It's actually a good thing that many kids from public schools are not well educated. When my kids grow up they will need lots of uneducated low paid workers to work for the companies my kids will run.

Too many people blaming the schools. My kids are well educated because I make it that way. I work with them on their homework at night, they lose priviledges if they don't get at least a 3.5 average, a C grade would make them lose all priviledges, but they don't get Cs.

Lots of people in this country ship their kids off to school each day (on days when the teachers actually feel like working) as if it was a baby-sitting service. It's not the school's job to raise the kids, it's the parents.

Schools today EXPECT that kids know the alphabet before entering kindergarten and can read simple words like Mom, Dad, Pig, Cow, etc... My daughter was reading by the end of kindergarten and my son in 1st grade. In the 60's I remember we learned the alphabet in 1st grade and started reading in 2nd-3rd grade. My son, in 4th grade, has ~ 2 hours of homework (1 hr study, 1 hr reading) nightly. If he stays in during lunch hour he usually knocks out the study portion before the end of class.

We read to our kids everyday when they were toddlers. Homework for kids is about learning good study habits and managing priorities. The key is to gauge the amount of work so that they still have time to be kids. Personally I never liked reading as a kid and my son was following in my footsteps. It's my wife who pushed the issue and taught him to enjoy reading. He now enjoys picking a book at the library and reading it at home. If you expect the school to do all that then you're in for a sad experience.

A simple analogy. My son has played baseball for 5 seasons now. Spring ball just had their draft and first practices start this weekend. There are two distinct levels of kids, ones who can really play well and those that can't. The ones who excel do so because of the extra effort invested by the kid and parents beyond what they get from the team. The kids who don't practice outside the team rarely become the exceptional player. Parents should not rely on the team to "teach" their kid baseball skills like hitting and fielding. That is the parents job. The team is there to organize the games and get kids together.

agreed 100%...it's the government schools undermining of the parents that I object to.

All that pre-K reading is a load of crap and loads up on the kids all kinds of false expections and early "failures". A lot is coming out on this topic now. It is just the way thier brains are wired. Particularly for boys.

I think it was in this thread (further back) that they do not start teaching reading in Sweden till someting like 7 years of age..

My nephew was a "late" reader - and the school wanted to treat it as some kind of learning disability. Now he is in 4th grade - is all caught up and doing very, very well.

I think a big part of this is the trend towards teaching kids more and more advanced subjects and earlier and earlier age. ie when I went through school algebra 1 was taught in 8th grade, and now I belive it's 7th grade, when this was a high school subject traditionally.

Instead of mastering subjects before moving on we're pushing kids into more and more indepth subjects that developmentally they aren't ready for yet.

Re: 50% of all children are below average!!!
 

100% of my mother's were. :(

My wife and I have spent 10 to 15 minutes a day reading to and with our daughters since they were a few months old. They are now 6 and 8 and are way ahead of most children in their classes. It takes so little effort and the results are so great. One of the first words they were taught was please. When they started kindergarten they could write their names and address and read pretty well. Parents that expect the school system to teach their children everything will be disappointed.

My 2 cents,

Dave

+1 I agree 100% with you, we need to get stripper and porn stars from somewhere.

Bullcrap!!

My 13 y/o son has problems with dislexia and some sort of learnign diability that we have not been able to pinpoint but his tutor says he compensates for it very well although it takes a lof of his resources to accomplish that.

We never realized how bad off he was unitl we saw our 3 y/o develop.

We depended on the teachers in the school to monitor him and tell us if they saw something wrong. They never did they didn't care. They could not be bothered. He just annoyed them and they beat him down because he could not keep up.

Now that we see how naturally everythign is coming to our 3 y/o we realize, much too late out 13 y/o had some serious issues ignored by the school and we didn't realize it because he was our 1st child. If this had been the case with our 2nd child after a normal 1st we would have picked up on it immediatly.

My 3 y/o has know for a while now the sounds of every letter in the alphabet, his colors, not only basic lots of others as well, all his shapes, and now he is starting to understand days of the week, all these things did not come to out older one until 1st grade and later.

The "professional" teachers of his school let him and his parents down in a huge way. Furthermore some of them felt the need to attck his self esteem because he was not smart enough to keep up.

We read to him every night for longer than 15 minutes, more like 1/2 an hour each night, it has always been a bedtime ritual. I have worked so hard with him to help him pass his classes after his teachers failed to teach him the tools he needed to pass. In middle school he got home at 4:30 and went straight to a tutor for 1 hour then we got him back home at 6:00, ate dinner and did home work until 8-9 at night EVERY night.

