Via nextdraft:

“Teachers are under incredible pressure right now from two places: from policymakers to raise standards and teach to those higher standards. Then on the other side you have parents giving pressure to teachers not to hold kids up to the high standards. Teachers are between a rock and a hard place … It’s an area ripe for lawsuits.”

This makes me angry. Not necessarily at the school district or the teacher, who simply responded to legal threats — after all, who wouldn’t cave in, living in a society where people can get a million dollars for admitting that they’re too stupid to realize that hot coffee means hot coffee?

I’m angry the parents. For not caring until the last minute, for throwing money at the problem in a way that does nothing to address the actual problem, for letting it all slide. For not parenting.

Justin’s been behind in school a for a long time. Right now, his math aptitude tests meet the requirements to qualify for sixth grade (first time ever!), and his reading scores are barely months behind. Even with this, his organization skills are woeful, and he frequently gets docked letter grades for losing assignments (in his desk) that he’s completed, and then turning them in late.

Sometimes those grades end up being pretty damn poor, and we’ve talked with his teachers about the benefits of holding him back. (In his case, since he does ‘get’ the material, they convinced us that he should continue to advance, since organization is something he must work on regardless.)

It’s obvious to me that in today’s school system, we’re an anomaly. We get blank stares when we make it clear that we think that the effort should come from us as much as the school district.

Teachers are so busy backpedaling away from angry accusations that they don’t have time to teach anymore.

Well. I've been in public education for a while, if you count my exposure to the issues from having a VERY active school board president Grandfather and Grandmother, and a step-Grandmother 50 year teacher, and a sister that's a teacher, you might say I've been in public education for 23 years, not just the 4 I spent at Newberg School District.

Now I work in a Private school and well, I'm no teacher so I'll throw down my inside/out view.

Public Education as it exists in most, if not all Districts is completely and fundamentaly flawed. Most schools are working from a century old ideal that was designed to train workers to sit at a desk for 8 hours and work in a factory.

I also feel that the megalithic School design in also flawed.

Testing will not solve the problem of educating students. It will solve the problem of teaching students how to pass standardized tests.

I think that there needs to be more weeding out of students who will go into a trade (as they do in Germany and Switzerland), and special instruction for those that are moving on to University.

English Immersion would also be a welcome replacement for ESL.

These are random thoughts and I need to eat. But that's some of what I think is wrong.

Look into Private K-12 for the Boy.

Oh.

The other thing that annoys me about teaching K-12 is, right now most states don't require a student looking to get a degree in Education to take a single computer science, science or history class.

When the boss-man's wife worked for DPS grade school 5 out of 22 parents showed for parent-teacher meetings. How is a kid suppose to take education seriously when their guardians don't.

I concur with your points, Doyce. And that's one reason I got out of the Ed Biz quite a few years ago.

Actually, teachers are in a bind from parents in two directions -- they're supposed to teach kids values, but not those values. They're supposed to take care fo the kids, but not discipline them. They're supposed to teach the kids to be patriotic, but not waste any time on anything except the 3 Rs (like, say, history, or "social studies"). They're supposed to keep kids interested in learning, but not waste time on art and music or anything but filling in the bubbles on tests. They're supposed to be responsive to parents, but not impose anything on them (even a parent-teacher conference).

Feh.

FWIW, I've got problems with private schooing as well (I think there's tremendous social value in common education. I just think that society has cast the schools into the wrong (and contradictory) roles.