s/o queen for a day - how do you fix education?

[Deleted]

Private school parents want certain things for their kids and they are willing to pay to get it. In HABlandia, this phenomenon would be encouraged. You want a community garden, you cut a check, bake sale your litte heart out and/or partner up with local businesses to make it happen.

[Deleted]

May 17, 2012 13:43:04 GMT -5 asdfjkl said:

possible.

I think the school day should be from 9 - 3 from August through May, with ass in the chair learning. Then I think their should be school camp that most kids go to during the summer that is also from 9 - 3 but is mostly non-traditional type things with a few "don't forget how to add" type classes every now and then. Camp would be from the last day of the regular school year to the first day of the next school year. Incidentally, this would also help crime and poverty since it would keep kids off the street and help solve the issue for the working poor of what to do with their kids during the summer.

I just came up with this idea just now, so maybe it's shit, but this is what my kid's preschools and grade schools do and I kinda like it. [/quote]

I'll add 2 non-traditional learning during the school year then flip the hours during the summer.

So sept - june would be 70% traditional academics and 30% non traditional learning/participation and June - Sept would be the opposite.

[whitewolf]

May 17, 2012 13:10:09 GMT -5 basilosaurus said:

I definitely would have a national curriculum. In a discussion on the train in the UK, they were shocked we didn't have one. I mean, they knew our education system was fucked, but they were still in shock at that one.

It's coming.
www.parcconline.org/achieving-common-core

[heightsyankee]

Not all kids who go to private schools are wealthy either. Anecdotes galore!!

My younger son's MDO teacher (home care) was a single mom who worked at a parochial Montessori school. The dad was not involved but even if he had been, he's a "musician" so how much money would there have been? Still, she sent her daughter all the way through from kinder- 12th grade at the same private Montessori my son(s) go to.

My niece and nephew will start private school this fall in western MA. It's a tiny school and the only private one in the area. They are on a scholarship that is a 70% reduction in tuition because my 1/2 sister is a heroin addict and is currently spending 90 days sobering up in the county pen for theft and possession charges. The kids live with my own deadbeat loser father who I have't spoken to in 10 years. This school will be the best thing they have in their lives and I am so thankful my aunt went through the process of getting them in. I am covering the cost of their tuition because if they had to go to public school in my home town, they would end up just like their mother.

[whitewolf]

May 17, 2012 13:27:56 GMT -5 emilyj said:

I would like a convincing argument to keep tenure for K-12 teachers. I'm not necessarily against it. I just don't understand why it needs to be in place.

I thought I gave lots of reasons here at least at the upper level.
www.thenest.com/forums/life-boards_politics-and-current-events_so-teachers-unions

Anyway, I am not sure what I want yet. But I do know that no reform we do will counteract the main problem I see: students who find no intrinsic value in the material.

[Deleted]

Heightsyankee-What part of WMass are you from?

[cookiemdough]

May 17, 2012 13:47:48 GMT -5 @littlemoxie said:

Anecdote time... MH went to fancy ass schools his entire life. His parents left Staten Island at 5 to BFE NJ and moved close to a good HS in town because they were determined to send him to good schools. They live in the same house as then and are generally well off, but not as much as they could have been.

Meanwhile, a friend he grew up with was sent to public schools in the same place b/c his parents wanted to spend their money on themselves more. They have fancier cars and a bigger house than MH's parents, but their kid went to a worse college and law school than MH.

Both sets of parents are in the same profession and make roughly the same amount of money.

The point being that if MH's parents had no private school option and had to send their kid to the local public school, they would have gotten more involved - thus helping everyone else's kids, even if their parent's didn't care as much.

This would also level the playing field between those who have the money to make a choice and those that don't. Anyone can get more involved (well mostly, I realize it's a lot harder for someone working 3 jobs than 1).

This so rubs me the wrong way. Not everyone believes in private school. Hell I am not excited about sending DS to one and I am opting for the least expensive option (religious school) if we do because I can't believe it is necessary to spend $25K per year for the next 12 years ($300K) to yield a smart, well-rounded child.

[heightsyankee]

May 17, 2012 13:54:36 GMT -5 @septimus said:

Heightsyankee-What part of WMass are you from?

North Adams. If you've heard of it, you'll get a gold star. If you've been there, I'll beso you

[Deleted]

May 17, 2012 13:57:02 GMT -5 heightsyankee said:

May 17, 2012 13:54:36 GMT -5 @septimus said:

Heightsyankee-What part of WMass are you from?

North Adams. If you've heard of it, you'll get a gold star. If you've been there, I'll beso you

I've been there... One of my good friends in boarding school was from there.

