Maybe. But some of the schools that are very successful at the top don’t educate the bottom very much at all. If you control for demographics, our numbers look very different. I’ve taught literacy (as a volunteer) to adults for two decades and as a result I have a lot of contact with their kids. Wonderful kids, true blessings, but the children of the population that I teach will never, ever, no matter what model we use, be academically successful in terms of the top STEM kids of other countries. The students that I teach have no history of literacy in any language. If you stop and think about that, it is a huge obstacle that is insurmountable in their generation and for most of their children. But we don’t deport them, we don’t exclude them, we teach them as best we can because it is the right thing to do, but we don’t then get to complain that our educational outcomes don’t reflect the success of other countries who don’t do the same. Sometimes two things are incompatible. Personally, I would rather do right by the least of these than exclude them and have prettier numbers.</p>
Nowadays, many parents don’t want to be accountable. They are more interested in being “cool” parents and standing with their children against the teacher that’s allegedly ruining their lives. IMHO, some of them are “paying it forward” trying to get some of their own back against a teacher or education system which may have treated them badly. All that being said, there are teachers who have no business being in the classroom. But that doesn’t absolve parents from sending their children to school ready to learn, with good manner and a good attitude.</p>
<p>“Funny how this teacher starts the letter by lamenting that by resigning he won’t be getting a golden parachute. Boohoo. Then he says he hopes he can come back so he can double dip. Wow, this guy really has a set.”</p>
<p>That is not what he said at all. </p>
<p>“It is with the deepest regret that I must retire at the close of this school year, ending my more than twenty-seven years of service at Westhill on June 30, under the provisions of the 2012-15 contract. I assume that I will be eligible for any local or state incentives that may be offered prior to my date of actual retirement and I trust that I may return to the high school at some point as a substitute teacher.”</p>
<p>Any you are complaining the curriculum isn’t anti-American enough? Hahaha.</p>
<p>Not very haha, to me. Why this accusation? Is it all really that simple, to you? They either do it as you see best or they are anti-American?</p>
<p>And, Bel, if you want to divert over to “immigration amnesty,” then we can rail against your “It’s all about IQ” ideas. Big Oops: IQ as measured by standardized tests.</p>
<p>I’m guessing this thread is circular enough it will soon be closed. So if someone has something better to do (say) than just throw darts, better get on with it.</p>
I didn’t say any such thing. What I said was that if the people are here, we should not exclude them from education. What is hypocritical is for the same people who support amnesty (which I don’t) to then complain that the immigrants are a drag on test scores.</p>
<p>I don’t think the Regents exams are intended to be pro or anti-American. They are intended to be as dumbed down as possible. In the context mentioned by hyperJulie, the word “policing” might have been unfamiliar and therefore had to go.</p>
I just want to clarify that it’s not the government’s dime–it’s MY dime. I don’t want it to be used to pay some guy to teach kids that dinosaur fossils were placed in the Earth’s crust as a practical joke.</p>
<p>On a more serious note, it often comes up in conversations like this that students with big problems often have parents who don’t care, who don’t take responsibility, etc. While I agree with this, I’ve never understood exactly what policies would grow from this–jail the parents? Somehow force them to care? Or is bringing this up just an excuse to do nothing, because the problem is somebody else’s fault? I think you have to find ways to educate these problem kids in spite of their parents–probably with things like longer school days, multiple meals, social services in the school, etc.–all things that cost a lot of money.</p>
How many Catholic schools actually do this? Here, most of the Catholic schools do absolutely no such thing. Now I have heard that other denominations out there in the back of beyond have issues with science education, but I’ve never heard of that from Catholic education, and I know many very wealthy people who are Jewish, Muslim and Protestant who send their kids to Catholic prep schools. My Pakistani Muslim boss will only consider Catholic schools because that is what he grew up with and it send him to Oxford and Harvard.</p>
<p>
Hunt, as I posted earlier in the thread, we do that here. Many schools (this is too big a system to say all to anything) start at 6:30 am with basketball and keep the kids for homework help until 6 pm. All public schools provide breakfast and lunch, many provide dinner. All provide immunizations, medical screenings, whatever resources are required. But it still hasn’t raised the test scores. Last year’s scores came out yesterday and it was a debacle of epic proportion. While what you espouse sounds great on paper, there is no more than can be done other than taking custody. Like I suggested earlier, voluntary boarding schools could help SOME kids. But there is absolutely nothing, nothing, nothing that will help every child who is not parented appropriately. That is a very sad fact, but it is a fact, nonetheless. I’m that crazy woman who would happily take in every kid who needs a mom, but it just doesn’t work. Society can not take the place of parents. At least here, there is a very generous safety net, but it still doesn’t replace appropriate parenting. The only answer is to consider educational failure to be neglect and remove the kids. Which is a whole other kettle of fish that I don’t want to swim in. But there it is.</p>
