Public Schools

[bobzilla]

Teachers should be teaching basic skills. As far as, morals, I think that is one of the things that teachers may want to stay away from. I've known young liberal teachers whose moral standards were very low (not pointing towards you) and often on display outside the classroom. My grandkids have some of their teachers who attend their church, just being there is a lesson. There will always be bad parents, bad kids and bad teachers. I didn't think that this would come to a teacher vs. parent argument as to public schools. I'd like to see a complete overhaul of the way we have public school. Some schools in a district seem successful, despite everything. Is it the demographics of the district or something else that makes them successful? Having bloated, administrative failures and seemingly, not improving student performance, is a problem for our society. Admittedly, liberals, taking away any consequences for bad behavior, has really tied the hands of teachers.

Morals in this case are basic right/wrong because they're not being taught at home. Things like "don't steal", "don't hit people", "wipe your butt" (wish I was lying) etc. Simple things like actions have consequences because that isnt taught at home. Believe me, they would love to just teach them educational things like we learned 30 years ago but the parents just aren't doing the basics at home.... and this isn't an urban thing either, it's happening in the smaller schools too.

 

[GodFearinGunTotin]

I don't think so. Teachers are bailing left and right across the state. They just implemented another "certification" for teachers that requires 80 hours of classroom training for them to take over the summers when they are not under contract (i.e. not getting paid for it). And as always its silly bureaucratic nonsense like it usually is dictated from the state. So unless the results they want are an extreme teacher shortage, I don't think it's going how they thought it would.

The point of that quote is, said another way, the definition of insanity is doing the same things expecting different results.

 

[Cameramonkey]

Teachers should be teaching basic skills. As far as, morals, I think that is one of the things that teachers may want to stay away from. I've known young liberal teachers whose moral standards were very low (not pointing towards you) and often on display outside the classroom. My grandkids have some of their teachers who attend their church, just being there is a lesson. There will always be bad parents, bad kids and bad teachers. I didn't think that this would come to a teacher vs. parent argument as to public schools. I'd like to see a complete overhaul of the way we have public school. Some schools in a district seem successful, despite everything. Is it the demographics of the district or something else that makes them successful? Having bloated, administrative failures and seemingly, not improving student performance, is a problem for our society. Admittedly, liberals, taking away any consequences for bad behavior, has really tied the hands of teachers.

It all starts with the family. If you dont have a firm foundation, whatever you try to build on it will fail.

So if parents dont instill good values like being educated, help guide them to not hang out with the wrong crowd, etc. there is nothing the teachers can do to make them thrive.

 

[ZurokSlayer7X9]

It all starts with the family. If you dont have a firm foundation, whatever you try to build on it will fail.

The foundation of our society was the family unit. It's been that way for thousands of years. They are tearing those foundation asunder, in some communities and demographics more than others. It should be little wonder that the house is collapsing.

 

[Nazgul]

Wow! That is really backward.

Let’s start with the credentialism, that is crap. Enough is written concerning the failure of the education system that people know what is going on. And what is written has be continuously been getting worse and it doesn’t have to take an insider to know that.

The people I trust least to solve the problems are those being paid by the current system. @Leadeye says follow the money. They have a track record that goes the wrong way. Then when parents do try to get involved the credentialists try to shut them down and run them off.

The attempt to analogize schools to gun control is a joke, schools sure as heck are not on the side of freedom.

Ok so what is the answer?

Don

 

[Ingomike]

Ok so what is the answer?

Don

First, break up schools to a size parents can actually manage, get rid of mega schools. Thousands of kids, hundreds of teachers and hundreds of staff, is just too big to provide the level of service.

Shut down the DOE, they do nothing productive but attempt to nationalize local education.

Get schools back to discipline and have better options for those that cannot abide by discipline.

Offer different educational opportunities in different schools. Offer different learning styles at different schools, this would greatly reduce the need to drug kids if a fast paced hands on style was offered instead of drugs to make more active kids sit still.

Remove school funding and move it to local income tax to take the burden off of property owners and offer vouchers for kids to apply to any school.

Allow schools to be non-union if the parents want it, not what the teachers want, they can choose to teach at a school where the parents want union teachers.

That is a start…

 

[JTKelly]

It all starts with the family. If you dont have a firm foundation, whatever you try to build on it will fail.

So if parents dont instill good values like being educated, help guide them to not hang out with the wrong crowd, etc. there is nothing the teachers can do to make them thrive.

Parents / teachers / home / family, NO ONE CAN TEACH WHAT THEY DON'T HAVE and it is not just one or the other. We live in a "what about them" society with out honor, morality, or ethics of any kind. AND IT IS ALL BY DESIGN. You can't blame an ignorant hog for eating slop when that is all that is thrown in the pen, but it is STILL an ignorant hog.

 

[JTKelly]

The point of that quote is, said another way, the definition of insanity is doing the same things expecting different results.

