Why our Public School System is getting an F

reply to post by ProfEmeritus

Now, will someone please explain to me how I, as a parent, am supposed to back up the teachers at that school when they mete out punishment so unfairly?

You're not. You did exactly what I would do, and hopefully, what most parents would do. In order for an administrator to earn respect, he/she must administer with respect and fairness. All too often, they act like Ghengis Khan instead of Solomon.

reply to post by ProfEmeritus


Well I would be going into Marketing Communication, but I wouldn't mind going into Political Organization and Communication as well. A corporate communicator would be an ideal job. Other than a political comedian of course.

Funny, I on the other hand had no one really threatening to punish me if I did something wrong, but still never hit another person who was bullying me. This is why "more discipline" is sort of a joke, it doesn't seem to have any effect. I've had friends whose parents were abusive to them if they got in trouble but they still continued to get in trouble with whatever activities.

reply to post by prestonposthuma


Glad you clarified that. I just wanted to make sure you realized what degrees they did not have.
I taught in the School of Business at the State College, and was always attuned to the colleges and what they had and didn't have. One of the fields that really has exploded is Accounting:

Strong growth of accountants and auditor jobs over the 2006-16 decade is expected to result from stricter accounting and auditing regulations, along with an expanding economy. The best job prospects will be for accountants and auditors who have a college degree or any certification, but especially a CPA.

Employment change. Employment of accountants and auditors is expected to grow by 18 percent between 2006 and 2016, which is faster than the average for all occupations. This occupation will have a very large number of new jobs arise, almost 226,000 over the projections decade. An increase in the number of businesses, changing financial laws, and corporate governance regulations, and increased accountability for protecting an organization’s stakeholders will drive growth.

source: www.bls.gov...

That is due, in large part, to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which arose out of the scandals of Enron, and several other large firms.

reply to post by ghaleon12

I think a lot of that is because there is a fine line between discipline and abuse. That line used to be pretty well recognized, but recent political pushes to ban corporal punishment as 'cruel' and 'abuse' have blurred that distinction. I have seen all three kinds of attitudes on corporal punishment and the consequences of each.

I knew one family (unfortunately) where there was absolutely no corporal punishment. Admittedly these people (who were my neighbors during my short time of living in a city) were what I would term 'white trash', but they had a daughter who, at age 14, was already a very pretty young woman physically. Julie found out before I met them that she could call Social Services and actually get her parents arrested if they tried to spank her. So they didn't.

I watched as she became more and more involved with drugs and the wrong crowd. Her beauty withered under the drugs. She became involved with a 20-something fellow who was dealing the drugs and soon was rarely seen at home any more. Shortly after the family moved off, I got a late-night telephone call from the local police department. It seems they had found her sleeping under my carport that night. They asked if I would come down to the station, and I did.

Once there, I found out the whole sordid story as the officer and myself questioned this poor girl. As it turns out, she had complained about moving (they were moving to the country where her fixes weren't easy to find), and so the family had left her. She had lived with her pimp/boyfriend for a few weeks and was actively prostituting herself for him. He then kicked her out when he was tired of her, and she had been homeless for about a week. The officer managed to get the number of her parents and called them to have them come get her. They actually tried to refuse, but a few threats from the officer and they agreed to take her back. I drove the girl to their new home and dropped her off. I never saw her or them again.

She never had a chance once she bluffed her parents away from any form of punishment for her (with the aid of a governmental office that was supposed to help her). Once she had full control of her life at that tender age, she did what any other child would do under those circumstances: whatever she wanted.

I have known other children whose parents beat them. In every case, they grew up to be criminals, roughnecks, and unable to provide for themselves without harming others on the process. It was a fast-track to prison.

I have known some who had parents who disciplined, sometimes providing a hard spanking, but did so mindful not of simple punishment, but of behavioral modification. My father was one of these, and I could not understand his statement of "this is going to hurt me more than it does you" when I was the one on the business end of that leather belt. Now I know exactly what he meant. It hurt me so much more than it did my children the few times I have had to spank them. But I had to do it. And now I am glad I did whenever I look at what they are becoming.

Discipline is a balancing game. Either extreme is bad news. The proper usage is the center of the scale, where the spankings exist, as often as they are needed, but they do not exist because the parents are angry or had a bad day.