My 12 y/o son had no life, I remember going out to play and having fun growing up, he got none of that just work all day in school and work all night at home.

Something had to change and the best thing I did was get him away from those *******s. I wish I did this when he was little it makes me cry sometimes that I let him down so much and did not realize that his public school was beating I hope I can make this up to him over the next couple of years.

He tries really hard to get C's by some of your expectations on here he is a failure. Too bad his professional teachers could not pick up on his problems. I am sure it my fault somehow because I was not in the school every day and I didn't do 10 hours a night homework and read for 6 hours with him.

Both of my kids survived the whole experience of public schools because they are very bright, no other reason. Yet my youngest was not taught how to read by the third grade and she is near genius! This shows how the public school system has totally failed our children. If a kid with an IQ of 140 is failing, how the heck is a normal kid doing? WTF is the school system doing? Screwing up, BIG time. The only reason my older kid did ok is that she is much brighter, IQ is in the 180 plus range.

My family has been in the teaching business for over 500 years. All of my grandmothers were teachers, going way back. My immediate family consists of teachers, principles, married to principles and so forth. My grandmother, who has taught school form 1918 untill 1975 was very discouraged by the direction of public education. Her kids graduated from HS at age 12. They attended an 8 grade one room school with no computers or other fancy stuff, yet they could do the NY times Sunday crossword puzzle in 1/2 hour and find every error the Times made.

Public schooling is failing, period. I recommend that we no longer support it, at all. Send your child to a private school. Vote no on any increase in public schooling. Starve the beast!

you're all crazy


The public school bureauracy has become the biggest scam in the US. Through Judicial fiat the political manipulators rake in big bucks. It's the perfect scam supported by parents during summer elections. You guys are paying $555/day for a headache. Nothing will change unless a strong political opponent comes along. If that happens then it hopefully can be power to the people in the Legislature.

$ & bennies = $100k/180days = $555day/4hrs = $138hr

their ot is another booby prize :D

fantasy from both sides of the country...entertaining reading though. Might make a decent screenplay...

This thread confirmed for me a few things...

1) Most people don't understand squat about statistics
2) A lot of education is political
3) School (like many things in life) is what you make of it
4) Kids learn from what they see their parents say and do

OK, of course half of the students will be "below average" as was stated earlier! Anyone who doesn't get that, or is shocked by it apparently didn't get a good education in math. The trick is to focus attention on improving the performance of the bottom half of the distribution, which is the most effective way to shift the entire distribution to a higher level of performance.

Good or bad, educational decisions are made politically. That's life. Much of education is thankfully clear cut (2+2=4), but much is not and may never be (2+2*4=???) without some sort of understanding of what the agreed upon rules are going to be. That's what politics does in our society.

But at the end of the day, School like most things is life is what you make of it. There are some great public schools, and some incompitent school districts. There are some great private schools, and some hopelessly eletist schools turning out twits. There will be good kids who find themselves mis-cast into the wrong programs, or in bad situations, and some gems who seem to thrive no matter what sort of situations they find themselves. There will be other kids who have all of the right things taught to them, but still end up winning a darwin award or starting world war III.

Which brings me to us (in many cases) parents. It's really our job to see that our kid is well equiped for life, by taking advantage of what society has to offer. If our kids see us cheating, wasting time and resources, slacking off, treating other badly, etc. etc. etc., they will most likely end up doing the same no matter what school system they wind up in. But if we teach them, and show them how to respect and help others, try their best, be thoughtful and prepare diligently, chances are they'll be fine -- no matter what sort of educational situation they happen to find themselves in.

2+2*4=
any JHS math student ought to be able to tell that it is equal to 10

May not though because he probably uses a calculator programed by someone that did pay atttetion in math class and knows the the order of operation is x then +

Now it's a different story in history and english classes especially where eubonics has supplanted real english and activists of one persuasion or another have slanted the curriculum to suit their twisted views, sort of like the USPS at the Grand Canyon being prohibited from mentioning the geologioc age of the canyon to suit the religious fanatics

Wow. You got those numbers from where exactly? Hope you didn't just pencil them out on your kitchen counter. :rolleyes:

During the school session teachers at our local Elementry work 10/hr weekdays and continue to work over the weekend and holiday breaks preparing material. Sure there are some who skate but most that we have met were career educators and had an emotional investment in their job.

10hr days and only 4hrs teaching.



and just to smooth everything out the political correct progressives teaching political correctness dismiss separating those with IQ's over 120 for a challenging class because that would be unfair [whatever that means?]. They dismiss the fact that the huge group who create many jobs and wealth in this country should be treated differently from the comic book only crowd.

