You want to fix the schools?

[Fresh_Start]

start with funding the schools

[county worker]

1. Add parents who work with the kids at home and who don't expect the school to raise their kids.

[Fresh_Start]

4. some of that can't be helped

there are many families struggling to have a roof and food with parents working multiple jobs.
They may not have enough education to 'work with the kids at home'.

In my case, I had an absentee father and a mother who didn't complete middle school.

[county worker]

14. There always are cases that don't fit the dominate one.

I guess I should have said only parents who have the ability should help their kids with their education.

[Fresh_Start]

49. thats reasonable but the school needs to step up

when the parents can't or don't. There are so many children in disfunctional families that we can't write them off as 'its the parents fault'. It may well be the 'parents fault' but its also the fault of the schools and society that haven't stepped up to the challenge.

But of course they need the resources to do so.

[etherealtruth]

50. I think parents that are able to, generally do work with their children

Educated fairly affluent parents tend to have children that perform well / fairly well in school. The child of parent(s) struggling to make ends meet .... or parents that are not well educated .... or parents that do not function on a high intellectual level are not "outliers" they are frequently the norm.

The reality is that meeting the needs of these children is a necessary part of the education system. Their parents are not going to become rich, increase their IQ ... they can't. it is the responsibility of our education system to attempt to better meet their needs.

[EFerrari]

5. This became more of a problem when wages stopped keeping up with CoL.

You can only be in one place at a time.

[MissMarple]

7. That can never be guaranteed, although I suppose we could try licensing people for parenthood.

:) And working academically with kids at home is less important than parents having high expectations for both the school and the kids, feeding the kids as well as they can and getting them to bed on time. Sometimes parents working with kids at home can be counterproductive unless they follow appropriate guidelines.

[county worker]

16. That is such a crock.

I guess mothers should give up their kids because some may not know how to parent.

[MissMarple]

35. Make a note to yourself...Must regain sense of humor.

I wrote the licensing suggestion as very tongue in cheek, not even sarcasm. I certainly didn't intend for you to take that at face value.

Parents will always be a wild card. And some do have their children taken away. In some cases that should have happened sooner rather than later. I do think, however, that parenting classes should be encouraged if not required in some middle and high schools. They don't have to be an entire school year or even a semester. Nurturing and taking responsibility are traits that can be fostered They are a natural for inclusion in a school's anti bullying program. Are kids still graded on conduct?

[county worker]

38. I gets to me sometimes the amount of irresponsibility some people here feel about everything.

I was going to post something but thought it wasn't a good idea. I was a foster parent of an 8 yr old who had no training by his mother. My wife worked with him at night using pennies to teach math. She and I read to him evey night. I took him places with me and showed him many things that he hadn't seen or known about. I tried to teach him how to act in school in a way that would not get him expelled so often.

I was called by the school and asked if I was going to the award ceremony. Why I asked. Well it was because that kid was getting an award for being the most improve student in the school. I asked in what way was he the most improved and I was told "in every way."

What made the difference was that my wife and I did not expect the school to raise the kid, it was our job no matter what. We both worked and had long commutes also.

[MissMarple]

40. I understand. I have taught these kids. A good parent is almost a gift.

Not so good parents can sometimes be worked with and some do improve. And there are many parents that just are so happy to hear good things about their kids. Too many times that hasn't happened, especially kids with behavior problems. Many of those stem from being in a classroom where they are unable to do the work. It is very sad.

You do good work.

[county worker]

41. Well, If you spend more money on schools and don't improve the parents it is a waste.

The reason schools fail is because not enough parents take an active part in the kids education. They don't expect the kid to succeed they expect the school to make the kid a success. It's as if they are buying an education for the kid like they buy a big screen TV.

Then the parents expect all kinds of institutions to take care of their other needs too. Complete lack of responsibility for anything in their lives and they say if we spend more money things will get better without any concept that they are a big part of the epic fail!

[MissMarple]

42. I agree. Parents are key to a child's success. Which is why I said this in my first post:

"And working academically with kids at home is less important than parents having high expectations for both the school and the kids, feeding the kids as well as they can and getting them to bed on time. Sometimes parents working with kids at home can be counterproductive unless they follow appropriate guidelines."

But. We can't change them all. We can try, and the more consistent schools are about this will make a huge difference. Even in the "best" schools their are very poor parents, as I'm sure you understand. These schools often over look that. Anyway, teachers have to do the best with what they get. I think we need to be smarter about that. Better school models, better leadership for teachers. I understand in some places there is a good deal of coordination with social services, outreach is better. Teachers try, and many schools have adopted better models, but poverty, ignorance, the evil of indifference and lack of good expectation for grades and behavior are very hard to eradicate. I'm just hoping we can get a lot better.

