Stupid America...

[Republican Rapper]

Everyone obviously afraid to address the obvious racial implications of this issue that I pointed out.

 

[Karel]

The Bill Gates speech speaks to a growing concern - American schools cater to the "gifted program" and reluctantly manage the "special needs students" and , well, forget the rest.

I think you'll find plenty of parents who say there isn't enough for their gifted child. And you'll find parents who don't think the school is doing enough for their special needs kids.


I'm pretty happy with my above average son's education. He's not gifted at all but he's seems to be challenged educationally. I'm not happy that he was given a study hall once a day, but with honors English and Science and his third year of Latin, his day is pretty busy.

 

[chobie]

Teaching is a very noble profession, but you sound very proud to be a member of the monopoly. Can you name another monopoly that has survived long term?

I'm not a teacher. Alleged lifetime employment or not, I would not be able to put up with the crap from parents and administrators.

 

[Karel]

I also love how many people automatically jump on the "have you thought about homeschooling?" bandwagon rather than FIX THE PROBLEM IN THE FIRST PLACE.The problems are allowed to continue and parents are tired of fighting which is why there is an exodus of sorts from the public schools. And...if you have problems with the school, the first reaction is to be told you should homeschool or send them to a private school. The school systems, unions, etc are happy with the status quo and God help you if you "rock the boat".

Are you talking about me?

I'm not a homeschool fan but I do think in some instances, you do need to find 'something else' for your child. In that instance, there seems to be a lot more to the story and maybe that school can't provide for a rare learning disability. Maybe she needs to take a year or two and work with her child away from the PS school setting.

 

[Republican Rapper]

The problems are allowed to continue and parents are tired of fighting which is why there is an exodus of sorts from the public schools. And...if you have problems with the school, the first reaction is to be told you should homeschool or send them to a private school. The school systems, unions, etc are happy with the status quo and God help you if you "rock the boat".

You make a good point similar to the one I made. In the Richmond area, the majority of the upper middle class white families are afraid of sending their kids to school with black kids. Whenever a school becomes more diverse, they shudder at the thought and send them to private schools or to a whiter public school.

I have heard so many parents claim they won't send their children to the suburban public school I went to b/c it is "too black."

When the richer children leave, the test scores of the schools drop dramatically and the school gets labeled as a bad one. All largely due to white flight and massive racism.

 

[graygables]

You make a good point similar to the one I made. In the Richmond area, the majority of the upper middle class white families are afraid of sending their kids to school with black kids. Whenever a school becomes more diverse, they shudder at the thought and send them to private schools or to a whiter public school.

I have heard so many parents claim they won't send their children to the suburban public school I went to b/c it is "too black."

When the richer children leave, the test scores of the schools drop dramatically and the school gets labeled as a bad one. All largely due to white flight and massive racism.

Our current school system might have a dozen or so black students, so for them, it's certainly not a race issue. We are in a rural/suburban area, so there just isn't the race issue here.

HOWEVER, my senior DD actually moved to my parents and enrolled in my alma mater for her senior year. She quit a month into it because of the black and hispanic students she encountered (not ALL black/hispanic students are bad, I'm not saying that, but culturally, their view of education is NOT the same as other races and that carries over to the classroom). She was tired of being talked to in ebonics in crude and crass terms, tired of being woo-wooed and called chiquita, and having a couple of the black students sexually harassing & grabbing her. After addressing the matter with the teachers, the principal and the counselor, their reaction was go somewhere else (the old homeschool rather than fix the problem issue). So, she is finishing her senior year at home.

I agree with what Bill Gates said about them serving a purpose 50 years ago. They are no longer preparing students to function in a global economy.

Incidentally, my dad is also a professor of graduate level studies and he nails students every semester for plagiarism and simple grammatical errors because they have been passed through all the way to graduate school and don't know how to write a simple paper or formulate their own thoughts.

 

[disneyjunkie]

(not ALL black/hispanic students are bad, I'm not saying that, but culturally, their view of education is NOT the same as other races and that carries over to the classroom).

Wow

Can you please let me know how culturally, my view on education is different from yours?

 

[Wishing on a star]

The problems are allowed to continue and parents are tired of fighting which is why there is an exodus of sorts from the public schools. And...if you have problems with the school, the first reaction is to be told you should homeschool or send them to a private school. The school systems, unions, etc are happy with the status quo and God help you if you "rock the boat".

Amen!!!

I only quoted this last paragraph, even though your entire post was SO true!!!

PS: to Karel, YES, I know my rights... The school knows their legal obligations... But, they also know, that if they hold out and fight long enough, that most parents will not be able to continue to fight for and defend their children. (remember the lady sitting in that meeting in the 10/20 special.....)

As mentioned, I am lucky, we have good insurance, and I immediately took my DS to the best Child Development Clinic in the State. After the completely negligant and adversarial situation that I was encountering at the school, NO WAY did I even trust these narcissistic, teacher-god, so called 'professionals' to give my child a simple reading test.

