American education: mediocre is the new excellent

American Thinker ^ | 11/16/2013 | Thomas Lifson

[SeekAndFind]

More evidence that American public education is systematically dumbing down the American people. From Breitbart's Jon David Kahn:

Parents are generally proud when their child makes the honor roll, but Beth Tillack, the mother of one such student at Pasco Middle School, is anything but beaming. When examining her son's report card, Tillack read hand written comments from his teacher - including "good job," a smiley face and a note saying her son had made the honor roll. The only problem was, her son received a "C" and "D" among the grades.

Mrs. Tillack, who actually cares about her son learning to strive and who wishes him to escape the cesspool of mediocrity at his government school, hit the roof and got her son's grade revised.

Pasco Middle School Principal Kim Anderson explained that handwriting notes of encouragement has been a practice among teachers at the school since the 1990's. However, after Tillack lodged her complaint, Anderson said the school revoked the first draft of her son's report card and replaced the "good job" with "Work on Civics. Ask for help."

[wintertime]

ping for latter

[libertarian27]

Every time I read a story like this I sing the tune....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3flv5nWZgII
Mad TV-Lowered Expectations

[Mouton]

Times have changed. I recall we used to get a number along side the grade. There were 7 of them. These are the ones I recall:

6. Interfers with classwork causes friction.
7. Shows lack of effort.

Either of these two REQUIRED a signature and note from a parent indicating they saw it.

5. Shows excellent aptitude for subject.
4. Is right alert and egar to learn.

I cannot recall others but the drift is there was no honor roll for those who did not have at least an a- average. Most of our schools today should be on the toilet roll IMO.

[stanne]

It is clearly the mother’s fault.

The mother wants him to escape the cesspool in the government school...by sending him there?

Does the mother think the child can rise above a system that is fraught with union workers going all the way to the leader?

Why do parents expect education at public school?

These parents have a choice. And they choose to have the government raise their children. The liberal, history re writing, LGBT promoting, illogical, too big to care government.

the government’s job here is to raise kids to not think, not question, not make sound judgments. It gets to the point where they have to have the post office make stamps telling them not to hurt themselves by playing.

THe goal is stupid democrat voters.

What do parents expect?

And they are not right in promoting this singular destruction of the future of our country. How is this kid supposed to rise to the level of our forebears and become an outstanding engineer?

The government says they want that, yet it’s the last thing they want. What they want is dumb voters and illegal slave wage immigrants for their ‘donors’.

This lady is more stupid than the teacher and the child.

And if parents would stop supporting these destructive institutions we could proceed in running a country conducive to raising children of virtue and intellect, instead of the opposite.

[SeekAndFind]

RE: The mother wants him to escape the cesspool in the government school...by sending him there?

Maybe she does not have enough money to pay for private school...

[Patriot95]

There is a point there. My local private school costs $3500 per year for one student, never mind two students plus a college student. I think it is more valuable to teach the kids how to deal with the indoctrination and misinformation rather than attempting to shield them. They are bound to come in contact with it at some point throughout life and if equipped with truth, can better handle it than someone who has never seen it.

[stanne]

I always hear about the money, and there is something to be said about sheltering versus non sheltering.

But it does turn into an excuse when the kids simply are beyond benefitting, taking this woman’s story, of course.

It is philosophical, but it is also a problem people are not looking at; not really.

I am an English teacher, and I use my time in the class to, well, put it this way, a colleague told me she asked her son how he liked my (10th g) class. He told her he liked it but the kids didn’t really like it, because “she [I] makes them think”.

It hurts to see their high school brains smoking like that. They should, as we were, ready with all kinds of debates and arguments about the subject. And, though that’s ideal, and unrealistic for every day, the public school doesn’t admit it but it discourages and punishes individual thought.

Or country needs our kids to be educated.

Right now you have people willing to pay Obama as much as they can, in order to feel charitable toward those who have no health insurance.

Aside from the complete scam of the issue, why don’t they say, “No. I want to spend the extra hundreds on my own kids. OUr kids are our charity. They are our poor and they need us to make good decisions about their future they are our future.

They are an investment, and we don’t look at it that way.

The fact is that parents are their childrens’ primary educators. When we beg the government to allow us to make choices and accept their answer, we are accepting that they don’t work for us, that we are their subjects.

We accept that we give them thousands per year school taxes, and that we have no say in what is taught.

That’s our choice. They might be too strong to fight and win, but they’ve taken education away from parents, and that is our choice. They work for us and we let them tell us what to do.

Thinking outside the accepted norm, wit the intent to get our kids educated is a challenge, but it revolves around money, investments to begin with. Lifestyle and real estate choices.

But to pretend that the public school is shocking us with mediocrity is way far down the road of wacky expectations.

[stanne]

I told my kids when they were in eighth grade they were going to be responsible for all college expenses.

I invest in a good classical education in HS and they have been good students, enterprising and watching current events and interested in their won future.

I’m not paying a dime for indoctrination in college, and the outrageous expense has my kids looking at older peers without jobs after college.

I have retirement to look at, that I don’t want o later burden them with.

I am not giving in to the rate hike at colleges. I have two good degrees I earned at the total cost of $7,000.

Tuition rates have increased at a rate way higher than inflation

Part of our HS experience is AP classes, which can cut college time down considerably. With on line college, and a job, they can be done by age 24 with little debt.

I wouldn’t dream of taking on or letting them take on the average $20G debt without a guaranteed vocation at the other end.

But investing in HS, if it’s a classical education, is, I think, a proper focus.

And when all the kids at school are very busy they stay out of trouble. Well, when there is a matter of trouble the kids parents are invited to leave the school And on the spot. And when it’s not possible logistically, they make the kid take on duties and responsibilities at school which certainly make them wish they could just be expelled.

So there isn’t much trouble.

[Spok]

Mediocrity is the ideal; achievement has become the problem.

[bgill]

A C is below mediocre.

A D is failing. Yes, failing used to be an F but they don’t give Fs anymore.

[bgill]

Probably something to do with talking in class. I got lots of those. Teachers would put us talkers in the back of the class for punishment. What?!?! That never made sense because that’s where we wanted to be so we could talk more, lol.

[GeronL]

A D is failing in most places anyway

[bgill]

I think it is more valuable to teach the kids how to deal with the indoctrination and misinformation rather than attempting to shield them. They are bound to come in contact with it at some point throughout life and if equipped with truth, can better handle it than someone who has never seen it.

Agreed. I sent ours to a small conservative public school. It isn't the greatest but much better than the private school that costs $3000+/yr. When the private school kids want to get back into public school, they always test a year behind and are sheltered. Of course, there are levels to shielding. Between an inner city ghetto public school and a pricey private school, I'd go with the private school. However, there's no excuse for living in a high risk school district.

[humblegunner]

ping for latter

So your homeschoolers can't capitalize, spell or use punctuation.

Because they "learned" from you.

[Some Fat Guy in L.A.]

7 in my elementary school was “Behavioral Problems Limit Learning Progress”. I used to drive my parents nuts with A-7’s.