... or aggressive home schooling are the only real ways I can see to truly revolutionize the state of education.
We live in a school district with very good schools (Florida), some of the highest rated elementary schools in the state. Still, we pulled our kids out because they kept complaining they weren'nt learning anything and some personal experiences while I was volunteering at the school and saw how (to me, granted) some basic elementary skills where ditched left and right. Teachers have to work harder to get the kids pass the tests, but the tests are not hard in and by themselves, there is just no academic culture in most homes and the schools waste a lot of time with coloring activities. Then they come home and do two hours of tough homework, no time to play outside - and at school get bullied. What's the point?
This weekend, we went to a chess tournament. Two random families talked to me about (secular) homeschooling for the exact same reasons we decided to homeschool. Academic disorientation of public schools. Both parents were very upset. The one couple, original European, very academic, had already homeschooled their kids for years. The other family kept their kid home for a few days to try it out and loved it. Compare that to the school program: Cursive: "oh they don't need that". Typing: "oh they won't need that either, computers can recognize their voice in the future", Multiplication: "Well, why should they memorize it. they can google it.." Multiplication two years later: "oh, well, it seems they can't do any math if they don't memorize it, let's try again", Fifth-grader: " write a story in five sentences" what? what about 5 pages of creative writing? Computer Lab: "Kids are so good with computers" What can they do? "Let's have them explore MS Word, then play minecraft" , the list goes on.. seriously?
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We live in a school district with very good schools (Florida), some of the highest rated elementary schools in the state. Still, we pulled our kids out because they kept complaining they weren'nt learning anything and some personal experiences while I was volunteering at the school and saw how (to me, granted) some basic elementary skills where ditched left and right. Teachers have to work harder to get the kids pass the tests, but the tests are not hard in and by themselves, there is just no academic culture in most homes and the schools waste a lot of time with coloring activities. Then they come home and do two hours of tough homework, no time to play outside - and at school get bullied. What's the point?
This weekend, we went to a chess tournament. Two random families talked to me about (secular) homeschooling for the exact same reasons we decided to homeschool. Academic disorientation of public schools. Both parents were very upset. The one couple, original European, very academic, had already homeschooled their kids for years. The other family kept their kid home for a few days to try it out and loved it. Compare that to the school program: Cursive: "oh they don't need that". Typing: "oh they won't need that either, computers can recognize their voice in the future", Multiplication: "Well, why should they memorize it. they can google it.." Multiplication two years later: "oh, well, it seems they can't do any math if they don't memorize it, let's try again", Fifth-grader: " write a story in five sentences" what? what about 5 pages of creative writing? Computer Lab: "Kids are so good with computers" What can they do? "Let's have them explore MS Word, then play minecraft" , the list goes on.. seriously?
And then a friend sent me this link:http://mag.newsweek.com/2012/01/29/why-urban-educated-parent...