I happen to live in a public school district that is one of the
tops in our state. But don't let that fool you into thinking my
children are are getting any better education than anyone else.
Around these parts that's sort of like saying, "That last bout of
indegestion was better than the others." Our system is still
very flawed, and we still have children on both ends of
the scale who are not having their needs met. We
have special needs kids who are not getting the concentrated care
they need and deserve. We have bright, overly capable children
being "dumbed-down" in order to keep to the status
quo. Even before this horrible "No Child Left
Behind" policy was enacted, kids in public schools have been
getting short-changed. Add to that the fact that we have
great, hardworking, respectable teachers who are being underpaid,
yet are having more and more expectations put upon them every year.
In a nutshell, the system is horribly, dangerously broken. And
we're all paying the price.
Unlike previous election years, the state of Education in this
country is not a Hot Topic for either campaign. Perhaps because
there are larger current issues overshadowing it. Both cantidates
did briefly touch on the issue of our failing system during last
night's debate. However, there was no real discussion by either
cantidate regarding their plans for making our schools better for
our children or our teachers. Is it because niether one
feels it is an important issue, or is it because nobody else
is discussing it, so why should they? Well someone need to discuss
it!
McCain's DC Voucher program was touched upon briefly last night.
For those of you who are not familiar with his idea, I have
taken a short explanation from
CNN's website to explain:
"McCain supports providing government money in the form of
school vouchers to parents seeking to send their children to
private schools. He proposes expanding what's called The D.C.
Opportunity Scholarship Program, which currently provides vouchers
for more than 1,900 students in the nation's
capital. The children's families have an average annual income of
$23,000, according to McCain's campaign Web site, and another 7,000
have applied. He proposes increasing funds for the program from $13
million to $20 million, opening it to roughly 1,000 more
families."
Well, that sounds great... if you live in DC. What
about the millions of us in the other 50 states? According to
his website, McCain also plans on expanding funding to the Head
Start program nationwide. He believes we need to concentrate more
on these at-risk preschoolers, so they can grow up and in few
years fall into one of the categories of students I
outlined above. He also promotes funding to recruit better teachers
to low-performing schools, luring them with bonuses. So we play
musical teachers and somehow all the major problems
are solved? Oh, and the teachers who aren't performing
so well...McCain suggests we find them something else to do.
Perhaps that's what he meant when he said women just need more
education. This, "my friends", just sounds to
me like a bunch of silly propaganda designed to pacify
those of us who are left asking, "But what are you doing for
our kids, you know, the vast majority who fall
outside the boundaries of Head Start and
Underperformance and have been taking one (or five) for the
collective team?"
Moving on over to Obama's plan:
Obama would like to double funding that would allow us to open
more Charter Schools. Wow! I like Charter Schools. My
children are numbers 127, 362, and 94 on the waiting list to
get into the one that just opened in our town this year. Let's
see, if he doubles the funding, does that mean we can double
the number of schools? No, because you see, the Charter
schools are not built with federal funds. They are built using
private donations from the community! The extra $200mil would
only go towards maintaining the schools that already exist or will
be built in the future by interested private parties.
Looks like our kids stay on that waiting list a while longer.
In the meantime, they're still taking a few for the team back
at the mainstream school. Let me add here, that the Charter
schools that are deemed unsuccessful will be shut down,
the students sent back to mainstream schools, and the teachers who
did not perform to expectations will be let go. I doubt
they have anything to worry about, though: McCain suggests
they just need more education. Once they get that, the public
mainstream schools might hire them back.
Obama also wants to expand early childhood education with his
Zero to Five plan (really just an extention of the Head Start
Idea...only now we're teaching them FROM BIRTH!);
expand after-school opportunities (because God knows
they're not getting a whole lot done in the 7-8 hours they're in
school during the day!);REFORM the NCLB act, this time with
proper funding....groan...; and put $500mil of
technology in the classrooms. Oh goody! This year, our school
district provided all students in the 5th thru 12th grades with
laptops to replace the bulk of textbooks. In an
interview for our local paper, a current 5th grader
replied when asked what she felt was better about using the
laptops instead of textbooks: "It's so cool,you can, like, take
pictures of yourself and stuff." ...Our cups runeth
over!
Well...there you have it. These are our Presidential
cantidates ideas on reforming the current failing Education
policies. Not that these ideas don't deserve some merits.
I agree with the principles of each of these points, and I
think they are a start. But neither cantidate is seeing the forest
for the trees. ALL of our kids are at risk because of the current
failed policies to which our schools are forced to adhere. It's not
the underdogs or the overachievers who are suffering, it's
everybody! I don't know about any of you, but I feel a
bit cheated. Not to mention a little worried about our
futures. Wall Street gets billions of dollars thrown at them
because they screwed themselves and our country's
economy over. What will our kids get?
A few computers and an afterschool hobby... Or a voucher
if you live in DC. Homeschooling gets more appealing every
year!
What are your views on our cantidates' current plans of action
(or inaction, if you will) to reform our failed Education
System?
Education Reform? Not In This Term!