In the public school system, which is at the mercy of the law and the political winds, this blurring of the lines of proper discipline has had dire consequences. What one parent may consider atrocious behavior worthy of a good spanking, another may consider so minor as to be excusable with no explanation even. And a spat on the butt, light as it may be, is cause for some parents to press for child abuse charges and completely ruin not just a career, but an entire life in today's society.

We need some sort of common guideline to avoid this sort of thing. Too bad every time the idea of corporal punishment comes up, there are many voices who decry it as somehow a crime against nature, even while their own children rage out of control on a fast track to a sad ending.

TheRedneck

I've gone through this thread and starred the posts of those who mentioned family and/or parents. Although TheRedneck has touched on this already and not quite from the same point of view I wish to address it, I'm going ahead anyway.

In a nutshell, I think it's about accountability.

When I was a kid, if I got in trouble at school I was in double trouble when I got home. I've informally polled a dozen or so of my contemporaries, and they report the same attitude from their parents. The parents and the teachers were in cahoots against us kids, and our parents were always on the teachers' side! We were afraid to get in trouble in school; today's kids don't really care - they know their parents will intervene to "save" them from most of the trouble they get into, and they are confident that their parents will believe their side of the story over the teacher's - the opposite of how it was in my day.

A similar informal poll of parents who currently have children in school shows this totally different mindset. If a child gets in trouble at school, it's likely the teacher who will be in trouble from the parents, not the child. Somehow parents and teachers have become adversaries, and the children have quickly become experts at exploiting the situation and playing them against each other.

The children have effectively lost accountability for their conduct and behavior; all they have to do is whine to Mom and the teacher will cave...

They have similarly lost accountability for their grades and learning. Granted all teachers are not the same, but with a little help I can learn from even the worst teacher, even if it means just using the book. In my day struggling students even asked their smarter classmates for help if the teacher was fairly useless.

If I brought home "bad" grades, it was my problem and I had better be the solution. The only exceptions were P.E. and Choir, because even my mother had to concede that my clumsiness and my inability to sing (I'm tone deaf) were beyond my control. The one time I brought home a "C" in a math class, I was beaten so badly that I could hardly walk for three days. Yes, that's excessive and it's abuse, but the principle is that it was MY fault, not the teacher's.

These days if a child is getting poor grades or flunks, the parent complains to the teacher, and the school, and the board of education, instead of holding the child responsible. Parents raise hell to get their kids passed whether they deserve it or not, apparently because they're afraid of the "social maladjustment" and "emotional problems" that would be caused by them being "held back."

Oh, please. How about if your kid actually STUDIED and did his work, and spent more time on learning his schoolwork than how to beat his favorite video game, he wouldn't have flunked? The only one holding him back is himself.

My mother was a master of logic and how to use it against me. If she told me I couldn't do something, I was prone to saying "but other kids get to do it" just like nearly every other kid has. So if I tried to blame a poor grade on the teacher, my mother would ask if any other kid got a better grade. And if so, then surely I could have, too. The same logic I tried to use on her, used against me. Darn it! Especially annoying since it always seemed to work better for her.

In the old days, grades were supposed to fall out on a Bell curve. A few A's, some B's, a lot of C's, some D's, and a few F's. Too many A's and B's, or too few D's and F's, was cause for the teacher to get a "review." Nowadays, I guess no one is supposed to flunk and somehow it's the teacher's fault if some kids get poor grades.
What's the point of an A (excellent) or a B (above average) if the majority of the class gets them? "Above average" loses all meaning if almost everyone is "above average."

So, from my point of view, today's children are no longer being held accountable for their performance. Their grades are the teacher's, and the school's, responsibility, and if they are poor it is the school and the teachers who will be "in trouble," not the students. I know 15 and 16 year olds who have been passed from grade to grade in spite of not being able to read as well as I could in 3rd grade. They know they can't read, but no one is holding them accountable, least of all their parents. The teachers and schools just keep passing them to avoid trouble....

Also in my day - or at least in my family - there was NO excuse for not getting one's homework done, and schoolwork and studying took precedence over everything else. Complaining to my mother that I had too much schoolwork was as likely to get me punishment as anything else.

These days parents complain to teachers - and to the school - if their poor children are being "worked too hard." Huh? As a child, I knew that my purpose in life (at that time) was to get educated and learn. Play and fun were very secondary things that were allowed if there was time. "Mom, can I finish my homework later, my favorite TV show is on?" asked just one time by me would have probably gotten me grounded from TV for a month, or worse.