Remember, my DS reading was fine, with many 100's in simple reading. But the principal, in his infinate wisdom was trying to tell me that my son was not reading...

 

[chobie]

I think that what most people mean when they are referring to "bad" teachers who should be fired, they are talking about the teacher that failed to recognize the genious of their child. Or failed to cater the entire class around their kid's needs or dared to discipline their perfect child.

If only we could just march into the principal's office everytime we had a problem with a teacher and demand their terminination, it would be such a perfect world. Of course there would be no one left to teach, but the important thing is that our child was vindicated.

 

[Marseeya]

As mentioned, I am lucky, we have good insurance, and I immediately took my DS to the best Child Development Clinic in the State. After the completely negligant and adversarial situation that I was encountering at the school, NO WAY did I even trust these narcissistic, teacher-god, so called 'professionals' to give my child a simple reading test.

How odd. I thought it was the school psychologists who administered those kinds of tests.

Never once has a teacher administered special tests to MY LD kids. Nor have they assessed them.

 

[Wishing on a star]

She was tired of being talked to in ebonics in crude and crass terms, tired of being woo-wooed and called chiquita, and having a couple of the black students sexually harassing & grabbing her. After addressing the matter with the teachers, the principal and the counselor, their reaction was go somewhere else (the old homeschool rather than fix the problem issue)

I would like to point out that if this was all happening at school, and the school system has ignored it, while a smart student who wants to learn is turned away, then this is yet another 'School' problem and NOT a racial problem.

This may have been what Graygables was actually getting at! That it is another sad situation in the Schools.

I do think that graygables would have been best to try to attempt to leave the actual 'race' out of it.

Ohhhh, but the schools are quick to blame it all on the parents and the children!!!!

 

[Wishing on a star]

Marseeya,

Yes, the school Psychologist was involved. In all her infinate 'professional' wisdom, she went right along with the teacher and principal, who were not willing to recommend any evaluation....

When it is very obviously their objective to NOT evaluate a child and identify children who may need help, then very obviously, I would NOT have trusted their determinations.

For any parent who is not as proactive, and well insured as I am, then Tough Luck.

 

[Puffy2]

I have heard so many parents claim they won't send their children to the suburban public school I went to b/c it is "too black."

When the richer children leave, the test scores of the schools drop dramatically and the school gets labeled as a bad one. All largely due to white flight and massive racism.
__________________

I'll bite, because I think it's good to have real dialogue about race and I don't think as a nation we do enough of it (honestly).

I think race is something that I would look at in a school when deciding where to send my children. Mostly, I would choose a school where I would think that my children would be comfortable and that would mean up to a 50/50 split in race . I wouldn't want my child to be in an obvious minority (whether the other race was black, hispanic, Asian, whatever).


Another topic:

My niece has taught in public school for three years (one year in an inner city Washington DC school which was mostly black, one in a private school in DC , rich whites, and one in a GA public school - mixed races. )

Her best experience has been at the GA mixed race school- supportive administration, good classes, parental involvement.

The rich private (white) school in DC was a pain for her because she said the students were spoiled, the parents obnoxious and the Administration sucked up to the parents.

The inner city (mostly black) school was a horriable experience - she was threatened, she had 14 year old kids in her 6th grade class (6th graders should be 11), discipline problems were daily. It was a nightmare. Most of the parents wouldn't address problems, the administation couldn't seem to handle the discipline problems. As she said, "They (the students) just don't care and they are in my face everyday saying so. "

Her desciption of the inner city school really - still - concerns me . It concerns me because these children aren't learning and where will they be in 7 years? On the streets? A problem for society at large? It is to our nation's benefit to address the problem now as opposed to later. And one teacher can not solve this problem. So, I've asked myself, "what can?" The only solution that I could come up with was mentoring. Mentoring from "like-skined" celebrities, businessmen and women, etc... A sponsoring of sorts for each class. Think of how inspiring it would be if Oprah or Eddie Murphy or Chris Rock adopted a classroom and lectured on the importance of doing well in school and kept tabs on the progress of their classes.

 

[Marseeya]

Marseeya,

Yes, the school Psychologist was involved. In all her infinate 'professional' wisdom, she went right along with the teacher and principal, who were not willing to recommend any evaluation....

When it is very obviously their objective to NOT evaluate a child and identify children who may need help, then very obviously, I would NOT have trusted their determinations.

For any parent who is not as proactive, and well insured as I am, then Tough Luck.

This is exactly why I'm kind of glad I had to go through these struggles. I went through years of crap with my DS because of his LDs and behavioral disorders. I think it's going to help me be the kind of teacher who won't let a single child fall through the cracks. With my DS, it was such a joke -- he had an LD in written expression, so when they decided to go ahead and test him out of sped, they didn't test his writing! Oookay. Yeah, no wonder he tested out of the sped program!

What exactly kind of math LD does your child have? I have one in math myself.

 

[Wishing on a star]

Marseeya,

I am sure you will be an absolutely wonderful teacher!

I will send you a PM.....