<p>Zoosermom, that doesn’t sound so different to me from what my mother used to tell me when I was a child, when she would talk to me about the children she taught at P.S. 72, a public elementary school at 104th Street and Lexington Avenue. It was tragic then, and it still is.</p>
<p>“I think you have to find ways to educate these problem kids in spite of their parents–probably with things like longer school days, multiple meals, social services in the school, etc.–all things that cost a lot of money.”</p>
It is tragic. It breaks my heart. As I think you know, literacy is my passion in ilfe and I wish I could give the gift and love of it to every child. In my heart, I believe that if only every child could read fluently and with love, they would all be ok. But I can’t and no one but their parents can. I’ve volunteered for decades, I was even the school (volunteer) librarian in a school my kids didn’t attend for a very long time because this is so important to me, but I still don’t believe that this is a failure of our system of education, and I also don’t think it is a reflection on the quality of teachers. I’ve been watching my daughter get a job as a teacher in NYC and I can speak from that experience and say that principals are able to be incredibly selective in this day and age and our teachers (here) are bright, talented, educated and motivated. I’ve even seen that with my own kids. Their teachers were AMAZING. But they still didn’t reach every kid.</p>
I’m sorry to say that I think you’re right about this, and I’ve said it before. I don’t see how we can do it in a free society, which is why the best I can come up with is to get as close to it as we can.</p>
<p>And I didn’t mean to suggest that Catholic schools don’t teach evolution. I don’t think people sending their kids to Catholic schools are really the ones who think “government” schools are destroying American patriotism.</p>
<p>“How many Catholic schools actually do this? Here, most of the Catholic schools do absolutely no such thing.”</p>
<p>yes, this is more of an evangelical thing, but spreading into the public school systems in states with large evangelical populations who have made it a priority to take control of their school boards. </p>
<p>“Last year’s scores came out yesterday and it was a debacle of epic proportion. While what you espouse sounds great on paper, there is no more than can be done other than taking custody.”</p>
<p>I read the article in today’s NYT and my take on it is that the teachers didn’t know enough in advance what was going to be on the test and the format of the test so they couldn’t teach to the test last year. I’m sure now that they know the scores will go up. The testing had changed education from teaching subject matter to teaching children how to take these tests so they pass.</p>
<p>No problem with dinosaurs in the Catholic lower school mine attended, either. We’re not Catholic.
Z, many of the lower school, low ses parents here are sufficiently interested in their kids’ educations. At issue is what happens after lower, especially first among boys. When they are young, we find more control over, eg, attendance and attitude. </p>
<p>School is very much about moving a group- there isn’t much time for individual attention or custom support. Teachers, as noted, have multiple goals academic, social, motivational and remedial, at least. It fractures what they can do. And it’s in a context of group learning and group goals. Just so hard to do justice to any outlier.</p>
I send my son to Catholic school. I don’t believe any such thing and I have never known anyone who does. What I do think is that there are a lot of people (most?) who want to avoid “those people” and patriotism doesn’t play a role at all. Someone (you?) posted earlier about people with middle-of-the-road kids needing more attention going to Catholic schools. Mine isn’t middle-of-the-road. He’s a mess and needs MUCH attention. However, he is a magnificent musician and his school has the best program hereabouts. But even if he were tone deaf, he still would have gone there for the attention. But I had no interest in asking anyone else to pay for it.</p>
<p>
There are some kids who do very well in spite of their parents, enough to make it all worthwhile, so the effort is all for good. I’m not saying we should give up, we certainly should not. But I just can’t see it as a lack of money, a lack of will, a lack of compassion or a lack of good teachers. As you said, sometimes in a free society people make choices that have painful consequences. This is what that looks like.</p>
<p>Just another anecdote: My D went to a “ghetto” school that had much higher achievement than its demographics would have predicted. Guess why. Give up? The principal (a black woman of incredible determination and faith in humanity) geared all sorts of programs to the parents. She was the queen of grantwriting and fundraising and she raised the money to offer all sorts of programs and classes and support. It didn’t elevate every child, but it did a lot for many families. Part of the “little bit here, little bit there” model.</p>
It’s also a much different model of thinking. Far more advanced than in prior years. Teaching to the test is going to take a while, but if it is ever achieved, success on those tests will show real preparation for college.</p>
<p>I’m from an area of the South where Catholic schools didn’t play a significant role, so I can’t really say too much about them. Where I come from, people fled the public schools to avoid being mixed with black kids, and now some of them flee to private Christian (not Catholic) schools so their kids can have religious values intermixed with all elements of the curriculum. That’s what I really don’t think tax dollars should be paying for.</p>
<p>At least for me, there is a huge difference between talking about a local parochial school and a Catholic one run by one of the orders. </p>
<p>The disadvantage in std tests is that it assumes those tests are a representative measurement. Begs the question, measurement of what, determined by whom?</p>