Posted on 05/27/2012 12:05:31 PM PDT by wintertime
Some time ago, I joined the National Council for the Social Studies, the NCSS. I've since had that membership canceled -- I suspect because they read some of my pieces and realize I'm neither a social studies teacher nor a groupie. However, thanks to that fleeting association, I remain on several NCSS e-mailing lists, and every so often something very interesting drops into my laptop.
The occasion was that the New York State Board of Regents (the body which oversees public school curricula) had scheduled discussion on "Alternative Pathways To Graduation." "Alternative to what?" one might in innocence ask -- "learning something?" But let's not get ahead of ourselves. What the e-mail intended to do was encourage members of the NCSS to contact the Board of Regents and let them hear "SMART ARGUMENTS to make it clear the concerns we have about the FUTURE OF NEW YORK STUDENTS and the FUTURE OF NEW YORK STATE EDUCATION."
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
Reason: Because if you know an academically successful child, that child has has **tons** of afterschooling or homeschooling!
Personally, I have never met a single exception. In fact, of the academically successful children both sets of children ( home and institutionalized) are spending about the same amount of time ( in their home) on their academic studies and activities. There is little difference except that the institutionalized child is exhausted.
Some government school defender is very likely to show up with the objection that my observations are anecdotal. Ok...So?...Where are the studies that prove children learn anything in school? Answer: There aren't any! NONE at all! We do **not** know how much a child learns in the home due to the efforts of the parents and the child and/or tutoring as compared to what is learned in the classroom. The colleges of education have **never** done these studies.
Imagine that! We spent up to a quarter of a million dollars on 13 years of government schooling per child and we have built an enormous institutional monstrosity based on a 19th century Prussian military model and we do NOT know if it works!!!!
Parents! If you send your child to a government socialist-entitlement K-12 school be prepared for **lots** of work on your part spent in afterschooling. And...Please remember that if you send your child to a godless government school he will learn to think and reason godlessly. How could it be otherwise? He must just to cooperate in the classroom.
Parents! If you send your children to government owned and run socialist-entitlement schools he will also risk becoming comfortable with socialism. Both smart and dumb kids risk learning that any government and voting mob powerful enough to give them tuition-free. socialist-entitlement. and single-payer schooling is also powerful enough to give them **lots** of socialist goodies.
Another Reason to work for the abolition of government socialist-entitlement and single-payer K-12 schooling.
There are NO studies proving whether or not so-called “good” schools are good or not. These so-called “good” schools may have high test scores due to the considerable afterschooling done by the parents and the child himself IN THE HOME. Afterschooling has **never** be measured!
It is staggering to think of the market distortion, the misapplication of billions of dollars, the environmental destruction, the waste of time and creativity spent in long traveling distance to work, and the overall exhaustion of parents in an attempt to find “good” schools that may not be “good” or effective in any manner. It could be that these so-called “good” schools are merely sending home a curriculum and the parents and children are doing an outstanding job of afterschooling. .
Seperation of school and state is a good way to put it.
IMHO, public schools should be like public housing, a means of last resort. With the current advances in technology, there is no need to build expensive schools when courses can be taken online. In a free market system, private schools could compete with each other for parents’ business, which would hold down costs, while parents would have the option of shopping for the best-suited product. Taxpayers would save a bundle.
Excellent suggestion...
“””Imagine that! We spent up to a quarter of a million dollars on 13 years of government schooling per child and we have built an enormous institutional monstrosity based on a 19th century Prussian military model and we do NOT know if it works!!!!”””
We are in a “non-wealthy” Florida county. We spend in excess of $15,000 per pupil per year. We have four high schools with a “D” average on the FCAT (Florida Standardized Tests). This represents over 6,000 kids are not qualified to flip burgers.
Except for the Tea Party activists in our county, most of the voters (both Republican and Democrat) seem not to care.
Uneducated kids is a nationwide disease!!!!