Good quote but it hardly applies today. The problem isn't doing the same thing. They don't do the same thing/things that WORKED. Everyone who gets past high school thinks they are a special snow flake and God's answer to remake society.

Surely you've seen the proud teacher's bumper sticker, " Teachers changing society one student at a time." They are way too smart to just teach a kid to READ AND WRITE. Now they teach them to COPY protest signs and they graduate with out ever learning to sign their own name.

 

[bobzilla]

Good quote but it hardly applies today. The problem isn't doing the same thing. They don't do the same thing/things that WORKED. Everyone who gets past high school thinks they are a special snow flake and God's answer to remake society.

Surely you've seen the proud teacher's bumper sticker, " Teachers changing society one student at a time." They are way too smart to just teach a kid to READ AND WRITE. Now they teach them to COPY protest signs and they graduate with out ever learning to sign their own name.

yeah, no. Stop the broad brush painting please.

 

[spencer rifle]

Oh man, don't get me started.

I come from a family of teachers (father, mother, older brother, wife, oldest daughter). I learned my lesson, you won't ever get me into a classroom.
SWMBO gave up teaching to have the kids, and started all in home school. Our local district is really pretty good, and our kids learned useful stuff without too much indoctrination.

Now she's back in the system as a para, and seeing how drastically things have changed. Like with car repair, you have to be a computer technician to teach nowadays. She and technology have a mutual hate relationship. She taught after school hands-on elementary science for 19 years, and was really good at it (such things weren't being taught in school). She knows high school graduates who still remember her classes fondly, which influenced some of them to go into science professions.

The system has gone off the rails:
- cutting down all the fruit trees and ornamentals on the school grounds
- throwing away absolutely phenomenal amounts of food every day, and it MUST be thrown away - she is strictly prohibited from even picking a piece of bread off the floor to feed the chickens
- the food being served is all highly processed and in plastic packaging served on styrofoam (thought they have perfectly good trays, flat wear and dishwashers) - both expensive AND wasteful
- cutting out sensory room time or recess for acting-up boys, who need it more than ever but aren't getting it
- the 5% of problem children consume 80% of the resources, and prevent the other 95% from learning anything
- policies like, if a child looses it in class, everyone else has to leave the room and disrupt education, rather than sending out the disruptor
- children who are uncontrolled, posing danger to themselves and everyone around them, are kept in school
- I remain unconvinced that public sector unions are a good idea
- administrators who say "contact me directly with any problems," but then are nowhere to be found, day after day

There is so much more, but my health requires I stop for now.

 

[bobzilla]

I would say that 1% of the problems consume 95% of the resources/time. Mine has been sped for 26 years. Always been the hardest of the hard. Her rooms usually had the "safe room" for the school. 20 years ago, she would have daily interactions with the parents, positive interactions. Explaining what happened/how they can help at home etc and they were usually open and willing to try. There have always been the odd crappy one that wouldn't do anything, but now its the odd one that is willing to work with her to try and get them to progress and the majority refuse to do anything but are the first to blame her for their child hitting another child, teacher, whatever.

 

[mmpsteve]

...
- policies like, if a child looses it in class, everyone else has to leave the room and disrupt education, rather than sending out the disruptor
...

I remember my first swats in the 3rd grade. Vice Principal, 6' 5", big wooden paddle with holes in it. 3 good whacks on the buttocks. 2nd time, he swung a little harder.

I really didn't want a third time, and cleaned up my game a bit. It was actually much easier when everybody knew what lines not to cross.

Getting rid of corporal punishment was really the beginning of public schools losing control of the process. The changes in parental and societal attitude have not helped.

.

 

[spencer rifle]

Too much school discipline is founded on the false assumption that you can reason with someone who's emotionally 3 years old.

 

[JTKelly]

yeah, no. Stop the broad brush painting please.

no, yeah, you wouldn't have a thread with out it.

 

[Ingomike]

Stop the broad brush painting please.

But your arguments are equally flawed that the anecdotal good teachers give the bad teachers and bad curriculum some kind of balance. They do not.

 

[Destro]

My kids go to a great (out of district) public school. The district we live in is trash.

Never thought about homeschool because I doubt my ability to effectively teach physics and calculus. Everyone has to make the choices for their family. I would be selling my kids short if I did homeschool.

 

[spencer rifle]

You don't have to teach EVERY subject - that's what homeschool co-ops are for. Where I work we do a number of homeschool classes on advanced subjects, most recently genetics and dissection.

 

[Brad69]

So I went to public school. I was probably hyper active or ADHD or something. Got into trouble quite often probably got a swat every two weeks or so.

So as a male you weren’t supposed to cry and sometimes it hurt bad. That taught you not to stupid $its.

I also liked to fight think I got my last teacher beating JR year. Yes for you young Kat’s straight out beating like four swats. Paddles had holes in them to build up speed.
Like @mmpsteve stated.

I can’t imagine what parents would say now. Mine were like good you deserved it.

Oh back in the day you were subject to a @$$ whipping from just about any adult.

 

[mmpsteve]

...