[county worker]

43. Well maybe if we thought about our kids a little more than we do about how

to lose that fat ass we carry around maybe things would change. Spending all our time watching the flat screen has made us willing consumers of stuff. We learned that the higher the price the nicer the nice. Reality shows mirror our lives. We think we all are in a contest and some of have to lose. Life is a chance bet that we will win or lose. We have no control and the losers brought in on themselves. We care a bit and we like to watch them cry then it is back to the game! If we see trouble ahead elect someone to fix it or take some money from rich people and spend it on us and we'll be ok!

Look at the magazines at the check out stand. That shows the intellect level of this country. Some things the right says makes sense to me. Things like personal responsibility, families spending time together, eating together, and all that stuff.

I am amazed that there are commercials on during the NFL games telling us our kids should spend at least 1 hour outside each day!

We are like those trolls in the movie the time machine. We hear the whistle blow and we all get in line to be turned into dog food or for us it is people who believe that we can spend our way out of out mess!

[MissMarple]

51. I hear you. Ignorance is Bliss, War is Peace. Stupidity and vapidity will never go away.

But the way so many kids are raised today is killing this country, slowly.

[CoffeeCat]

46. I've come to the conclusion..

...that education is messed up. Ultimately, it's my job to ensure that my children
learn and are academically prepared for life. The schools are dysfunctional. They're
full of amazing teachers who are forced to meet crazy (and sometimes unattainable)
benchmarks, as resources and funding are cut.

It's crazy.

I spend an hour with my kids after school. It's MY responsibility to know that they
understand what they learned that day. I help them as best I can and I try to teach
them the basics as well as lessons about being a good person.

My kids are in 3rd and 4th grade. I always expected to drop them off, do a bit of
homework and call it a day. It's really not like that. Students are expected to
meet these NCLB benchmarks--which are all about passing tests. So, my kids are
being primed to be dancing monkey performing for the school--so the school gets
its funding and the teachers aren't all fired. Kids can learn how to pass a test,
but do they really learn critical thinking? Are they really and truly learning in
ways that will teach them how to think and not just pass a test?

These are questions for which I don't have clear answers yet. However, I work
with my kids to fill in the gaps.

My kids have learned a lot about math and reading. This is because of their angel
teachers and because we work hard at home. I sometimes wonder if most parents
even get what is happening to education. Do they understand we're in crisis and
that their kids will ultimately suffer because teaching has been turned on its
ear by an unfunded mandate that stifles critical thinking and true learning?

Again, I don't know. I don't have all of the answers. I just know that many
parents seem in the dark. There are many kids who have parents who are too
stressed, too poor or too in crisis themselves to be helpful. I don't see
how these kids even have a chance, unless they're naturally gifted--academically
and psychologically.

[county worker]

47. If I had kids which I don't (I was a foster parent ) and the schools didn't teach critical thinking

I would teach it to them while I spent time with them. I'd say, question what people tell you, test it and see if it make sense to you. Look at the results of actions to judge actions of people.

Emmanuel Kant said in 1778 that enlightenment is man's escape from his self imposed immaturity. Immaturity is the willingness to let others do our thinking for us. It is self imposed not because we can't think for ourselves but that we are too lazy to.

We're becoming a nation of people who take a side in the culture wars or what ever and let the leaders tell us what we're supposed to do and think. If you take the time you can see some of the very same mechanics of debate and discussion as they use in Freerepublic,on this board. There is pressure to become a part of the group think. You say something different and your a troll or right winger.

Yesterday someone asked what is wrong with borrowing and spending. That person didn't realize that there was any cost to borrowing!
Someone stops watering their lawn because they feel it is wasting water but that isn't good enough because they have a SUV in the driveway. If we have any kind of problem all we have to do is raise the tax on rich people and buy our way out of it. Where are all the liberals in the streets? Why are we so ready to not vote this year because Obama didn't give us single payer or put Cheney in jail?
Why all the post that say were screwed and the corporations have us by the balls? How is it that we watched the wing nuts yell at the town halls? Where were we? I heard from Nancy Polosi's adviser that people called a Dem congressman in Colorado while the tea baggers were yelling that the health care bill was socialism. They called him to say that they support the efforts to come up with health care reform and that congressman felt so good about the phone calls the tea baggers didn't bother him. He's the guy trying to bring back the public option.

When are we going to say we can make a difference if we work together? Shit! I finding people to hang around with who want to make a difference by using their energy for something other than whining on a board or blog!