I didn't this was unusual at the time. I was the oldest of 5 children and was expected to be responsible, so mom could pay more attention to the younger ones. When I was in elementary school, I was in classrooms of 60+ students, so I expected the teacher to pay attention to the ones who were having trouble learning, not to me.
We've been working at it for close to fifty years now, and the changes were mostly so incremental and the surface justifications so emotional that one just couldn't "Let the [FITB] get kicked out in the street" or "the [FITB] suffer.
Something new? I think not.
$15,000 per pupil per year.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
It is likely **double** that amount! Government socialist-entitlement schools have accounting practices that would make an Enron accountant blush.
For example: In my state retired teachers and school employees are merely counted as retired state workers. Their pensions and health care costs are **NOT** considered a school expense! ( UNBELIEVABLE! but true.) Also, our county schools use many services that are NOT counted as school expenses, for instance, police services in the school, lawn care, traffic management during school events, some legal work, etc.
More is spent on government socialist-entitlement K-12 schooling each year ( national, state, and local) than is spent on the military. That’s a LOT of money and an enormous drag on the economy and creativity of our nation.
And uneducated parents are the carriers.
-Do you think a REAL conservative would leave off the fact that her "Genius" children attended Community and state colleges which are "public institutions"?
-Do you think a REAL conservative would leave off the fact that her "Genius" children have sent there own children to public and parochial schools?
I am again offering you a list of students that you can take in under your wing and show me and the rest of the world just how well your theories work.
All I expect back from you is the usual canned responses including accusing me of "Alinsky tactics."
BTW There are still several questions open that you refused to answer on this thread
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2879390/posts?page=115#115
I also noticed that you seem to have removed me from your ping list. Why is this? Don't you wish to have the otehr side of the story out in the open? Are you afraid to engae in real debate?
If you please put me back on your ping list.
ROFLMSS!!!!!!! Too funny :-)
By the way...I fully trust that professional government teachers, especially those with newly minted masters degrees, would NEVER use the Alinsky debating strategy of discrediting the messenger in an attempt to discredit the message. No, no! A profession government teacher would NEVER do this to an emotionally undeveloped student in a position of inferior power.
( NO sarcasm tag. I really do mean it. Seriously. A professional government teacher would NEVER do this.)
Have you considered offering your services as a psychic? I’m starting to regret the thousands of dollars I spent with Miss Cleo, maybe I should switch to you?
This ping list is for the “other” articles of interest to homeschoolers about education and public school. This can occasionally be a fairly high volume list. Articles pinged to the Another Reason to Homeschool List will be given the keyword of ARTH. (If I remember. If I forget, please feel free to add it yourself)
The main Homeschool Ping List handles the homeschool-specific articles. I hold both the Homeschool Ping List and the Another Reason to Homeschool Ping list. Please freepmail me to let me know if you would like to be added to or removed from either list, or both.
We have to be honest. Public schools are turning out kids that are lost, needy and not capable of performing the most menial of jobs without expensive supervision. I know some of you are teachers and send your children to “fantastic” public school but taxpayer should not have to continue this failed experiment based on your anecdotal information. Just spend an afternoon reading the twitter accounts of the public school honor students and you will weep for the lost potential. Just a bit tired of repeating...”there are good teachers” Good teachers working within a failed system are not good teachers...just teachers who are hanging on to pensions and $10 a month health plans
They whine but do nothing to fix it.
BTW still wondering why you took me off your ping list, why won't you answer that question?
Government schools are a First Amendment and freedom of conscience abomination.
None of this can be fixed. It is a failed system because it is built upon a foundation socialist compulsion.
As “happyhomemaker”so aptly stated, “Good teachers who are working in a failed system are not good teachers...just teachers who are hanging on to pensions and $10 a month health plans.”
Personally,....I consider government schooling to be evil to the core. I will not aid and abet evil. I am doing everything that I can to work toward complete separation of school and state. This is the best, most efficient, and effective way to help children.
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