Public schools came into existence to teach foreigners English and reading & writing. Its purpose was to prepare students for the work force and give an understanding of US gov't and policies. Today many junior college grads can't figure out how to make change at a store's check-out when electricity is turned off.

It has morphed into a system whose sole purpose is political activism and bigger pay checks. Although not current info the teachers unions had veto power in the DNC concerning what state issues would be focused on. If the teachers didn't like it it didn't happen.

The exceptional teacher is exactly that.. an exception.


ps: i worked with a teacher friend on preparing and explaining politics concerning local teacher budget contracts.

I suspect that many of those defending the government school bureaucracy are one of those bureaucrats or are close financially to someone who is. Lebanon, Oregon average teacher pay + bennies is over $75K per year...a 154 work days year. (free medical, dental, vision care for teacher & entire family, plus PERS retirement. In case of teachers married to each other, one adds the cost of the medical bennies to his or her retirement account)

Where did I get these stats? Ron, that was a school board member who was here last night when you called. Even though our daughter is out of school, Cindy & I remain interested...

The teacher's union doesn't like it when parents object to their political and values indoctrination techniques. This is child abuse in the classroom. Kids talk, parents catch on, then object. Oh, but I forgot, the line is that parents don't care...:rolleyes:

angry and wrong. a dangerous combination...

I'll admit to angry...now prove me wrong. I write from experience.
I also have never received a government school paycheck.

Public school teachers working 10 hours a day, and on weekends and holidays? I gotta call BS on that one. I know lots O'teachers and NONE of them work more that 8 hours ever, except for the varsity football coach, and he only does it during football season. Some of em are home by 3:15 every day except for Fridays, then they are either off or home by noon.

I will concede that it is possible there are a few (as in a handful) out there that might work long hours, but the vast majority are 7 and skate. What really gets me is that they rarely work 5 days a week anymore. Every time I turn around the kids have a day off (convenient for the teachers, eh?) Every single holiday immaginable, at elast one friday off per month and one half day per month, at least a week off in the fall and one in the spring, and at least two weeks off during the holidays, and the entire summer off. That is a part time job. To work that kind of schedule for over $50k a year, not a bad scam but when they threaten to go on strike because the greedy bastards want more, I get pissed.
Then their stupid teamsters (i mean teachers) union is one of the strongest PACs in california. That just isn't right. It isn't about the children, it's about the bank accounts of the teachers. They want to make as much or more than everyone else but are only willing to work half as much for it.


Teachers make a great deal of money per hour. If they want more per year, maybe they should get a full time job like the rest of us instead of going on strike every other year.
If they were worth it I wouldn't mind, but around here they are not so my kids go to private school (even though I still have to pay the salaries of these so called public education professionals.)

I read somewhere, that indeed math skilz are pretty bad. In fact, in the math catagory, 50% are below average. http://www.pelicanparts.com/support/...ool_shades.gif


:D

Wow, this is quite a thread. I've learned a lot; not so much about public education, but a lot about people here. (And by extrapolation, people in general)?

Schools by definition are in the mass education business, they must design a curriculum that is effective at educating a number of children at once. I did poorly in school compared to my siblings due to a restless and easily bored nature that was not suited to the discipline of studying hard and concentrating, (what they now call ADD), but I would never dream of blaming the school that also sent my brother and two sisters on their way to post-graduate degrees and extreme academic achievement. It was a public school, BTW. I do not remember the political indoctrination classes that Paul frequently refers to, maybe I was not paying attention in class?

I definitely would have benefitted from the type of intense individual attention that a top private school and private 1-on-1 tutoring provides, if nothing else it would have fed my ego and made me feel important. But that is not what school is supposed to be; it is a factory of learning and parents are supposed to prepare their children for it. I was reading well before the 1st grade, I remember being bored for the first time in class when they were teaching *Dick and Jane* level R&R. We went to the Public Library w/ my Mom from the time we were born when she was checking out or returning books, (another horrible government institution to some here I'm sure), :rolleyes:, I remember asking for books with pictures of cars in them at a very young age. It introduced me to reading in general, through my parents letting me pursue an early interest. I am certain that my mother, who had 5 children in 5 years after marriage at 25 y.o., did not put an inordinate amount of time into individual tutoring of us. And my dad worked and made money, he definitely spent ZERO time raising us unless you include a kiss goodnight at bedtime and the occasional ass-whupping for bad behavior.