No accountability for their conduct and behavior. No accountability for their performance. No accountability for doing their "job" (getting an education) because playing and having fun are just as important. In my opinion, THIS is why our public schools are failing.

Yes, there are some teachers out there who don't care. But most of them do, because they sure don't do it for the money. Even an average student can work around a few "bad" teachers here and there. Teachers, as we have heard from other posters in this thread, are also being forced to do things a certain way and focus on test scores instead of getting the kids to learn in whatever way is best for each individual student.

I believe that most of the fault lies with the parents and with the school systems, who should both view the teachers as their allies and partners, not their adversaries, and should hold the students accountable for their conduct and their grades, not the teachers.

I don't know about your kids but mine get a s#!* load of Homework and for some kids they just give up. it Takes two hours a day for home work somethime more, my youngest girl gets straight A's while my other girl just caved in, not to mention that schools have for gotten the fundamentals of school, math, english and writing............these are the most important.

reply to post by rikk7111


Sounds like your kid may have a relatively good school if they're getting a lot of work to do. American kids don't get nearly enough time in school to compete globally. In other countries kids go to school six days a week, have no long summer holiday as the US does, and/or have a longer school day. How are American kids supposed to learn as much in less time? American kids have it too easy, and apparently today's parents keep thinking they should have it even easier, but then complain when they aren't getting a good enough education. Come on now, you can't have it both ways.

Perhaps in the early elementary grades, kids can be pushed too hard. Maybe. But after age 10 or so, schoolwork and getting an education should be the most important thing in their lives. Two hours of homework is a big deal how or why? The kid gets out of school at 3 and goes to bed at 9; that's six hours and only 2 of them (1/3) to be spent on schoolwork. That's a problem how? Not to mention weekends...

I've probably posted too much already but I totally agree. In high school I had so much homework, every night. And I spent the normal 7 hours in school every day which was rough, especially being sleep deprived. Now in college I have to say its about 50 times easier, a lot less homework and a lot less time in class. I especially think public education failed when I think of some of my friends who burned out from public school, and didn't go on to college. They really got screwed imo. But I guess working long hours and getting nothing in return will prepare them for their future careers, so school succeeded on that point.

reply to post by Heike

Have a star, Heike.

I have to add one thing to your excellent post: not only is the animosity from the parents toward the teachers, but it also is the other way around. When I walk into the school where my kids go, I am treated as a potential disruption instead of an ally. Of course, knowing me, it goes without saying this has led to several tense situations with school administrators as I explained very carefully to them that I was not their student, and they were not my child's parent, and that we were still in the United States of America and still used that old musty document called the Constitution.

Now don't get me wrong; I completely understand the need to maintain discipline and order, and the last thing I want to do is disrupt my child's studies. But when I go into the office to tell them what I want and either get told that my child is 'too busy' to talk to me, or I go into an empty office and then get admonished for looking down the halls for someone to check in with, that is disrespectful toward me.

I also tend to lose respect for school administrators when they act unfairly (or illegally, yes, I said illegally) towards my children. I don't care anything about being an ally of someone who does not understand the purpose of their job or who does not care about the children in their care.

To have an ally, one must be an ally.

TheRedneck

reply to post by Heike


You've got to be kidding. School is heck with all the busywork and homework. Maybe it's different for each state but in MN I think its particularly bad. Why should education be the most important thing in their life? Is it in your life? Probably not, but that's where we expect our kids to be like work horses and just "deal with it". There's a reason kids are being put on more drugs these days than ever, its from school. Two hours on homework, and 6-7 hours in class is a 8-9 hour day. That isn't reasonable. If adults had to go through the same things kid had to they'd protest. So why I hear people say we need to turn the heat up, it perturbs me a bit.

So much emphasis is put on education before college but I'm finding it to be a big waste. I'm in nursing school and none of the stuff we are learning has been brought up in any prior class. I haven't used anything I've learned from public education so far. You could walk into nursing school knowing how to read, and do about 4th grade level math and you'd do fine. I just about smacked my head when a third year college student asked the difference between "then" and "than". Not to mention that some have basically no maturity. So here I've been prepped my whole life for college, getting "educated" and I'm not even using the things I learned in school and I'm way ahead of the curve. A bit frustrating.

