Posted on 06/18/2006 5:50:31 AM PDT by Valin
We have a statewide database in Georgia, www.teachgeorgia.org, but I don't know if all states do.
WELCOME, NEWBIE!!!
Since Jun 17, 2006
We have "Open House" for the parents several times a year. You'd be surprised how many don't come. You probably wouldn't be surprised to know that very few of the students whose parents do come fail.
I think all of us lurked for a bit before we just had to comment on one particular post. WHESS doesn't seem to be trolling, IMO.
Then we disagree.
Actually, I figure anyone who got here after the 2000 election is a "newbie". Maybe that's cuz I'm getting old. ;-)
I agree. One of the most irritating new bad ideas foisted on students in the past thirty years was that education had to be fun. It wasn't fun when I was going to school in the fifties and sixties, neither was it supposed to be. The nuns who taught me and the rest of the thick-skulled nitwits who composed their classes had the hard, uneviable job of pouring a lot of basic info into our hard heads. They knew it wasn't fun, and we knew it too.
But we knew it was important for us, even if we didn't appreciate it much at the time. Since then I 've learned that just about everything worth knowing or achieving takes extra, intense effort. Very little fun is involved. The fun comes after the effort...not during it.
Blaming parents is a big excuse teachers started using in the 70's. However the great success of public schools was based on the ability to teach poor immigrant children in NYC. Their parents didn't even speak English. Schools became the great enculturating force, and they taught the children everything about how to be Americans. School was seen as the way up and out. Those children who have weak homes are the ones who need good schools the most. However, they need strong academics, not just free lunches.
This is bogus.
I have taught all over the country in many settings from 7-college, urban rural, elite and alternative schools. Twice I was a principal. Unlike you, I did not get stuck in a routine sales job when I changed careers but was promoted 9 times in five years and went on to own and manage a sales company.
You probably celebrate dissent against the war and want to supress criticism of education. You are so progressive that you defend the status quo or want us to go back to the 19th century. But your transparent sham doesn't fool me.
Sorry about that. "F" on spelling.
So, when are you going to institute those ideas for cars? I would always drive a Cadillac, if I could buy one on a sliding scale.
How do you do that if the government is subsidizing the schools through vouchers? If they're paying for it then they'll want a say in the matter.
Do you think I don't teach everyday? Because I do.
Like many pie in the sky liberals, you talk about your father or some hypothetical people.
Of course living with someone for the first 18 years of my life, substituting for my father and my mother (taught for 31 years), of course I have no idea of what teachers go through. I must rely on your experience of hopping around the country
Twice I was a principal.
LOL, well there you go. You want to meet the most useless person in a school? Go to the principal's office. Administration from principal up are overpaid bureaucrats
Unlike you, I did not get stuck in a routine sales job when I changed careers but was promoted 9 times in five years and went on to own and manage a sales company.
Hmmmm....didn't say I was 'stuck' in anything. Matter of fact I said the competition disappeared. Why? Because I was promoted regularly. You seem caught up with the number of times you've done something. Have I been promoted 9 times? Looking back over 15 years, yes I have. Actually more. Do I crow about it as if it will make my case more believable though?
You probably celebrate dissent against the war and want to supress criticism of education. You are so progressive that you defend the status quo or want us to go back to the 19th century.
If I am progressive, why would I want a return to the 19th century? For the record, I don't support taxation for public education. Like all other government services, it should be a user based fee. If you have kids, you pay for it, but don't make me. What I do disagree with from so many 'conservatives' is the automatic gainsaying of anti-NEA mantras that blindly lump all teachers into one group as if they're all useless.
I'm sorry you couldn't handle a teaching job and had to revert to sales (a much easier job). But don't take it out on teachers because you couldn't make the grade.
How do you do that if the government is subsidizing the schools through vouchers? If they're paying for it then they'll want a say in the matter.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
I completely agree with you. However, we can not just wait for the government schools to go away on their own.
I suggest tax credits, and insisting that government schools charge tuition on a sliding scale. Eventually, within a decade or two we can completely privatize universal K-12 education.
What you say there would seem hard to argue against. Probably we are slightly skewed on observing each others points of view.
However, I paid a lot of attention to what went on in school as my children grew up, and regardless of what anyone says, teachers or otherwise, there's no doubt in my mind that the parents who didn't seem to give a damn had the kids that did badly academically. I'm going to say here that the immigrant parents of the past, and likely the present, probably gave very much of a damn and likely pushed their kids pretty hard in many cases.
But I jumped into this conversation by stating that the problem with public schools is that they don't have much in the way of academic standards anymore, which is what I still think. Of course, also their adoption of political correctness as an MO.
I would add, vis a vis the discussion on homeschooling, that the same parents who participate actively in their childrens' education in public schools are the ones who'd make good homeschoolers - the ones who don't probably wouldn't or couldn't.
I can act more blonde though.
Not a bit, but in the context I hear it, at least around here, it seems like ONLY one sector is doing it. It's a problem in many sectors.
And sometimes people who are the most educated aren't very good at explaining things...they can't get down to the other guy's level. There's a balance in there somewhere.
Exactly. Someone needs to tell Ward Churchill that.
You haven't seen me, have you. I make the worst mistakes sometimes. Worse yet, my first graders correct them.
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