Does anyone pay attention to what their children are being taught in public schools?

I mean really, I wish my parents home schooled me. I'm currently a senior at a 'prestigious' high school and I can honestly tell you I have no idea how this school isnt uncovered for what it is. The last three years have been average school years, just scraping by to get the next year then finally out of here. But this year is ridiculous and 25% of the year hasnt passed yet.

The title of the thread has been bugging me for the last few years but it is really prevalent this year because of all this proposition crap. So for you non-Californians you might not know about prop 8 and the gay marriage stuff but its really a fad at school now and everyone who is for it their main argument is that their kids will be taught about gay marriage and stuff, but these are the kids who just goof off all day and if their kids are anything like them then what they are taught doesn't matter.

So, I have two classes out of six just this year that melt my brain just being in. First is this forensic science class we pretty much sit around and do nothing. Occasionally the teacher will fall asleep at his desk but he has pretty good classroom control so the class is OK I just do other work, but I could do without this class.

Second, I have a science class with a first year teacher at this school who has absolutely no classroom control at all. Things being thrown around, notes being passed, cell phones used, etc.... Not only that but after attendance is taken kids just walk up to his desk and erase their marked absence, or take the part of the detention slip that goes to the office so he cant turn them in. The worst of all, is that this teacher can not spell. Yes, we all have words that we cannot spell and even teachers (math teachers :stfu but this guy cannot spell science words (nucleus, alkaline, matter,etc.). I do not know what to do as I need this class to graduate and cant get out until next quarter. I've got a email prepared to the admin but I doubt they'll do anything since they are afraid to take an opinion. I am seriously concerned with the teacher snapping or a student snapping I'm nervous every time I enter that class, I am considering just ditching the class and graduating late or whatever I really dont care because I think it's more important to me to fail this class because of how ridiculous it is rather than getting this shady degree from this falsely advertised school. I mean, do schools screen the people that they hire? I should go into the business of running a school, it sounds easy hire a bunch of incompetent folks with some degree and no questions asked!

Well that concludes my first rant post, and sorry if there are some errors or it doesnt make sense but you should get the gist of it. (and I hate reading what I write! :stfu

And if you've made it this far, I'm really looking for experiences from teachers, students, parents, or anyone with an opinion thanks!

Public schools are a public embarassment. How can you have a kid for 6 hours a day, 5 days a week, 40 weeks a year for 12 years and produce an adult who can not read or write their own name? How is that even possible? Kids are like sponges; they'll soak up any information they encounter.

My son (4th grade) comes home from school every day and I always ask him, "what did you learn in school today?" He always answers, "nuthin'". It seems he's being honest. When I ask what he did all day in class, it goes something like this: Well, we watched a movie (not an educational one), had a pizza party, did some word search puzzles, had recess, went to lunch, played on the computer, had "free time" in reading (you would puke if you saw what's available to read), had another recess and then came home. Oh, btw, you're supposed to help me with my homework."

Basically they poof off the entire day and send the actual learning material home with the kid for the parents to teach.

I feel for ya man. College is slightly better. I think it speaks volumes that the television show 'Are you smarter than a 5th grader?' has yet to have an adult winner.

I actually cannot answer a lot of those questions on that show I've only seen it twice but some of those questions are loaded I think. And yes, homework is pretty ridiculous except for a language class (which I take when I'm 15 so it's harder to learn and I'm expected to know the ins and outs of the English language which I was taught in elementary without any refreshment since.) My german teacher is a better english teacher than my english teacher (actually dont have english this year, instead two electives of english instead of learning sentence structures we read books then watch the movie of that book.)

And I've still got about 3/4th of the year left to try and figure out a career that doesnt require college (military?) as I dont think it will be much different than HS although it could be. You never know, we'll see.

Thanks for the reply!

I always had pretty intelligent teachers through HS and the content, I thought, was usually somewhat engaging. I'm Canadian, so I'd guess things are presented with a little variation in contrast to down south. I can remember a few classes which left something to be desired and the odd teacher as well but like us, don't you have the opportunity to change classes and/or teachers?

I get it that you don't like some of your teachers or that maybe there are those who don't take their job very seriously but it's hard to believe that the entire staff population is incompetent.

Why not transfer into an advanced placement class? When I was in grade 12, the "standard" English, social studies, biology, etc. were pretty weak in content but any of the "honors" classes were quite challenging in comparison.

University is entirely different, no comparison, not even vague.

as far as I'm concerned, school is more for learning how to act in social and authoritarian environments. If they were really for learning critical thinking skills, then there would be less memorization, and more discussion / debate.

Schools these days (and probably long before that) are just factories that convert kids without jobs to adults with jobs.

The most I ever learned from school, was how to deal with various types of personalities. The saddest thing is that high school for the most part is just a microcosm of life in America. Sorry if that comes across as bad news.

I work in a school as a technical support role I walked by a class once and took a second look they were doing Yoga, in a maths lesson!

This thread TOTALLY reinforces why I home school my kids.

What sucks is that there actually ARE a few good teachers out there, and there are a FEW students who will do well.
It's just all painted with the same brush.:shk:

At ### in the magazine's latest (2007) rankings of public high schools, _____remains in the top 1 percent of schools in the country

Just a snippet from the wiki of my school, and there's not a year that goes by without us being pressured by admin to do good on these state tests so that our diploma is worth more to colleges. I am not up to date on the salaries of admin and teachers in comparison to the prestige of the school but it sure seems as if these admin push and push for us to take worthless tests to make them look better and I've heard numerous teachers say they took the job at my school for a higher pay which is pretty sad.

I mean they hire incompetent teachers and what can I do to prove it? When the admin walks into a classroom the class turns into heaven and it would be the same to parents. Only students see the true light of these classes, and I dont know what to do? Do I film? That wouldnt look good. Im thinking of shooting an email to the staff but like I said if they take a visit the class is heaven, it's just a bad situation.

Any other thing I'd like to address that is crappy is that it seems that teachers have so say in the lesson plan. This I also am not up to date on but I'm sure in the unions they vote for what they teach or whatever but again there is not a year that goes by without a couple teachers complaining about what they cannot teach. Last year in US History we were not taught about 9/11. We stopped at Vietnam, now no disrespect to anyone but 9/11 is just as if not more important to me than WW2 or Vietnam because it happened while I was alive.

And yes, if you want to be successful you better learn how to memorize