I spent too much time in Westfield growing up... I like to block those years of my childhood out :-)

[Deleted]

I do not think all or even most parents who chose private school are wealthy. But even on scholarship the choice of private school adds expense,effort, and inconvenience that the parents are willing to accept.

And I don't think private schools are the root of all evil or why public school as a whole generally sucks.

I also think having no private schools means some parents wouldn't be so quick to vote down tax increases or funds for public schools

[heightsyankee]

May 17, 2012 13:58:26 GMT -5 @septimus said:

May 17, 2012 13:57:02 GMT -5 heightsyankee said:

North Adams. If you've heard of it, you'll get a gold star. If you've been there, I'll beso you

I've been there... One of my good friends in boarding school was from there.

I spent too much time in Westfield growing up... I like to block those years of my childhood out :-)

Many besos for you!! It's a small town. You should PM your friends name and I bet I know her/him or at least some member of their family. It's also a rough, sad place in a lot of ways. It's gotten both better and worse since I was growing up there.

My 1st potential husband, i.e. the 1st serious adult relationship I had where there was potential for marriage, was from Westfield. It didn't end well.

Where did you go to school?

[Deleted]

HY-
I sent you a PM. I Hope it works.

[whitewolf]

May 17, 2012 14:03:29 GMT -5 asdfjkl said:

Flameful opinion:

I would probably also let go of the Romantic idea that every child can and should be saved. I would allow for the fact that if parents had school choice, some parents wouldn't exercise that in the best interests of their kids. I would allow for the fact that if teachers' training was as rigorous as a fucking neurosurgeons, that still wouldn't mean that some kid with an attitude problem and two parents who didn't give a shit about education is suddenly going to start caring about Chaucer.

I think, at the end of the day, the goal of my "system" would be to set up a system where people who wanted to succeed were given the best opportunity to do so, which would inevitably mean, that some kids would sit in the back of their summer reading class with a baseball cap over their face sleeping. That is not the teacher's fault and at some point, we just have to let that kid go.

No flames here!

[Deleted]

May 17, 2012 14:03:29 GMT -5 asdfjkl said:

Flameful opinion:

I would probably also let go of the Romantic idea that every child can and should be saved. I would allow for the fact that if parents had school choice, some parents wouldn't exercise that in the best interests of their kids. I would allow for the fact that if teachers' training was as rigorous as a fucking neurosurgeons, that still wouldn't mean that some kid with an attitude problem and two parents who didn't give a shit about education is suddenly going to start caring about Chaucer.

I think, at the end of the day, the goal of my "system" would be to set up a system where people who wanted to succeed were given the best opportunity to do so, which would inevitably mean, that some kids would sit in the back of their summer reading class with a baseball cap over their face sleeping. That is not the teacher's fault and at some point, we just have to let that kid go.

From what I have seen, this is already what the public schools do. (and I am not saying that in a snarky way, it is what it is and they have kids that just don't want to learn, so they are stuck)

[wawa]

I can't quote properly...don't judge me. In response to this by spb:
As for the education major, I'd see the end of that bullshit degree. If things were being kind of patterned off of law school, you'd just major in a topic area and then go to a professional school that provided the theory/practicum stuff. And I'm sure there are all range of education programs, but the one at my undergraduate school, which enjoyed a relatively good reputation, was not particularly demanding. Even though you were technically pursuing two disciplines (the education major AND your concentration area), the education classes did not require much time or effort and you didn't need particularly good grades to stay in the program (not the kinds of grades you would need to, say, get into law school). So you could definitely get a Bachelors in Education and have essentially coasted through your entire education.
You mean like my friend from high school who went to a well regarded state school intended to get a degree in meterology, but her advisor took one look at her math and science placement scores and told her that she wasn't cut out for it, but she should consider education? So she did.

That's the message, from the institution of higher learning itself. "You aren't smart enough to be a scientist...how about teaching it to children instead?"

[Deleted]

May 17, 2012 14:08:16 GMT -5 @mjmksb04 said:

May 17, 2012 14:03:29 GMT -5 asdfjkl said:

Flameful opinion:

I would probably also let go of the Romantic idea that every child can and should be saved. I would allow for the fact that if parents had school choice, some parents wouldn't exercise that in the best interests of their kids. I would allow for the fact that if teachers' training was as rigorous as a fucking neurosurgeons, that still wouldn't mean that some kid with an attitude problem and two parents who didn't give a shit about education is suddenly going to start caring about Chaucer.

I think, at the end of the day, the goal of my "system" would be to set up a system where people who wanted to succeed were given the best opportunity to do so, which would inevitably mean, that some kids would sit in the back of their summer reading class with a baseball cap over their face sleeping. That is not the teacher's fault and at some point, we just have to let that kid go.