This is why percentiles and those things don't really matter. We don't need students to compete with foreigners on science scores if they are going to be a hair dresser, which is what our economy is becoming, a service economy. Bartending I read a little while ago was the fastest growing career, so what's the need for education again and math and science scores? A person could stay at home basically until an adult, do something useful during that time like, I don't know, read the Bible or whatever your book of choice is, go to your specialty school for only a couple of years, and be done with it. We have people now that are so tired by the time high school is done, they quit advancing. Epic failure right there. I'm convinced a nation of happy people will be more "educated" than a nation of people that are slaves to an education system that just drags them a long for the ride.

[edit on 17-10-2008 by ghaleon12]

[edit on 17-10-2008 by ghaleon12]

reply to post by ghaleon12

Two hours on homework, and 6-7 hours in class is a 8-9 hour day. That isn't reasonable. If adults had to go through the same things kid had to they'd protest.

Are you serious?

I work an average of 12 hours a day when I am driving, and I worked 18 hours a day when I ran my own business. I am out of work, doing work for myself right now (in hopes of getting a business going again) and I still work at least ten hours a day. Even straight out of school, I had an 8-hour workday without including overtime. Overtime was mandatory most of the time and went up to an additional 4 hours per day, making my workday anywhere from 8 to 12 hours. I also had to work a lot of Saturdays at that job. Last time I looked, my kids are out of school every Saturday and Sunday, they get breaks and vacation days several times each year, and three months off during the summer.

I dare say that you need to get a grip on reality. If you're expecting to work less than 8 hours a day and make a decent living, you've got a wake-up call coming. This says more about our school system's failure than any other post so far.

TheRedneck

So 9 hours a day with school, 9.5 hours a night sleeping for teens according to the American Sleep Disorders Association, that leaves them with 5.5 hours for everything else. A lot of kids play sports so throw in another 2-3 hours and on some nights they have 2.5 hours for eating and whatever else. Is that reasonable? No. Is that healthy? Definitely no. Most kids are sleep deprived in High School which shows they don't have enough time to fit everything in. When I said most adults would protest if they had to go through what kids do, I'm not talking about just the hours, I'm talking about everything. Kids don't have a voice like adults do, I've seen some pretty awful things done to students that would never fly with adults. High School probably isn't the same since you went, whenever that was. Btw, where does religion fit into this? I suppose they will all have to be agnostic or atheist because they won't have the time or the energy to pick up and read a holy text. But according to you, at least they got an education, an education that will ultimately die along with them in 60 years, probably 50 years with the way our nation's health is going.

Having just escaped High School, I can attest to this. I've also read a lot of the studies concerning the health and wellbeing of today's students and things are not looking good. I'm going to stick to what I've read in scientific studies and personal experience if you don't mind. Maybe if kids spent less time in lower education, they'd be more willing to progress further in college because burnout wouldn't be an issue. If we want everyone to work for low pay and long hours, then our present course seem fitting. People will work that way out of necessity.

[edit on 17-10-2008 by ghaleon12]

reply to post by ghaleon12

So 9 hours a day with school, 9.5 hours a night sleeping for teens according to the American Sleep Disorders Association, that leaves them with 5.5 hours for everything else. A lot of kids play sports so throw in another 2-3 hours and on some nights they have 2.5 hours for eating and whatever else.

It's a question of priority. Sports are fine, but they are not why one is in school.

If you get a degree from college in a specialized field, you will have the option later in life to take time off for leisure. You will have that option because you will be making enough money to do so. That degree depends on your high school achievements to get into the better colleges.

If you simply strive through high school in order to 'escape it', as you put it, you will never get that luxury. There are a lot of people who live their entire lives in something very akin to slavery. They cannot get or perform a good-paying job, because almost anyone can do the job and someone is always 'underbidding' them (willing to work for enough to just live on). They are treated however their employers wants to treat them, because if they quit, there's always someone else who needs that job. 40+ hours a week, every week, of hard laborious or tedious work, week after week, with the only respite being those weekends when overtime isn't mandated. When you get home, you have precious few hours to do the things you have to do, because you can't afford someone else to do them for you. A pipe busted under your house? Forget the plumber; he will cost a half-week's pay to fix it, and you've got a mortgage and car payment to make this month. Car making a funny noise? Now you're in trouble because the mechanic wants $300 to fix it, and you only make that a week.

