wizwormathome's Journal: Foe

"If you want to send your kids to private school, that's your right. That doesn't mean that you get to take funds away from public schools." - Conspiracy_Of_Doves

http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=415294&cid=22005270

Yes, yes it does. If a person is unsatisfied or does not morally support a program or business, they should not be forced to pay for it and perpetuate something they will never use. When public schools finally get the message that their curriculum is so pathetic that the vast majority of parents wish to stop sending their children there, maybe .. just maybe because of dire financial pressure, will they get their act together.

It wouldn't be hard, now, to improve public schools, but it would require moving back the curriculum approximately four years. Eighth graders should not be having trouble with math problems like "-2 + -5". They should not be confused about which ocean is between North America and Europe. They should not be writing at a second grade level.

Administrators and school boards are simply more interested in PR, passing along students who are full year grade failures, and not really ever dealing with serious, repetitive behavior problems. They could care less about what's being taught (unless it's time for the yearly test) and they couldn't care more about how many times you send Young Frankie down to the office for the upteenth offense. (That's the teacher's problem after all.)

I say this as a current public school teacher. Public schools, as they are now, are detriments to our society as a whole. They are a black hole of funding and a student's worst nightmare. Public schools are filled with apathetic, under-EDUCATED teachers who want nothing more than to get their yearly raise and bitch about how they'd rather be doing something else, but they're not talented enough for it.

As long as public schools continue to be funded by the bottomless wallet of taxes, they will continue to fester. Administrations will continue to latch onto ridiculous, time-wasting fads like PLCs as the newest savior of education without every having the slightest thought about the actual material being taught or the standards being enforced. NO... these schools need not become centers of religion. NO... character education is NOT the right course of action. NO... $8 Billion dollars spent on technology, for which teachers who can't even comprehend how to make a table in Word, is not the answer.

Just increase your expectations. That's it, folks. That's IT.