If you have parents who are not intellectually curious or readers themselves, you cannot expect their children raised in a house with them to be different. The world needs ditch-diggers and Republican voters, (j/k :D), it all used to work out before we had such an over-population of people and the need for every type of "growth" in society, IMO. America has traditionally been a place where really mediocre white people could make a lot of money and have a great lifestyle, and the demise of this is causing a lot of kicking and screaming, understandably. We have middle-aged people here who are functionally illiterate in their native language, but have several expensive cars in their signature line and brag about their material possessions, w/o even realizing that it's the red badge of a moron.

I think that it is admirable that parents like Jim C. are so involved in their kid's lives, I often wonder if I'd have done better in certain areas if my Dad had given a schit. It also sounds like your son may have had a really bad teacher, (more than one?), they exist, but they never made a difference in my educational experience. I had some exceptional teachers in public schools, those are the only ones that made a difference one way or the other and broke my extreme ennui for a moment, the boring or lazy ones were of no consequence.

Interesting, revealing discussion none-the-less. :cool:

What is this library thing you speak of?

Hmmmm... loaning out books for free!

Sounds like some sort of socialist/communist plot, this sort of thing could lead to independant thought! We better close them all down just to be safe.
;)

if teaching is such a cush scam, why don't you brilliant minds do it? From they way you guys describe it, you'd have to be a moron *not* to be a teacher.

seriously.

50% of opinions offered on Pelican OT are below average.

but only one is brilliant.

butt darts

teaching is one of the jobs i turned down and i had the hook to get the job.

it was "do i want to hang with these people all day?"

they live and bang each in their own little world.

Only if smileys are included, otherwise, you're just average. :p
http://mywebpages.comcast.net/NickBu...iley1/moon.gif http://mywebpages.comcast.net/NickBu...y3/roflmao.gif

do you know where that dart has been?!?

:eek:

My son was left back in Kindegarten, he was tested and found to be normal (by the school) he has a borderline birthday and we chalked it up to atarting him too early. By 1st grade it was apparent to us (not the school) that he was not keeping up. Couple that with abusive teachers and we were not sure what was going on.

He was tested again in second grade by the school, again, averything was fine. We took him for a private testing and found there was something wrong but no one was sure what. We hired a tutor to help us work with him, we did not replace our helping him with a tutor, we supplemented our help with a tutor. She felt he had soemthing wrong too but she said whatever it was he is compensating in a huge way and he will probably always be an average student. In other words C's would be his A's.

We were cool with that but we researched further and found out schools are not teaching cognitive skills anymore. We paid a learning center over $5,000 to teach our son cognitive skills and to teach us how to cement them in.

He got a little better in school but then he had another really bad teacher and he started to go downhill, we tried to get him switched and were told no way too many kids in the school and they cannot be doing that. So he suffered for a year.

When he got to middle school we hoped it would be a good thing for him being he will change classes. Last year (6th grade) he FAILED math while I fought and fought to try to get him to understand the work (Geometry and Algebra) and teach him at home. Techers conferences and guidence visits did nothing.

The teacher was fired after the 3rd 1/4 it seems most of her students were failing.

My son had to go to summer school missing passing the class by 1 point. He wad an 85 average in summer school I am not sure that means much from an acedemic standpoint being summer school is probably dummied down but what it did to his self esteem was amazing.

He got an A the 1st quarter with a very young and enthusiastic new teacher in 7th grade and a B the second 1/4.

When we saw his language arts go from a solid B last year to an F this year I knew what the problem was. But then that teacher crossed the line and was humiliating him before the class. This is where I went from the nice parent that backs the teachers to a raving mad a-hole that was out to make this woman apologize and step back off my son.

I resulted in my son being repeatedly pulled form class anf forced toconfess to lieing when he did not and threatened with punishment from the pricipal.

I had it and pulled him from the school he was nto safe there anymore and he was not going to be taught language arts from an incompetant teacher.

Guess what, he was in a class competition this past week, he had to find alternate definitions for words the fastest. He came in 3rd and now is entered in a national competition. If he comes in in the top 5 he gets a 50K scholership.

The switch to private school has stopped the mental abuse and my son it turning into a happy person again.

I would like to go visit his old teachers and tell them what kind of people I think they are.

I am VERY involved with my family I dare say more than most of you here. I have given up my social life to be there 100% for them. The insinuations that I am not involved with my kids education are insulting to me. You have no idea what I have sacrificed for my family. I wouldn't change a thing.

Public Schools SUCK and if it makes you feel better to take shots at me because I feel that way go for it. I will make financial sacrifices to keep my kids in private school. Even sell my P-car if it comes down to it. My kids and wife are all that matters to me.