There's precious few holidays, and no summer vacation. If you're lucky, you feel like dragging yourself to church on Sunday. And it never ends. Finally, after almost 50 years of doing this, you can maybe have your house paid off and retire. Now you get to live on whatever measly savings you have managed to scrape together (if any) and Social Security (assuming it still exists by that time). You have spent an entire lifetime accomplishing nothing for yourself and your family, other than simply keeping them alive. But, hey, you had fun in high school!

That's from someone who has seen it, and someone who is trying to 'escape' it (somewhat successfully, thanks to trade school and college). And IMO that is a huge price to pay for a few games of football and an hour of extra sleep on weeknights.

Is that reasonable? No. Is that healthy? Definitely no.

I'm not talking reasonable, I am talking about life. It's not reasonable, and it's not fair. But it is.

Kids don't have a voice like adults do, I've seen some pretty awful things done to students that would never fly with adults. High School probably isn't the same since you went, whenever that was.

I have to agree with you on this. If you'll check my earlier posts, you'll see that I, as a parent, have gone toe-to-toe with the schools over making sure my kids are treated fairly. That's part of the job description, as far as I am concerned. I hope you had the same advantage, but I am thinking probably not.

Btw, where does religion fit into this? I suppose they will all have to be agnostic or atheist because they won't have the time or the energy to pick up and read a holy text. But according to you, at least they got an education, an education that will ultimately die along with them in 60 years, probably 50 years with the way our nation's health is going.

My kids are very religious, even more so than me. They learn to manage their time. Yet I still put that education first; just a couple weeks ago I kept my son home from church because he had put off his homework until the last minute, and it was due that next day (this was a Wednesday night). They go every Sunday (by choice), and they both read the Bible in leisure time, along with novels and magazines.

So yes, I place education (slightly) above religion at their age. I do so because I am looking ahead to their future. I want them to be successful enough to have plenty of time to spend it reading the Bible or going to church or playing with their pets or just sitting and relaxing with a good TV show (assuming those will somehow once again exist).

And as far as being too hard on them, as I am sure you think I am, every summer I decree when they get home from that last day of school, that neither of them is allowed to even pick up a book for at least a week, and no studying for at least a month. That's their time to once again let the little kid inside them out and enjoy themselves wholly. I don't get to do that, btw, and neither do any adults I know.

Maybe if kids spent less time in lower education, they'd be more willing to progress further in college because burnout wouldn't be an issue. If we want everyone to work for low pay and long hours, then our present course seem fitting. People will work that way out of necessity.

I don't see where ignoring the opportunities that are given you in early life is going to lead away from the future you describe above. It appears to me that hard work would lead away from that fate.

No one ever got anywhere by resting on their laurels. Life is hard, and you'll either pay the piper now, through hard work and dedication, or later, through a lifetime of quasi-slavery. My kids have made their choice. What is yours?

TheRedneck

From my perspective, some of y'all have so completely missed the concept that I consider it necessary to go back to basics.

Where did we get this idea that childhood is supposed to be all butterflies and rainbows and playing and good times? It's not that way for any other species on the planet. For animals, "play" during infancy and youth is almost all preparation for and practice of the skills they will need to survive once they are on their own. The more intelligent a species is and the more complicated the skills needed to survive, the longer it takes to learn them all, and thus the longer the offspring remain with the parents. Human children need at least a good dozen or 18 years to learn all the skills they need, and the more complicated life gets, the more time they need. Furthermore, in all of human history - until very recently - that's never the way it's been. Not so long ago kids started working on the family farm or in the family business as young as 4 and 5, and throughout history children have often had to work to help support their families.

In the new modern world we've decided this is wrong, and children are now allowed to focus solely on their education instead of having to work from a young age. This is probably a good thing, but now people seem to think that this "job" should be taken away from them too, so that all they need to do is play and have fun. That's got to be one of the craziest ideas I think I've ever heard. Children don't start growing up at some magical age like 14 or 18 or even 22, they start growing up the day they're born.

How is a child supposed to suddenly switch from life being all about "good times" to work and responsibilities at some arbitrary age of maturity? Many experts claim that the child's basic character, values, and personality are formed by age 5, and certainly by age 10. If the kid hasn't started learning this stuff by then, it's too late!