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From the Community…
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Posted by Thu Oct 16, 2008 11:53am PDT
Report AbusePublic Scools do need the help..BAD...Goes in circles......on and on and on...... ? I HAVE Do the pple we are going to elect really care..They are getting what they want--POWER LOL
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Posted by Thu Oct 16, 2008 12:21pm PDT
Report AbuseI think the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is on to something. Bill has talked frequently about the need to build smaller high schools... with no more than 200 hundred students. He contends the teachers would be better able to know students individually and mentor as well as teach in more intimate surroundings.
Our newer high schools built in the 90's resemble community colleges. Look at Columbine... a huge high school where two students in crisis mode went unnoticed by the faculty until many students lay dead.
Most schools were built in the 50's and are almost impossible to wire for today's rapidly changing technology. The buildings themselves fail children.
The sad truth is only 3 Congressmen have their children in public schools... so how much interest do our officials actually care about public education. That's for someone else's kids... surely not theirs. If they did care one iota, NCLB would have been nipped long ago.
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Posted by Thu Oct 16, 2008 1:56pm PDT
Report AbuseI am with you. I think with all of the pressing "adult" issues this election, the kids are very much going to be left behind. They aren't old enough to vote, so they don't matter, right? I have to say, I was certainly more partial to what Obama said about education being the backbone of the economy, and that it may hurt to invest in it now, but it will pay off later. I just wish there was a more specific set of defined goals for that investment...
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Posted by Fri Oct 17, 2008 1:24pm PDT
Report AbuseBuscuit: I'm finding I'd like to see quite a few more defined goals for a number of investments here recently!
Springtime: I like their idea, too. I attended smaller schools, albeit parochial ones, and I think it makes a big difference when kids can be treated as individuals and not just part of a herd. And I'm so fed up with seeing old schools with the mobile units outside!
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Posted by Tue Nov 4, 2008 5:50pm PST
Report AbuseOMG!! I am so tried of hearing about the "Teachers PayCheck".. get over it! I had a parent teachers meeting about one of my children. It became quite clear to me during the meeting that my child needed a bit more attention "more help" then others in class. Well if that was not enough one of the teachers had the nerve to tell me that. "we don't get paid enough to give your child the help that she needs". OK! I was pisst, but i was nice and said, well Mrs. so and so, I am here to talk about my child. and i am not interested in your pay check, if you did not like the pay scale while in college in getting your teachers degree, you should have chosen another career. and you know what, she didn't talk about it again.. in other words she was not too concerned about my child's education, the teacher was looking for a reason to get out of her neglect in her teaching methods.
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Posted by Mon Nov 10, 2008 6:03am PST
Report AbuseHCB,
I completely hear you in your agony. It really is time for America to wake up to our education crisis. I recently wrote a rant about this epidemic on my blog at http://raverantrage.blogspot.com/2008/11/silent-epidemic.html
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Posted by Sat Jan 24, 2009 6:22pm PST
Report AbuseHi,
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Posted by Fri Feb 27, 2009 2:11pm PST
Report AbuseI live in the Florida keys and my son at 7 attends a small public school...
and the whole outside class along with putting all the focus on "green" seems to be
a wonderful idea..until the quality of learning is dropped.
My son is in for a shock because my wife and I are moving to NJ ( she is a navy woman)
and in the first grade there..they have math text books along with others were as my son
has no text books for me to help him with ..and the teachers are not putting the focus were it needs to be, communication with the parents.
So ranting aside..Green is always better but there NEEDS to be a balance and the lvl of communication needs to be picked up due to lack of text books.
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Posted by Mon Mar 2, 2009 2:48pm PST
Report AbuseCharles: I completely agree that communication is the key to making education work! Our district does have a very good school-home communications policy, and it encourages parental involvement at all stages and grades. Perhaps with all green learning methods (computer based rather than tangible texts) there needs to be programming that allows parents home access to the curriculum being taught. Parents should also be able to access online reports to their child's progress at all times, rather than having to wait for report cards to come home and get a big surprise when Junior gets poor grades because he needed help in Math or History and the teacher was "too busy with her 23 other students to concentrate on the problems of one" (yep...I actually had a teacher tell me this!).
This school year has been a nightmare with my oldest child, who is in the 4th grade, and we have decided to homeschool her next year. I fear that our public school system is more a detriment to her academic development at this point, and public schools are not an option in this area (I'd have to sell one kid to pay the other's tuition...kidding of course!). I have two more kids coming up behind her and until our Government comes up with some better answers to the issues we the parents of the "other" kids face...well, I'll just do it myself!
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Posted by Wed Apr 15, 2009 11:14am PDT
Report AbuseI wanted to comment on the message you posted concerning the BK Sir-Mix-alot commercial. Do you realize the commercial finishes off BOOTY IS BOOTY.....and your apparently alright with your kids being taught that BOOTY IS BOOTY. I wasnt funny, its still not funny and your even funnier if you think that, that is acceptable. And I dont even have kids and it offended me!!!! Be ashamed!!!!
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