From what I have seen, this is already what the public schools do. (and I am not saying that in a snarky way, it is what it is and they have kids that just don't want to learn, so they are stuck)

At what point do you "give up" on a child? 1st grade? 5th grade? 9th grade?

As much as I want my kid to be with other smart kids in class I would hate for tracking to mean that some kid that blossoms academically in 4th grade will never get tracked with the "smart" kids and some kid that was reading really well in K is still with the smart kids even though he can no longer intellectually keep up since early reading isn't really a sign of intelligence.

[Deleted]

Meh, I can get with that, sbp. Shit, we might break proboards if we keep this up.

And I don't think teachers need to be all respected and shit like lawyers (which is laughable anyway since who respects lawyers? Lawyers who become other things, sure but plain old call me if you even think you might have an injury some time in the future or if you hate your H's face, no.)

But I do think the position should be elevated a bit both by the education sector as a whole and by the public at large. Part of that is more education and another part is parents not being assholes. But I'm not sure even HABlandia can deal efficiently with assholes short of going all Stalin on people.

[Deleted]

Also, I think it should be noted that some part of asshole parenting, especially in minority and/or low income areas is due to disenfranchisement with the system as a whole. For every handful of don't give a fuck parents, there are one or two who have been burnt out by a crappy school and crappy teachers.

But those parents would be in the minority.

[basilosaurus]

I think the correlation of math scores with being a good teacher are pretty ridiculous. Yes, you might not be good enough at math to be a meteorologist, but that doesn't mean shit about your teaching abilities. I think it's been consistently shown that the best teachers aren't necessarily the ones with the highest grades. Teaching is ironically a very different skill than learning, especially in the younger grades where you have the greatest impact.

[heightsyankee]

I have a friend whose husband failed the TX state bar 3 or 4 times, whatever the limit is to take it. He decided he was going to start a construction company and that failed. Now he teaches in a low income middle school. That being said, he was probably meant to be a teacher as he really does pour his heart and soul in to it.

[whitewolf]

I keep typing and deleting posts because I am so overwhelmed by this question.
When I think of my own difficulties in teaching, they all stem from American cultural problems: lack of motivation, sending kids into academia who aren't academics (everyone goes to college), ineffective ways and resources to deal with problems of absence, and lack of time to get enough done.
I feel like I can't communicate very well on this topic today. I think I am just overwhelmed by all the problems I see and feel powerless about a lot of them.

[mrslefty]

May 17, 2012 13:32:01 GMT -5 @habbsies said:

Also, I kind of want year round schools. And not this nine weeks on, two weeks off business.

But if we do that, school is going to be a more rounded experience and go beyond having one's ass in a chair 8 hours a day. That would be a nightmare.

I mean a full day program that gives adequate time for projects, home ec, gardening, recess, family style lunch, finance courses, etc.

I might be going too far with this queen business. lolol Especially since financially, this shit ain't happening. But you said queen which means I get to allocate federal, state, and local funds as I see fit to make my puppies and rainbows dreams possible.

That plus pretty much everything SBP has said and also

1. Better training for teachers, especially in regards to ELL strategies and cultural awareness. The training I received in my undergrad was useless.
2. Better pre-k education for all
3. Stronger action research lead by teachers as the driving force in education reform. This includes more time for teachers to collaborate and research.
4. More authentic learning activities that create engagement and connect to the real world.

[cookiemdough]

May 17, 2012 14:11:53 GMT -5 @littlemoxie said:

Not sure what is rubbing you the wrong way, but OK. Perhaps my characterization of friend's parents? It's not true in every case - I warned it was an anecdote - but these people very clearly value their expensive lifestyle and had the money to send their kid to the superior private schools and didn't. Maybe they would have had the public schools been atrocious, I don't know. From speaking with them, I don't think their reasoning was that they didn't believe in private schools for moral/philosophical reasons.

I don't know why you're not excited about sending your kid to one, but this leads me to believe that 1) you don't think the public schools in the area are that great, 2) you have the monetary ability to make a different choice and 3) your kid's future comes before your non-belief in private schools. Someone like you who cares this much could make a difference in that public school, which is where I think HAB is going with her ban.

Let's keep it real. At the end of the day, if you pay for private school, it's because you want to give your kid an advantage(assuming the private school is better). Of course you don't have to, but if you have the means to and don't, it's because you had different priorities.