I can’t imagine what parents would say now. Mine were like good you deserved it.

...

I would have never had the nerve to let my ironworker Dad know. He never used his fists, but I was deathly afraid of him taking off his leather belt. Like I said, it was easier when everyone knew where the line was, and the consequences to crossing it. You just didn't do it, especially with my Dad. He never yelled at us, he just took care of business, and order WAS maintained, to all of our benefit.

.

 

[Nazgul]

First, break up schools to a size parents can actually manage, get rid of mega schools. Thousands of kids, hundreds of teachers and hundreds of staff, is just too big to provide the level of service.

Shut down the DOE, they do nothing productive but attempt to nationalize local education.

Get schools back to discipline and have better options for those that cannot abide by discipline.

Offer different educational opportunities in different schools. Offer different learning styles at different schools, this would greatly reduce the need to drug kids if a fast paced hands on style was offered instead of drugs to make more active kids sit still.

Remove school funding and move it to local income tax to take the burden off of property owners and offer vouchers for kids to apply to any school.

Allow schools to be non-union if the parents want it, not what the teachers want, they can choose to teach at a school where the parents want union teachers.

That is a start…

First, break up schools to a size parents can actually manage, get rid of mega schools. Thousands of kids, hundreds of teachers and hundreds of staff, is just too big to provide the level of service.





That’s a big order. Not going to disagree it would help. The truth is the real opportunity is in the classroom between teacher and student. They both need to be ready and able to get the education process done. It is going to start with the parents.





Shut down the DOE, they do nothing productive but attempt to nationalize local education.





Again don’t disagree but good luck. Way too much money involved here.





Get schools back to discipline and have better options for those that cannot abide by discipline.





Bingo! I worked with the students that got in trouble. They were handled with real care and concern. The state mandates an IEP for students with issues, basically an instruction protocol for how to help them. They are reviewed annually and the wording is good for helping the students. In my opinion they are a pass for some students to behave badly without consequence . One of the worst students I dealt with was immune to any type of punishment for his behavior because of the nature of his IEP.





The good news is the real problem students are few. Most are normal messed up teenagers like we were.





Offer different educational opportunities in different schools. Offer different learning styles at different schools, this would greatly reduce the need to drug kids if a fast paced hands on style was offered instead of drugs to make more active kids sit still.





Again I can’t disagree. The teachers/administration spent 80% of the time dealing with 10% of the students. But this is not any different than before, there have always been trouble makers. In the past they were likely to be lost. At least now we give them some chance at help.





There are still every opportunity for good students to excel. I met very few teachers who didn’t honestly want to teach and cared. They were willing to provide every chance for them to excel. Look at any science or tech class, computer programming, History AP or dual credit classes or even choir classes. They have many avenues to go beyond the norm. The schools art teacher was amazing at the getting the students motivated, the work they turned out was awesome.





Remove school funding and move it to local income tax to take the burden off of property owners and offer vouchers for kids to apply to any school.





My wife was the teachers rep for years, negotiated many contracts. Here is where we disagreed at times. I had your opinion to let the students go to a “better” school. Her take was you get for profit magnet schools that take the very best away from public schools. The students who can’t afford their own transportation to a “Better” school, no matter how intelligent they are, is again out of luck. Leaving the public school trying to deal with students who have issues that make eduction difficult. Then you get to complain how they do not perform well.





Allow schools to be non-union if the parents want it, not what the teachers want, they can choose to teach at a school where the parents want union teachers





Teachers union are not the monster they are made out to be. Yes there is friction like any union between groups. The union represents them when needed. The burden is on the administration to prove the teacher needs to be disciplined or fired. Often they don’t do it. My wife had to be involved in these situations where the teacher was not what they needed to be but the Admin did not properly document what they had to to fire them. Often she was frustrated because they did not do the work.





Again these cases are so few it is not necessary to make a big deal out of them. Every profession has under performers in it. The media gets peoples emotions involved and it spirals out of control.





Go be a tutor. Assist at an after school activity, science clubs, sports, or whatever your area of expertise is. Teach a skill. Run for school board. Do whatever you can. Tearing down the system is looking at it wrong. Change it for the better.





I will always remember the day the Principal brought the worst student we had to my room. She could not be in the school building without being escorted because of her behavior. He asked if she could come to my room and work, she decided she wanted to graduate . She worked quietly and was respectful, we had good conversations as I helped her. She got her diploma. A success in my book.





Public school can’t be too bad. We have 4 kids all from public schools. One is a Chemical Engineer from Rose Hulman a Lily scholar, his wife has a masters degree in music. Daughter #1 is an RN at an ICU her husband an Electrical Engineer. Daughter #2 is a Lilly Scholar from Purdue with honors and a program developer for a big company. Her husband is the same for Nike. Grandson #1 is a senior this year, he has been excepted to Purdue for Mechanical Engineering.





The problem is not the schools, it starts with the parents. Instead of tearing down the school system, fix the parents behavior…………..or help their children.





Don