Friday, December 26, 2008
Would you send your child to puclic school?
There has been much flack about our failing public school systems across the country. Even the Obamas have decided that the D.C. public school system cannot meet the educational expectations they have for their daughters. What do you believe about our public schools? Is it media hype or real concern that today's public schools are inferior? Would you send your children to public school if you had the choice between public and private?
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6 comments:
Hello Jan you posed a question that was asked of me around 10 years ago. The question was meant to drive me towards the charter school that I ended up sending my girls to. They were safe and well behaved for the most part. However, the school failed miserably when compared to other schools in this valley and across the state.
I felt cheated; had I actually paid for their education I would may have filed more complaints than I did. Long story short, my son--the only one of my children not to attend this school--is the only one of my children to graduate on time.
Coincidental? I hardly think. My youngest daughter has always been more studious than the older kids. When she advanced to the 9th grade, she had no choice but to attend public school again. I had lost the good paying job and was now working for slave wages. Meanwhile, she stayed on the honor role or honorable mention. In fact she was chosen as an alternate for Early College in this area--just in case one of the other children did not make it. When it came time to graduate, she couldn't pass the graduation test: equivalent to an exit exam.
What? She was on the honor role and honorable mention, and a alternate for early college and can't pass the graduation test? That's ridiculous! What were they doing, grading on a Algebraic slope? That sentence made no sense, the whole ordeal made no sense.
Meanwhile she's still at home. OMG! Sorry for using you to vent:)
Deedy, your post is quite provocative. It sounds like both regular public and charter schools failed your children. It goes to show,
there is so much more to what makes a good school than just perception.
Another question to you...Why is it that some students who attend public schools do pass state and other gateway exams, become national merit scholars, get accepted into top universities, etc. while other students do poorly?
There are a couple of reasons; (1) Parents--shamefully like myself--did not express just how significant a college degree is to a successful future. I instead, put emphasis on doing well in class while they were still in high school and below. I should have placed more emphasis on how the two relate to their future needs.
You see, in my family, we either enlisted (I'm an Air Force Brat) or we worked. Most of us worked at General Motors, Packards (GE), the trucking or aluminum industry, the mills, or the hospitals in this area. If you are at all aware of the demise that Youngstown, Ohio has faced, you know that our economy is critically dependant on the industries listed above for our survival--without exaggeration. So, being that this is all I knew, this is the window that I exposed to my children.
I believed that my children could live well while working in one of the industries listed and a high school education is all that was needed. I'm sure that other parents did the same. That is a problem, as you know. I also strongly suggested trade school or technical college; again, because that was the path that I took.
(2)Children from depressed areas or households tend to either excel out of desperation to leave the ghetto or they live in self-helplessness. The individual honestly believe that they cannot do better, so he or she do not even try. The other reasons... well, we have already discussed children that are victims of incompetent parenting. There has to be more, please share.
In response to Deedy:
You don't need to bear the burden of blame for your children not getting the most from their schooling. There is plenty of blame to go around. Of course, parents are their children's first teachers. However, society at-large needs to share the burden for what happens in schools. I know I am broaching a controversial area. However, everyone wants to blame someone else for the problem. Ultimately, the blame trickles down to the lowest common denominator, teachers and parents. Finger pointing away from self only creates a larger problem surrounding the issue of failing schools.
We all have a stake in the result of what schools do to prepare today's children for their future places in our society as adult citizens, workers, leaders, healers, teachers, etc. Therefore, we must all share in the blame for what's wrong and accept responsibility for working on a solution to the problem that we currently face in today's schools.
I propose that a new formation of schools, a TRANSFORMATION of schools, is necessary. We currently try to fit old school beliefs around 21st century demands for education. If schools had been truely transformed (instead of reform, after reform, after reform) over the last 20 years, many children would not have fallen through the cracks because schools would have been better equiped to meet the diverse needs of its students. In our tenological society, it is more important than ever that we move forward with out-of-the-box thinking as it relates to schooling. What we need is a different form of school. School may need to take on many shapes and sizes to meet the needs of our diverse student population. Schools can nolonger be one-size-fits-all institutions. More on that in my future blog topics.
Thanks Deedy for your thoughts.
Jan, first of all I want you to have a Blessed and wonderful New Year.
You have a greater understanding of what's going on than most. I don't believe that it is your past profession that drives you in this area. You, like myself, have a passion for change.
As you have hinted on, the change must begin with parenting to some degree, as one's childhood is the most important part of any one's life. This is what forms our characters, give us small sniblets of who we want to be, lastly, but most important, set the pace on what TYPE of adults we will turn out to be.
This is why I am sooo passionate about social services and the educational system. Social services as the support systems--if you will--for where other systems have failed us, or where we have failed our children.
When I say "failed our children", I find fault in one or all of the following:
1). We did not carefully choose individuals for leadership positions... We did not take voting as seriously as we should have.
2). We did not love and/or respect ourselves enough to choose our mates wisely [another leadership position] or to hold out until we did meet the one most suitable for us; critically injuring the institute of marriage and the complete family unit. Not to say that we all need to get married. I am merely stating, that if we are going to start families, we should take the precaution to do EVERYTHING to ensure that our families are raised in a positive environment or don't start them at all. [NOT ABORTION, BUT ABSTENANCE]
3)Finally, place our instructors, teachers, and professors, on the same level as our Doctors and Surgeons and so forth. We have looked at the teaching profession as people that can, do; people that can't, teach. That's not right. We need to re-evaluated our priorities.
If children are our futures, why then, do we treat them as after thoughts? We need to change our approach and stop raising prison guards and inmates; Coaches and athletes; Rappers and video @#'$; Middle class and indigent.
Instead, we should be inspiring new rocket scientist, pastors and apostles... In essence, raise the bar. Yes, the school system needs to be restructured, but that takes more funding; which takes politicians driven by the concepts that are conducive to change--all the way across the board.
I am taking a stand by enlightening our youth towards the need to be involved in the voting process--not just Obama, but in every division; I am also advocating higher education.
That's all that I can do at this point, but I'm doing it.
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