[flamin lib]

2. When will the Pentagon hold bake sales and get local businesses

to sponsor "death and destruction" nights with all proceeds going to GE, Boeing, etc?

[Fresh_Start]

3. exactly

We're always doing fundraisers for the school so that it can have art, music, sports and up-to-date computers

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

12. +1 Better yet a "Going Out of Business" sale.

[Fresh_Start]

13. ppl want to cater to anti-abortion crowd...

why doesn't anyone cater to anti-war crowd?

I want someone to veto legislation on my behalf because war 1s morally repugnant and spending billions of dollars to learn new ways to murder people is not in my definition of Christian behavior

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

17. Here's why.

“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.” H.L. Mencken

[Ozymanithrax]

6. You need to standardize the schools.

A school in the poorest intercity New York Neighborhood should have the same resources and teach the same curriculum as a school in the richest section of Beverly Hills. In San Diego County the difference between school is huge. Some schools here buy text books third and fourth. I know of one school that assignees computers to rich students. Schools in rich neighborhoods are prep systems for college. Schools in poor neighborhoods are baby sitters for working families.

Create a standardize education, not just tests. Remove local controls so that all schools are equal opportunity learning institutions.

[Fresh_Start]

8. as long as schools are locally funded that won't happen

because wealthier communities will be able to and willing to invest more in their schools.

[Ozymanithrax]

10. In that I agree.

I didn't say the solution was easy.

[MissMarple]

20. Changing the structure of the school is important. Many schools have done this.

Others are still trying to recreate the wheel. There are good school models, but the teachers have to be on board with that, and most importantly they need good leadership. Leadership is key. Aligning standards across the country is more possible than requiring the same curriculum. That will be difficult given our diversity, and people would hate it. It would be undermined.

Better pay, better nutrition, better support for our struggling communities are all important. Without good leadership, none of those things will change anything much. Teachers need to be lead and supported by intelligent, competent principals. The school model we have followed since the 19th century doesn't work anymore, it's a dinosaur.

[anonymous171]

18. I agree that there needs to be more standardization, but I am wary of eliminating local control

[Ozymanithrax]

25. Local control means local funding....

As long as we have that, we will have privileged schools and penal colonies for kids.

[anonymous171]

27. Oh so you want to replace local funding/allocation of funds with a federalized system?

I can get behind that.

[Ozymanithrax]

31. There is no other way to standardize schools.

As long as they are dependent on the local tax base the differences stand. Also, as long as you maintain local control, things like creationism Vs. evolution and Global Warming Vs. God does it all will prevail.

[anonymous171]

32. Local control over curriculum is fine (at least, control over non-essential subjects.)

Certain areas might offer different programs depending on the community in which they are situated. Having just ONE standardized curriculum for the entire nation would severely limit schools from being engaged in the community.

[MissMarple]

39. Common standards are easier to impose than a common curriculum

They are broader, more general. Many schools' curriculum are fine, it's how they are implemented, and how mastery is tracked that can cause real problems. Kids with severe deficits in what they should know get passed along. Sometimes they "pass" with "C's" and "D's". This is tragically unconscionable, yet it happens in a scary number of schools. By high school and even middle school many kids have given up. School models have to change. As I mentioned above, the current general model was developed in the 1800's. It doesn't work anymore. We need better leadership and the adoption of better models that help teachers get on with the real work of teaching. Money and resources are good, but better leadership leading committed teachers is paramount.

[The2ndWheel]

21. A people of, by, and for the government

Until they graduate, when they become a standardized, interchangeable, and easily replaced product of, by, and for the corporation.

[anonymous171]

24. Yep. Eliminating democratic controls is not really a good answer to the problem

We don't need to create another unaccountable Federal Bureaucracy like the fed.

[county worker]

34. Wasn't busing an attempt at moving kids from poor schools to better ones?

I don't know how it works but if you want to buy a house, your are told about the schools available in that neighborhood. I think the tax base determines the quality of the school in some way. I have always thought that was wrong.

Here is something I believe and I am sure I'm going to get flamed for saying it but it is true. Rich families raise their kids different then poor families do. One of the differences is the mentors kids have. Not to say that poor kids don't have good mentors but it just a fact that rich families expect the kid to be rich too and so they pressure the kid to succeed in school. There are no absolutes in what I am saying just to throw that in.

Poor people work harder and have less time to spend with the kids. In many ways the kids of poor people do not have the kind of mentors that rich kids do.