[/quote]

The only reason I am considering private school is because the county that we currently live in is ranked second to the last in the entire state in terms of education. The only thing worse is Baltimore City Schools. Given the housing market is still in the crapper we can't move to a better district right now that would make public school a great choice. Even with our current rankings though, I am still planning on visiting the local public elementary school that has a new principal and recently underwent some zoning changes that is pulling families from two neighboring schools that are performing well before making a final decision. However, as it stands from last year, they were underenrolled, half the school wasn't being used, another portion was not accessible due to mold, and they had to let go of teachers and vital support roles because of the underenrollment. I don't know if they can turn that around in a year.

The private schools we are considering don't have the bells and whistles and basically will provide what I consider to be equivalent to what kids should receive in a public school education if our zoned school was performing as it should.

In terms of why I am not a fan of private schools, private school is not convenient. I will now have two drop-offs in the morning and two in the evenings because I won't have access to school transportation. I will have two children to now consider, so that $25k education becomes $50K once my youngest begins school. And quite frankly I think funding college is more important than paying $25K for kindergarten. And unless you are significantly rich you will find yourself in the situation where you don't qualify for financial aid and although it may be financially feasible, it would impact our ability to save significantly if we undertook that kind of financial liability. There are an array of reasons people aren't just choosing to send their kids to the "superior private school".

Not to mention not all private schools are worth the amount of money they charge. Parents in this area are loosing their mind trying to get there kid in when many of the private schools around here cost so much because they are supplementing "experiences". That is okay, if I want my kid to learn how to ride a horse I can finance some lessons far cheaper than $25K per year. A lot of it is also "connections" which again has nothing to do with education.

I know plenty of people who went to public schools then onto state college and are doing extremely well. Private school doesn't automatically equal success and the notion that parents should be judged by whether they are willing to spend the money to send their kid to private school, as if it is the only viable option if you have the financial means, is ridiculous.

[cookiemdough]

May 17, 2012 15:10:38 GMT -5 @littlemoxie said:

Anyone in your situation (REALLY crappy public schools and means to pay for a better private school) that doesn't choose the private school does not prioritize the education of their kids. They don't want that advantage as much as they want something else. I'm purely talking at voting with your dollars here.

I have the means, but as I mentioned I still plan on visiting the public school and assessing their progress. I haven't completely ruled it out. I do feel like it is my responsibility as someone who will be an active parent to not abandon the school if they are making significant improvements. I have been following this fairly closely for the last two years and it is not likely that the public school will be on par with the private option in one year, and it is something that I am still considering. Does this mean I don't prioritize my child's education if I feel strongly that sometimes working to improve the community at large may in the long run better for your child?

[downtoearth]

May 17, 2012 15:43:37 GMT -5 cookiemdough said:

May 17, 2012 15:10:38 GMT -5 @littlemoxie said:

Anyone in your situation (REALLY crappy public schools and means to pay for a better private school) that doesn't choose the private school does not prioritize the education of their kids. They don't want that advantage as much as they want something else. I'm purely talking at voting with your dollars here.

I have the means, but as I mentioned I still plan on visiting the public school and assessing their progress. I haven't completely ruled it out. I do feel like it is my responsibility as someone who will be an active parent to not abandon the school if they are making significant improvements. I have been following this fairly closely for the last two years and it is not likely that the public school will be on par with the private option in one year, and it is something that I am still considering. Does this mean I don't prioritize my child's education if I feel strongly that sometimes working to improve the community at large may in the long run better for your child?

Just wondering...what are you basing your review of the public schools on. Are you talking with parents of kids who did excel there? Are you talking with the principal/admin/teachers directly? Or are you doing what most parents do and looking for test scores showing improvement? Test scores alone? Those same test scores that show more about poverty and socio-economic range than actual ability of teachers to teach? That's what a lot of the internet sites and even districts have to offer for you to compare only b/c you can't measure the other parts of school as well.

I fell into this same trap and ended up putting my kid in a choice school not the neighborhood school at public pre-K. It's hard to be one of the first to want to ignore the test scores and keep their kid in a lower performing school, but after being in the public-school world for longer, I wish I would have spent more time learning about the positive things in a more diverse, lower performing school than worrying about making my kid the test case vs. making their life easier. It's not a simple answer, I just have a little more hind-sight on my own decision now.

ETA - This is not directed at the OP quoted. This is more an observation from another comment.

That being said, I would never put my kid in a Christian school if I wasn't that religion. Plus a lot of private Christian schools also have terrible curriculum and actually less training required for the teachers. The ones in my area are worse than the public schools, but that wasn't the case in the state we just moved from. Also, my sister is a great teacher, but not accredited by her state and has taught at good Christian/Catholic schools in Boston area for years. However, she also doesn't have to do continuing education and other things that go with keeping current with the teaching profession since they are private schools.