Jim, sorry you and your son had such a bad experience. Not sure what to say, but I only offer that not all public schools suck. And just because a school is private that doesn't make it better than public (and vice versa). There are just too many variables to make that kind of generalization.

We had a very tough time with our son and went through private testing as well. Maybe we were lucky, but we also never were either "nice parent" or "raving arsehole", but rather polite yet adament about finding the best solution for our son. We learned how the system worked (with help from a psychologist who acted as an advocate for us through the process) and kept at it. We started him in 1st grade but after 2 weeks dropped him back to K because it was obvious it wasn't working from a socialization level. We jumped through the hoops and were persistant and now, in 4th grade, it is quite a bit better. We do fear middle school though, as if he didn't test gifted (he is not a great test taker, and he really doesn't engage if he thinks it isn't of worth) then the standard classes will likely not work for him.

The problem with private school is that they can take or leave kids. If a kid is disruptive or doesn't conform to what they want, they can just boot him out. That is one advantage to public school...they can't do that so they will work to find solutions. Plus the local private schools in our neighborhood are outrageous...we're talking $15-25K/year for middle school and up.

$15k a year in L.A.? Where??

Crossroads, Marlboro, Harvard/Westlake are all ~$25k per student/year.

Maybe Catholic schools are less, I don't know.

sorry, typo. i'll fix it ;)

Wait till your kid gets a sadistic old bat waiting for her retirement.

I pay 11K a year for my son to attend a Montesorri school. The atmosphere and the attitude of the staff and teachers is 180° from his last public school.

My son is not a behavior problem, never was, he is quiet, polite and well mannered. Behavior has never been a issue with him.

The teachers and staff have raved over how awesome of a kid he is and how well he fits in with the rest of the kids.

I chaperoned a field trip to see freedom writers last week and helped build a canopy over their lunch area outside last weekend and met a lot of other parents.

First I looked at the parking lot. I had the shiney red Porsche, they all had older For Explorers and pickup trucks. I got to talking with a lot of the parents, regular people making sacrifices to pay for their kids to be there. No rich a holes no attitude, I probably shot myself in the foot driving my Porsche there. These were just regular people that were discusted with the public school system.

They were not all from my area either, it seems some are driving 50 miles to get their kids in this school.

My son is very smart he is always reading books. The Lemony Snicket unfortunate events movie? He read every book. Eregon? Read the book and is reading the second one now.

He need a safe place and a competant teacher. He has those now and I am watching this kid change before my eyes. I am so pissed at myself for not doing this years ago.

Its sad you have to play a game with the public school system to get a troubled kid help. All of you have admitted that you have to know how to play the system and to that I say Public Schools suck.

Then either he'll change rooms or she'll retire early. Period.

It isn't a "game". It is my child's future. So I learn how the system works and act accordingly. In our case, sending him to private school is a bigger risk. There is more than one way to deal with your child's education. You picked yours, we've picked ours. I still argue that you can't make blanket statements like "public schools suck" or "all teachers are overpaid lazy jerks." It just isn't true...maybe in some places and in some situations, but it does not generalize to "all".

Doesn't hurt a bit that being part of the system, albeit at the university level, helps you understand how the system works when it comes to your own child... Jim, I agree with you...Government schools SUCK! They are primarily about teacher's union members and their determined pay and benefits. They call themselves "professionals", yet they enjoy both tenure and collective bargaining. Once a teacher obtains tenure, you pull teeth getting them fired for mere incompetence...they need to have engaged in criminal activity in order to be booted. The actual education of children is secondary to the teacher's union...they do the least work they think they can get away with. It's about the money.

below could be a true personal story or not? I really don't care either way but at the least it's entertainment.





"If you have channel 69(no cute comments needed) a car auction is in the works."


"Thx
Coffee ????????? "


"I wish I could do it all day everyday. This week-I am giving a midterm exam-expected to get it marked and get the report card grades in by Friday, have a course I'm taking on Thursday, taking my uncle to the MD on Friday and probably going to have no sense of humor by Saturday when I have to ..............You get the point-not until next week.That is unless I hand in my retirement papers tomorrow when I have a black militant who wants my ass because his niece is operating with an IQ of about 70 and is not capable of learning much, meeting with my principal and me to tell me what HE wants me to do for her. I'm sorry for the kid but it is difficult to teach a kid with so little to work with. She doesn't remember a statement I teach within five minutes of my having said it even when I relate it to her life. Does not compute> "

Some interesting info here...

How Much Are Public School Teachers Paid?
http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/cr_50.htm

Same old nonsense about hourly wages.

GO be a teacher and then come back and say how well you are paid.