What "stuff" I am talking about? Historical facts? Memorized dates? Conjugations of verbs? No, and not even the so-called basics of Reading, Writing, and Math. I'm talking about the REAL basics:

Problem Solving
Cause and Effect (actions -> consequences)
Logic (how to THINK in other words)
Self-control
Self-discipline
Time Management
Delayed Gratification
How to handle disappointments, and failures as well as successes
Coping with Stress
Following Rules (even when no one is looking)
Dealing with Authority Figures
Working with peers; working as part of a team (teamwork)
Setting and achieving goals
Accepting responsibilities
and so forth and so on.

These are the REAL skills they will need to be successful as adult humans, and if they don't start learning them in elementary school, it will be much too late by the time they are 18.

You can't raise a child with no responsibilities, no duties, and instant gratification of everything he wants, and then expect him to magically turn into a responsible, self-disciplined adult at a certain age, or upon graduation.

Parents today want to give their children a "carefree" childhood and apparently don't realize that those kids will be ill-prepared for the realities of life. Human children can't learn everything they need to know about being successful adult humans in 2 or 3 or 5 years .. that's why they are MINORS for the first EIGHTEEN years of their lives.

Basic survival skills (such as those listed above) are learned from a VERY early age, and when a kid has a ton of homework, flunks a test, is stressed over getting a project completed on time, etc., the real lessons he is learning - or is supposed to be learning - are not the facts printed in the books. Am I the only one left in the world that gets that?


[edit on 17-10-2008 by Heike]

Why our public school system is getting an F:

Because school is about teaching obedience, not education.

The emphasis in my high school, 9 years ago, was on HOMEWORK. Teachers didn't really teach, it was attendance, credit/no credit homework, check the homework in class, assign new homework. There was very little to NO TEACHING. So what you say? Homework teaches discipline you say? No. No. (FYI, I lived in a fairly rich area known for it's "high quality" education system)

Obedience is an authority assigning a task and the minion completing the task. Discipline is doing the task on your own, without being told. If you think about school - like the military - kids who don't do their homework "disobeyed" orders... meaning they were disobedient.

We are only here to be part of a system - to grow up and work 40-70 hrs / week. School and college are organized to keep us working forever without ever questioning anything. Those who go to college are the most obedient and "succeed" the most. People who don't go to college (myself) typically get labeled as "fringe" for a reason.

Schools are failing because people believe that intelligence can be instilled into children. Schools are failing because teachers aren't told to teach - they're told to assign homework. Schools are failing because the kids are too obedient to question the worthiness of these "educations".

Schools really aren't failing the system though, they're doing exactly what the system wants them to... The answer, as always, is LESS GOVERNMENT!

Heilke and Redneck;

I agree totally. School is not "optional" and neither is children listening to their parents. As I stated earlier, growing up and going to school in the DOD was and is the greatest education I could have recieved.

As far as the posters who think that 8-9 hours of school/homework is too much I really have to disagree. My father was up at 4:30 everymorning and at work by 5:30, my mother got me and my brothers up at 6 and then she went to work. My older brother and I got our younger brother fed and clothed, cleaned the house and went to school. After school we went to sports, came home and did homework and cleaned the house. On weekends my older brother and I went to Boy Scouts. I regret none of it.

Granted, growing up in Germany in the 70s-80s we did not have video games and only one english speaking tv station and we were definately latch-key kids as were many military "brats", but I firmly believe we were better off than those in the civilian world.

reply to post by Heike

You can't raise a child with no responsibilities, no duties, and instant gratification of everything he wants, and then expect him to magically turn into a responsible, self-disciplined adult at a certain age, or upon graduation.

Amen Heike. You know, I can remember wondering when I was going to be an 'adult'. I thought at one point it was when I turned 18, but that came and went and I felt no different than I had the day before. So maybe it was 21. That day as well gave me no indication of change. At age 25, something did happen: my car insurance rates dropped. Nothing else had changed though.

Somewhere along the line, I grew into an adult, but it apparently had nothing to do with my age or what day i was born on. It happened gradually, slowly, but it did happen. So when I hear someone young talk about what they are going to do when they are grown, I shake my head. You'd better be doing it now, because you are already becoming an adult.

Basic survival skills (such as those listed above) are learned from a VERY early age, and when a kid has a ton of homework, flunks a test, is stressed over getting a project completed on time, etc., the real lessons he is learning - or is supposed to be learning - are not the facts printed in the books. Am I the only one left in the world that gets that?

