Capitol Hill Blue Forums Life and Moral Issues Education US Schools -- a failed system?

for balance?

And teachers dont have personal lives? should they have to do additional work for no additional pay? as far as i know teachers are not paid exorbitant salaries (dont some have to take on evening work too?). Are teachers expected to be on duty 24 hours a day so they can be contacted by parents when its convienient?

in Ireland, any work they do after hours is unpaid, and many of them do quite an amount (same salary if they just do their hours and skidadle). they do not get paid for parent/teacher evenings, after school clubs, sports events etc. this is unsung hero work for much of the extra-curricular activities wouldnt happen without their dedication.

part of the problem is the modern (almost) neccessity of 2 incomes to raise a family. personally i feel that one parent should be at home when the child is young and again when they come home from school. (mother/father i dont care which but it should be one - i got eviscerated in college when i brought this up, they all thought i meant a womans place is in the home..... which it is, tied to the sink *ducks*).

part of the problems we have in education is the fact that people dont have the time/energy, especially if both are working low paying jobs.

i hear you, schlack. but i am actually talking about in-class activities and the like.

I loved Ann Richards! Strip the condescending arrogance from Molly the Mouth and you'd have Richards.

with parents? again one cant bilocate although modern life sometimes demands it of us.

personal anecdote, i taught in a school in a very deprived area, earlier in my life. some interested parents volunteered to help, assisted teachers, read with kids and helped supervise lunch breaks etc.

interestingly it was mainly the mothers who had the interest in education, the fathers not so much ( a generalisation hiding much variety of course).

Another part of the problem is the perception of schools, old style martial type schooling including corporal punishment was the nrom here right up until the 80's (i was schooled at the back end of it, and remember one particular teacher who was famous for his backhand, some parents actually requested their kids be put in his class). some peoples perception of school was of just that, being beaten, humiliated, ridiculed, dominated and in some cases molestered. (again a gross generalisation but it was many peoples experiences). It takes generations of hard work to change a cultural perception of schools. there are many teachers who are working hard to do that.

here we have a scheme called Home School Community liaisons to try to help integrate local society and families into the curtural life of the school and vice versa, its successes are largely dependent on local personalities (Mamma Schlack is one!). i dont know if theres something similar.

another innovation is to have a school library, well stocked with a full time librarian 9not the old twin set and pearls type but ones with an education focus - its somehting thats rapidly spreading in ireland), and a whole school focus on literacy (double plus good imho). will still take a long time to change the teachers culture of "thats the english teachers department", but slowly but surely. the whole school literacy approach is a really important and successful innovation

we have fairly small secondary schools 200-500 students (at most) large enough to put resources in but small emough to keep a kind of family appeal! that also would help, ive read about and seen pictures of the humungous schools in the US, i think i would have hated it!

another interesing innovation is personal learning plans and profiling, i know of a programme where this is run parrallel to the junior certificate exames (taken at age 15 junior cycle of high school). the focus is on the student, where they are, what they can achieve. the students themselves has a part to play in deciding whats to be done, the monitoring of it.

theres are some of the things that are being done here, i dont know the origins but im sure at lease some originated in either theory or practice in the US.

as long as things are moving in that direction and with the focus on the students and especially their literacy rates i dont really give 2 fecks where the funding comes from.

I hasten to add that not all of these are cheap and funding is needed, and sometimes the worst schools in terms of results and unruly children need the most funding leading to nonsensical charges of "rewarding failure".

i do think the best guarantor of such funding is the state, when the people demand it of their politicans, rather then let themselves be carried away by "tax and spend" slogans.

the issue of control for army and corporations doesnt really come into it in Ireland as for years we had little of either, so generic idealogical points dont quite fit, thats why bits had to be chopped off hence the foucs on the US system. interestingly for a thread that began focussing on the prussian ed system it has neglected to explore what the german ed system has evolved into now (especially as its so easy to compare it to the horrors of the 30's/40's education which i do believe the US system is being compared to now, in a subtle roundabout way).

Los Angeles Times

California, like most other states, is facing a huge budget shortfall. Despite voter initiatives in recent years which attempted to insulate education from the up and down of budgeting, schools are facing a huge cut this year. That is the background for this article.

and you guys have such harsh home school laws? someone needs to losen up in arnold land.

Mellow, my uncomfortable year as PTO president was a personal problem and isn't really applicable to this conversation. I shouldn't have even mentioned it.
I am a person who likes to and does get things done. No frills. Just do it. That why I get asked a lot...
I don't do well with all the politics/dynamics of being at the top though (there was this crazy lady...). I work WAY better behind the scenes.
Plus....I don't like the spotlight of speech making etc.


I agree, 2wins it is an advantage. There are many children of academics in the public system here and they are generally very active in the schools.

This is the school my daughters attended.... Clarke Centrail Among top high schools in US


That said, we also have a large population of poor people who's parents aren't as involved. We have a lot of sprawl going on around us and the poor people are getting pushed out. They tend toward here. Their presence in the same schools lowers our average test scores and while we're turning out stellar students, we also have a high drop out rate. We definitely have our set of problems too. I really believe in and my girls thrived in the system here in Clarke Co. There are many who move out to the surrounding counties to get their children *away* from the diversity though.

I am in the same camp with Hillary and mamma. I think "it takes a village to raise a child". The healthier our schools, the healthier our communities.

Olyve

Olyve - I'm sorry - I couldn't remember the details of your PTO experience & thought it might shed light on the discussions of administrators and parents. I didn't mean to pick at something deeper; my apologies.

Hey no apologies necessary. I mean really. I didn't mean to make it sound so 'dark'. I was actually trying to portray it lightly.
You've met me. I'm as easy going and social as can be until you shine the spotlight on me.

Your question was pertinent question.
The dynamics are tricky managing all those parents.
The teachers actually really liked us. (Gary and I were co presidents)
Some of the parents can be a bear but we had good cooperation also.
I will tell you a little secret though. Once a teacher warned me not to ask a particular single parent to help insinuating that she was too poor and it would put her on the spot. I decided to ask anyway. She was absolutely thrilled. She brought in homemade cookies.
Some parents really do wish they could help more.

A few interesting items I heard today that are relevant to education:

Apparently getting enough sleep and regular sleep is extremely important to children's learning

Apparently very many children have TV in their bedroom... and this has also been proved to be very bad for a number of reasons.


There is a new documentary called 2 million minutes...
here is a link to a trailer
link

One of the problems is the fact that people get "fat and lazy." Our nation has begun to feel that we are entitled to the "good life" and don't have to work for so much. This attitude is reflected in how parents raise their children, the expectations the children have, etc. And in the end, our people, our nation will have to compete in the global economy. We will be going up against some very smart people who have worked a lot harder and are hungry to get ahead. Changing the education system will not change the above reality.