Posted on 02/01/2006 5:52:39 AM PST by cinives
With public schools spending more than $100,000 per student on K-12 education, you'd think they could teach students how to read and write.
South Carolina is one of many states to have trouble with this. It spends $9,000 per student per year, and its state school superintendent told me South Carolina has been "ranked as having some of the highest standards of learning in the entire country." So let's ask the infamous question, "Is our children learning?"
Dorian Cain told me he wants to learn to read. He's 18 years old and in 12th grade, but when I asked him to read from a first-grade level book, he struggled with it.
"Did they try to teach you to read?" I asked him.
"From time to time."
His mom, Gena Cain, has been trying to get him help for years. If Dorian were in private school, or if South Carolina allowed parents to choose schools the way we choose other products and services in life, Dorian and Gena would be "customers" and able to go elsewhere -- if any school were dumb enough to serve a customer as poorly as Dorian has been served. But since Gena is merely a taxpayer, forced to pay for the public schools whether they do her any good or not, she can't even demand a better education for her son. "You have to beg," she said. "Whatever you ask for, you're begging. Because they have the power." They do. What are you going to do -- go elsewhere? Gena can't afford that.
(Excerpt) Read more at townhall.com ...
I taught all of my kids to read with an annual budget of $0.00. My eldest was reading on a 12th grade level when he was 7. Maybe Mom could help instead of whining.
1) That boy is full of BS. They tried to teach him every day of his life and I know his type. It's someone else's fault he can't read. Oh yeah? You think you go to school and just sit there while someone else pries open your brain and shovels knowledge into it?
2) And Mom.... parents, that child is YOUR responsibility before he is society's and the tax-payers. I don't care if you're single, working two jobs, and poor as a church mouse, you can spend a half hour three times a week helping your kid to read.
Man, this BS just makes me furious.
you betcha!
I was taught to read by age 5 by my grandmother, who only had an eighth grade education. I taught all four of our children to read. The best way to teach reading is to read to your kids and with your kids.
ROFL, didn't catch that the first time!
why i bets them chilluns is learnin real goodly!
My homeschool kids were reading at the ages of 5,4, and 3. When I started teaching the oldest the two younger **demanded** that I teach them too! I was so cute to see a little 3 year old read.
I used the phonics program used by our local Montessori school. We called them the "Mac and Tab" books.
To the Parents Still Sending Their Kids to Government Schools:
So...What was that reason again for sending your kids to the government education factories?
The only possible acceptable reason, is like the woman in the article, you are too poor to afford anything else, and that if you didn't, government would send armed police, and social workers to **force** attendance.
I agree with you. This mom and kid could have solved the problem without the school. BUT - how many times have many of us been told by our kids' teachers to just "leave it to the school" and things will work out ? I know I have - until I pulled mine out to homeschool.
If she couldn't afford a couple of hundred dollars to Sylvan or a place like that, you can bet she depends on the "gubmint" to tell her how to run her life in other areas as well. This mother, and others just like her, have been conditioned over many years to sit back and someone from the government will come along and do it for them. We may be too intelligent to fall for that kind of patronization from government bureaucrats, but there are a lot of people out there who have no critical reasoning ability. (hint: many call themselves Democrats)
The school passed this kid for 12 years without this kid being able to read at even a solid 1st grade level. Regardless of whether you think the mom and kid were idiots, the fact remains that this kid was failed by everyone concerned - except ABC News.
"South Carolina is one of many states to have trouble with this. It spends $9,000 per student per year, and its state school superintendent told me South Carolina has been "ranked as having some of the highest standards of learning in the entire country.""
I am from South Carolina and our State School Superintendent is a total failure. Under her "leadership" , South Carolina schools have been living up to this motto - " First where we should be last, and last where we should be first "
Think $100,000 / 12 = $8300 per year.
Yes, our schools often do a poor job of teaching reading and should be held accountable, but motivating children to read starts at home.
I thought that was pretty funny too - I still wonder whether it was a deliberate attempt at sarcasm or some staffer of townhall.com being grammar-challenged.
Agreed.
We've been homeschooling our 11 yr. old since 3rd grade. Our 5 yr. old has been homeschooled from the start. At age 4 he was reading short sentences in pre-k. Mom worked with him through the summer. When we got our Kinergarten materials, we noticed that he already knew everything in the book. Sent the materials back and ordered the first grade materials. He's loving it.
If we try hard enough we will find a way to teach our kids to succeed. It's all about loving them more than ourselves. We've cut back and done without alot of "things" in our life to make it possible for my wife and I to teach our kids.
Unfortunately, I have seen situations like this and would posit that, in some cases, the PARENTS can't read.
I had a request to help an eighth grader with a take home test recently and quickly discovered that she had a reading "disability".
Her parents were unable to diagnose the problem because their reading skills were so poor.
This not a question of money.
The parents, as well as the school district, are very wealthy.
Lack of reading skills beget lack of reading skills.
Insidious, if you think about it.
You should read Rudolph Flesch's books (now mostly out of print but still extremely relevant).
The only way to innoculate kids from a bad reading curriculum at school is to teach them to read at home BEFORE they get to school. If your kid is not motivated before age 5, which many are not, then they get trapped in the "whole word" method still used by over 85% of schools to teach reading - of which the phonics content is abysmally low.
My kid skipped kindergarten and started in 1st grade because her knowledge of the basics was so good. The school, that year, decided to switch to the whole word method and bought hundreds of very pretty books with terrific pictures, no phonics, and one sentence per page under each huge pretty picture. And what happened ? No kid learned to read more than the most basic of words because the pictures were so big the words were lost.
What happened next ? (This was a parochial school, not a public school BTW) The 1st grade teachers went to the principal, told her that after 5 weeks in all previous years using phonics they'd had a class of readers. Now, only a few, who'd started school reading, were still doing so, and those kids were not progressing, and the others were not doing well either. The school went back to the old books and by the end of November the kids were all back on track, most reading at a 2nd or 3rd grade level or better by the end of the school year.
The lesson - there is no substitute for good teaching and a good curriculum, no matter whether the teacher is mom or the school. Those kids were trying but were not learning thru no fault of their own.
It really is a whole package deal: parents, teachers, discipline, environment, money and resources.
What are secrets to success of local military school districts?
Base-school parents and teachers explain why students do well
The trick and the challenge is to apply the successful military school model to districts, students and parents such as those in this South Carolina school.
DING DING DING!!!
We have a WINNER!!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.