[curmudgeon]

May 17, 2012 13:54:03 GMT -5 whitewolf said:

Anyway, I am not sure what I want yet. But I do know that no reform we do will counteract the main problem I see: students who find no intrinsic value in the material.

Wouldn't cutting back on standardized testing be at least a step in the right direction here? Well, and frankly I remember having a pretty hard time understanding the intrinsic value of spitting back (nearly verbatim) the same points the English teacher threw at us, hundreds of math worksheets when we were also required to have a calculator (though I now understand the importance of learning the way we did), and memorizing the same twelve dates in early American history for five years running. This is why I like Montessori, IIRC there was a pretty heavy focus on applied learning.

WRT the rest of the thread, I think I want to live in HABlandia.

[cookiemdough]

May 17, 2012 15:51:33 GMT -5 downtoearth said:

Just wondering...what are you basing your review of the public schools on. Are you talking with parents of kids who did excel there? Are you talking with the principal/admin/teachers directly? Or are you doing what most parents do and looking for test scores showing improvement? Test scores alone? Those same test scores that show more about poverty and socio-economic range than actual ability of teachers to teach? That's what a lot of the internet sites and even districts have to offer for you to compare only b/c you can't measure the other parts of school as well.

I fell into this same trap and ended up putting my kid in a choice school not the neighborhood school at public pre-K. It's hard to be one of the first to want to ignore the test scores and keep their kid in a lower performing school, but after being in the public-school world for longer, I wish I would have spent more time learning about the positive things in a more diverse, lower performing school than worrying about making my kid the test case vs. making their life easier. It's not a simple answer, I just have a little more hind-sight on my own decision now.

ETA - This is not directed at the OP quoted. This is more an observation from another comment.

That being said, I would never put my kid in a Christian school if I wasn't that religion. Plus a lot of private Christian schools also have terrible curriculum and actually less training required for the teachers. The ones in my area are worse than the public schools, but that wasn't the case in the state we just moved from. Also, my sister is a great teacher, but not accredited by her state and has taught at good Christian/Catholic schools in Boston area for years. However, she also doesn't have to do continuing education and other things that go with keeping current with the teaching profession since they are private schools.

No I am not basing my impression of the public school based on test scores. When I visit the school I plan to meet with the principal if possible. A lot of it is based on watching school board meetings to track many of the changes impacting my zoned school and following its progress in our town newspaper. Because of the number of parents using private options or going to other schools through the lottery program, I don't actually know any kids in my neighborhood that attend the zoned school. However, we are in the middle of two really good elementary schools and so that is what gives me hope that it can be turned around with some commitment from parents in the community. The socioeconomics for this school is no different than the other two schools.

Most of the private schools in my area are religious-based schools. The other ones in surrounding towns that are not religious-based are a half hour out of the way for going to work in the morning with no transportation and are prohibitively expensive. I have talked to the parents at all of the religious schools we considered and do recognize not all are on the same level in terms of education. The schools we have narrowed it down to are the best fit for our family. We are methodist but were not deterred at the thought of going to a Catholic school (or at least this particular one based on our visits there).

[downtoearth]

May 17, 2012 16:06:48 GMT -5 asdfjkl said:

May 17, 2012 15:51:33 GMT -5 downtoearth said:

Just wondering...what are you basing your review of the public schools on.

I'm not going to speak for cookie, but as someone else who is opting out of public schools, I am basing my decision almost entirely on the fact that my "community school" requires its kids to use clear backpacks so that no one can conceal weapons and bring them to school. That, in combination with things like the short classroom instruction time, the over-crowded classrooms, the school lunch program, which some schools are making mandatory in participation, among a whole host of other failings of my local school district have made it abundantly clear that my commitment to "working from the inside" to better our schools is far outweighed by my desire for my daughter to not be afraid of her classmates and to actually get an education.

Add to that the fact that the private school system here is self-perpetuating in that the longer you wait to get into it, the harder it is to get in, and you couldn't pay ME to send my kid to CPS. And there's no risk of anyone offering to pay me anyway. Nope. We're shelling out around $7000 a year in property taxes and can't send our kids to our community schools.

Our neighborhood school in Denver metro wasn't that bad and I still opted out with my first.

It's just so hard with some of my friends who are more in the mid-west/West who think lower test scores due to ESL kids and such are bringing the public schools down. It's not a black/white issue, but if it's a safety issue and other academic issues that aren't going to change during your kids tenure, it's much harder to argue against.

[wawa]

cookie - you have a PM.

[Deleted]

fwiw, in our area, good or bad, all schools require clear or mesh backpacks. But obviously, that tidbit doesn't fix the whole host of issues with CPS.