Nope, you're not. I get it.

And you get another star.

TheRedneck

reply to post by Angry Danish

Hiya AngryD.

A lot of your post is spot on. The situation you described with the homework is too often a reality, and I am sure when he gets by here today, the good Prof will have a lot to say on that subject. I will say that teachers like that did teach me one thing: that I didn't need them. I am surrounded right now (in my shop working on projects) by a literal library of books I have accumulated over the years. I have books on physics, chemistry, mechanics, electricity, electro-magnetism, light, optics, computers, thermodynamics, fluid dynamics, and more. I bought most of them from book stores, not from college stores. And I learned the contents of each and every one, by myself, through that antiquated thing known as 'reading'.

But enough about that; I do have a few personal observations to parts of your post:

We are only here to be part of a system - to grow up and work 40-70 hrs / week. School and college are organized to keep us working forever without ever questioning anything. Those who go to college are the most obedient and "succeed" the most. People who don't go to college (myself) typically get labeled as "fringe" for a reason.

I see it as more a system that allows people to do what you describe. There are avenues, although few and far between, to break out of that mold and actually accomplish something with one's life. I do believe these avenues are becoming fewer each year, though, and I attribute that to the mainstream view that a 40-hour workweek for 40-50 years at a single job putting tab A into slot B is a rewarding life. Perhaps it is for some, but not for me, and I presume from your post, not for you either.

People get what they ask for, and too often what they ask for is a far cry from what they need. A public school, no matter how extravagant, no matter how high it's rating, will always cater to the majority and not to the individual. If someone is fine with the majority demands, that works out easy for them, but for someone who wants more from life, they will have to get it themselves.

Schools are failing because people believe that intelligence can be instilled into children.

Instilled, no, I agree. Encouraged, however, is something the schools can do, but are not doing well enough.

]Schools are failing because teachers aren't told to teach - they're told to assign homework.

ProfEmeritus can speak to this much more than I can, but I would assume it is more laziness on the part of the teachers than anything else.

Schools are failing because the kids are too obedient to question the worthiness of these "educations".

I can't blame the kids; kids are taught to do as they are told, for their own safety usually. It's the job of the parents to make sure they are getting what was promised them: a good, solid foundation in academia.

The answer, as always, is LESS GOVERNMENT!

I'll second that one whole-heartedly!

TheRedneck

reply to post by Heike

I believe that most of the fault lies with the parents and with the school systems, who should both view the teachers as their allies and partners, not their adversaries, and should hold the students accountable for their conduct and their grades, not the teachers.

That is fine for K-12. but for higher education (i.e. college) the Buckley Amendment (FERPA) restricts a parent from receiving any information about their child's student records, attendance, grades, etc. without a written consent form from the student.
In addition, of course, professors are forbidden from even talking to the student's parent without the consent form, and permission from the Administration of the college or university.

I had a case where the parent called and wanted to know if their child was attending classes regularly. I could not even acknowledge that the student was in my class, never mind talk about attendance. We had strict rules to direct all such requests to the Registrar's office.

At the university level, FERPA privacy rights vest solely in the student, even if still a minor. The law does not allow parents an automatic right to see the university's records about their children.

However, parents can access their children's education records (e.g., transcripts, disciplinary records, account balances, etc.) in the following ways:

• ask your son or daughter for a copy of his/her records

• have your son or daughter complete a consent form that authorizes release of his/her education records to the parents. (See general student consent form above, or use the US Department of Education form )

Here is the actual FERPA legislation, if you are interested. Breaking any rule in that act was cause for immediate removal of the faculty member.

I had many irate parents that could not accept that, but that is the law.
There are so many restrictions in education, I think it would have been beneficial to also have a law degree. Even writing letters of recommendation, required us to get releases from the student in order to write that letter.

In addition, the union rules severely restricted professors that wanted to go above and beyond from doing that, unless you were very clever. I can say now that I was quite clever in outfoxing the union many times, by turning their own rules against them. Although I refused to be a union member, the Administration was afraid of it, and obeyed the rules, so I found imaginative ways to legally skirt them, at least technically. Most profs hid behind the rules, and used them as excuses with the students. That disgusted me.

Anyway, of course parents still should be involved with their children and their education, but not all students have families, or they are estranged from them(more than you would probably think, in college), and so I tried to be a parent in an advisory way, if they asked for help.