we enjoy firearm sports and support the 2A, I felt my son may be "marked" in a public school because of this. The teacher agreed with me!

Apple A Day, you sound like a wonderful teacher. Keep up the good work. The world needs more like you.

DISCLAIMER: It is late and I definately spell better when homeschooling my son. ;)


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Refuse to be a "helpless" victim.
Knowing Your Rights WAGC in Indiana
 
I've been a teacher in private and public schools for the psat fifteen years and I can tell you that:

1) The worst school problems are caused by school administrators. The average tenure of a high school principal is about five years. Most principals aren't willing to risk their career by upsetting parents by making school harder. They just hold on for their five years and get the heck out. If you don't like the way a school is run, get the principal fired. A group of concerned parents can make this happen, but sadly, we teachers have no ability to get rid of bad administrators.

2) There is a coming teacher shortage. If you want good teachers, the pay MUST be raised in order to attract more QUALITY teachers. If you aren't willing to vote for a tax increase to do this, you are PART OF THE PROBLEM.

3) A student who really tries to learn can learn in just about any class, even with a substandard teacher.

I agree that the formal process of education does not reward "thinking outside the box". This is a limitation that I (and all good teachers) constantly fight. HOWEVER, our public school system does generally work at teaching a student basic knowledge and living skills. And if the sudent is in honors classes, our schools generally teach MUCH more than general knowledge and skills.
 
Gino, thanx for making several good points. I'll stir the coals a bit, just to maintain my status as loose cannon/Devil's Advocate...

I am not a parent (insert standard "that I know of" cliche' here). I'm not from around here; also known as a "come here" in this neck o' the woods. Also very well educated, at some world-class universities. You can just imagine how well the locals take my opinions on education. If I were a local, or a large-scale employer, then I might get an audience, but in my area there is the whole race thing plus the local culture. The high school football coach earns about twice what the Big Boss at work earns. So for a lot of parents, rather than pissing in the wind, their only reasonable option is either private school or relocation to a good school district.

I'm all for much better pay for teachers, but they will have to raise the standards *much* higher first. There is no way I am going to support a large a priori pay increase in the hopes that the school system, the union, and the teachers follow through. I want guarantees.

What concerns me about smart kids in bad school systems is that the persistent indoctrination will turn the smart kids' brains off and make them shills for the leftist platform. Until kids develop critical thinking skills and intellectual self-discipline, they will be vulnerable to manipulation by the left (which is why nearly every Marxist movement in the last century has involved widespread murder of teachers and clerics; control the classroom, control the intellectual development of the people).

As for the "teacher shortage", I live in an area which has an absurdly high number of PhDs and Masters in math, science, and engineering (along with an absurdly high number of semi-literates). Many technical people have looked into teaching in the local public school system; however, their lack of Ed credentials is used to reduce their potential pay to the low $20s (i.e. about 1/3-1/4 of what their current salary is). My conclusion is that supposed teacher shortages really translate into a shortage of folks who have been vetted by the unions to ensure a liberal outlook and adherence to the leftist orthodoxy. I guess its safe to say I'm a bit cynical...
 
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