This is a personal experience that may explain what I am saying. I was very good at the tests they gave back in the 60's to pick students to learn the new computers made by NCR and IBM. I was picked out of my high school to learn to operate NCR's first computer in Dayton Ohio. I was given a scholarship to go to a new IBM school after graduation. I didn't make anything of those opportunities to be in on the ground floor of computers. My father told me that what I should expect out of life was to get a good job "on the line", get married, have some kids, buy a house and a new car every three years and if I was real lucky I might buy a boat. In other words I should be him. My older brother got a management job and all my uncles got him in a room and scolded him for trying to be better than his old man.

Had I been born into a family that understood the opportunity I was given they probably would have encouraged me to stick at it and mentored me and I probably would have to learned how to operate those computers. In stead I dropped out and got drafted and sent to Vietnam.



Can anyone understand what I am saying? Or am I just full of shit?

[Tailormyst]

9. ALL 35 worst performing schools in Mass facing the same "solutions" at Central Falls

are ALL in very poor areas.

Poverty is the problem.

[Fresh_Start]

11. funding the schools should include breakfast and lunch for students

because kids with empty stomachs cannot learn as well

[proud2BlibKansan]

23. Most schools in high poverty areas already have breakfast and lunch

The feds fund a program. It's been ongoing for at least 15 years now.

[Kerrytravelers]

15. As an educator, I've always advocated that for children to learn, they must have full access to

health care. A sick child can't learn. I've had children put their heads down on their desks and cry because their teeth hurt. They come to class sick and vomiting. The current availability to health care for the poor include constantly changing rules and running people from here to there. Parents with multiple jobs just can't keep up with all the chaos.

I also don't mind more school days with longer hours, but that would mean perhaps an additional recess or two, a longer lunch break. The additional time to work on studies would only be beneficial, such as "block scheduling" in some high schools. This would also require more teaching staff so that teachers have prep time during work hours, and not home at night, like I always had to do.

Like any teacher, I have a trillion ideas, but it seems that educators are rarely asked what we think!

[proud2BlibKansan]

22. We have a health clinic in our school

but the district is closing us at the end of the year. No one knows if the health clinic is moving with us or not.

[county worker]

26. Suppose money was not a problem. What spending in what areas would

enable a kid to have the best education a kid could get? Who would be involved in this?

[proud2BlibKansan]

19. Ding ding ding we have a winner folks

[Chisox08]

28. End the reliance on standardized test

It seems that most teachers here CPS system teach how to pass the test instead of critical thinking skills.

[berni_mccoy]

29. Apparently, Central Falls was well funded despite the poverty in the region

The teachers made between 72 and 78k on average.

[whistler162]

45. versus the below 30k median income of the residents

[Fresh_Start]

48. that does not mean the school is well funded

thats an outcome of the teachers contract with the school rather than an indication that the school is adequately funding.

Adequate funding would mean that they have an appropriate number of teachers so that the class sizes allow the teachers to teach the students.

I'm in a district which underwent a drastic cost reduction year over year. The average teacher salary did not decrease. The number of teachers decreased. Classes which last year averaged 22 students now have over 30 students. The additional 8+ students per class reduce the amount of time the teacher can teach and the amount of time they can spend helping individual students which need extra help.

[anonymous171]

30. Increase funding, sell all computers, hire more teachers, and cap class sizes at 15. nt

[Odin2005]

33. Sell all computers? WTF?

Are you nuts? Communications technology is the future of education.

[anonymous171]

37. Primary education should be focused on reading, writing, and math.

You don't need computers for any of that. Of course I am exaggerating slightly by saying that they should sell "all computers." I am simply trying to point out that technology is a means to an end and not an end in and of itself as far as education is concerned (especially early education.)

Small class sizes are what children need, not shiny do-dads.

[proud2BlibKansan]

44. Computers are excellent resources for teaching Reading, Writing, and Math

Using technology is also a very important life skill in the 21st century. Computers are a very important tool in our elementary classrooms.

[Odin2005]

36. Ditch standardized tests, increase funding, subsidize non-religious homeschooling.

Invest in technology to allow for online classrooms.

[BeFree]

52. Funding and other ideas

It should be in the constitution that America spends twice as much on education as we do for defense.

People who have more than two kids in school should pay a tax on any above that. If they can't pay money, they should serve community service time at a school other than where their kid goes.

Get rid of AC. Heat is ok.

Get rid of most personal computers until last year of high school. Critical thinking can't be taught on a computer.

Kids need to not be treated as cattle. There needs to be at least three different curriculum for young kids. Two for middle schoolers.

[donheld]

53. You're kinda preaching to the choir a bit aren't ya?.