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We found some poor (aka unacceptable in this house) grades on papers stuffed in one of the backpacks here last week. A progress report came home a few days later, and I marked on there I was requesting a conference. Still haven’t heard from the teacher. Between that, the guidance counselor who didn’t return our 5 phone calls over a week, and the speech therapy I asked for and no one got, oh, and the I.E.P meeting that never happened….I’m not so impressed with the school.
(Side note on the I.E.P meeting. It’s a LAW that the school has to notify you when they begin/change/end speech services for a child with an I.E.P., or Individual Education Plan. A LAW! Not something to take willy nilly and do whatever you want with it. I had the I.E.P. meeting for a child at another school within the first month of school. Middle child? She says she’s getting speech in school, but no I.E.P. meeting went down with this momma. How are they providing speech services to my child without notifying me of what strides they’re taking to meet her goals? I need to find out who to bitch to about that.)
This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 20th, 2006 at 12:06 am and is filed under Daily Happenings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
This has been one of the toughest school years for us as well. I’ve never had such negative impressions of the school systems as I have had this year. I’ve always been very very positive about public schools mostly because of my own good experience.
Every time I turn around I’m getting many hints that there is something drastically wrong in the school systems. I read an interesting article in Entrepreneur magazine today. Talking about the idea that public schools are teaching kids how to become prepared for repetitive tasks and lessons and drills to learn and memorize information to regurgitate that information on a no child left behind test (which establishes metrics for a schools performance which is good)
The problem is that the schools are so underfunded, understaffed and lacking space and planning time and sooo much more, that those drill and kill types of lessons are starting to clog up the system.
The worst case result is that kids going through the system will be prepared only for repetive types of work like a factory job. But the future is rapidly taking away factory jobs and repetitive tasks are being automated.
Kids need much more creative teaching instruction and practice with complex and exceptional problems. I’m not a home school convert by a long shot, but this is the first year I’ve ever started to have serious doubts about the system and started to consider that I might actually be able to do better with the kids than a system that prepares them for a future that hasn’t existed for twenty years . . .
My wife and I homeschool 4 out of our 5 children, and send the 5th to a private school. The start of the school year last year was the last straw, and we realized we could do a much better job than they were doing.
As an example, our youngest was starting kindergarten last year but can already read high school level and can do multiplication and division, and even though we asked for him to be placed in first grade or for him to be in an enrichment program, they said because of his age they couldn’t do it, so he endured the first month of school learning the letter A and the number 1. He came home so frustrated everyday because he always had coloring homework, yes, coloring homework.
We had just started the oldest in private school at the beginning of that school year, and when we realized the quality of her education vs the quality the other 4 were getting we said enough was enough and went ahead and pulled the other 4 out.
One thing to consider is that we spent about 3 hours a night dealing with homework issues after school, and now we only spend about 3 hours a day teaching the kids and let them use the rest of the time constructively learning on their own, ie reading, computer time on approved learning sites, typer island software, etc.
They are all about 3 to 4 levels above what their grade level would be in school, so even though it is tough sometimes because I don’t get as much work done from home as I would like, the sacrifice is worth it for them.
Oh, and don’t buy into the myth of schools being underfunded, in TX our schools get from 6-8 thousand per student, I am sure I could do a much better job if they just gave me the 24-32 thousand yearly.
Homeschooling requires patient parents and motivated kids, so it is not for everybody, but if you already have the groundwork laid in your household for obedience and trust, and if as parents you truly commit yourselves to your children’s education, then it will pay off.
I find if you want to get something accomplished with your childs school - call the principal!! It has worked every time.