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On the dismal education system we’re currently punishing our children with:
“Several other facts paint a worrisome picture. First, the longer American children are in school, the worse they perform compared to their international peers. In recent cross-country comparisons of fourth grade reading, math, and science, US students scored in the top quarter or top half of advanced nations. By age 15 these rankings drop to the bottom half. In other words, American students are farthest behind just as they are about to enter higher education or the workforce.” That’s a sobering thought. The longer kids are in school and the more money we spend on them, the further behind they get.
I’m curious to know something. Of my readers, how many of you send your children to public schools, and if you do, why? How much evidence do we need to show that our public school system is a dismal failure before parents start waking up and stop inflicting this misery on their children? Do you want this kind of education for your children?
I really, honestly want to know. If your children are currently in public school, how bad does it have to get before you wake up??
All it took for us was T. One of Number One Son’s classmates in the first grade was firmly on his way to being a sociopath, and Number 1 Son was his preferred victim. The teacher suggested that I teach my son to fight back (Milady wouldn’t let me teach my 2-for-1 solution of a kick to the privates). I knew we were leaving when I discussed the problem with the principal. I told her that I was concerned that the students knew they weren’t going to be punished. She then explained that she was very careful to explain to all of the students how coming to her office was a punishment. If you have to explain to a 7 year old that something is punishment, it isn’t. We started shopping for homeschool books that night.
My parents were a bit of a pain about it, until my sister’s little darlings started facing the same problems. Then the snide comments just stopped. (It doesn’t hurt that my two, like all Lake Wobegon children, are above average. đ )
Big Mo says: For us, the situation is very complicated. My older son is on the autism spectrum and my younger son is a juvenile diabetic. That plus a third situation that I’ll keep to myself, we simply cannot aford parochial education. Neither child wouild receive the same services in private school than they receive at the public schools.
In addition, not all public schools are bad. Here in the Midwest, we’re more “insulated” from many of the crazier things that happen to schools on the coasts.
Besides, I watch closely what they learn in school, and when necessary, provide some correction.
ModDem says: In small towns all across America there is no choice except public schools. And, in fact, many of them are pretty good. The ones in scenic Colorado mountain towns are particularly good because teachers want to live there – so it is very easy to get good teachers.
Also in California in some suburb areas the public schools have a very good reputation – outside of SF and LA in particular. The problem schools are in the inner city and poorer neighborhoods where it is tough to get good teachers and the funding is bad.
Pedro says: I have two kids in public school (4th and 2nd grade) and while I dont think the school is perfect, I think it is doing a decent job. The schools consistently score high in national tests and the overall school system does well nationally. My kids are learning the same stuff I learned as a kid and the teachers seem to be genuinely interested in the progression of them. FYI – we are just outside a major metropolitan area with a median home price of about $500K. It was much higher three years ago but . . . Thanks Chris Dodd and Barney Frank!
Public education is fine, as long as you’re willing to take the time to teach your children, and get them into reading. Public education is horrible almost everywhere, except for the premier suburban districts. Private education can only do so much, though. It’s up to parents and it’s up to the children themselves to take an active interest in learning. Given the variety of informational sources available today, there is no excuse for being ignorant, at least not in a Westernized country. I’d prefer that public schools be more accountable to local government so that charter school and private school policies that are proven to work would be more likely to be replicated. Federal involvement should be limited to standards, and perhaps helping the worst-off districts like North Lawndale in Chicago where neither private nor public schooling is an effective option.
Shannon in AZ says: I was talking with a friend the other day and she was commenting on how the teachers were saying the kids were arriving to them without their basics and they were going to not do well as a result. The example she was getting was regards math and the fact the kids didn’t know their math tables.
The problem seems to be the teachers won’t take responsibility for the students when they come to them with insufficient knowledge. What’s wrong with ‘Okay, they are missing this knowledge, let me include it in what they need?” Someone somewhere has to step up to the plate and ensure the student gets the foundation truly needed. If they keep on with “They arrived without their basics”, the situation will continue. The teachers can do something now and should instead of dwelling on what should have occurred.
Melinda P. says: ModDem, I want you to clarify that statement. Parents do have other choices than just public school. School districts are offering cyber school, where the child is getting the same education he/she would get with their peers, but from the comfort of home on a computer. Also, there is homeschooling, which is becoming more and more popular around the US as parents are becoming more and more disgruntled with the public school system.
For me, all it took was going through public school myself. I am a homeschooling parent and proud of it. I personally don’t like that the schools are teaching our children about sex ed so young. My 6 year old is not ready for that type of information. We also homeschool for religious reasons. My husband and I want our children to develop a life-long love of learning. We are willing to see how things go, and if our children would like to attend public high school that would be up for discussion someday.
My wife and I are products of the public school system. But the public school system of our day is not the public school system of today, and therefore, public school was never an option for our children.
In our day:
A. The teachers and principals had the authority to impose discipline (including, to some extent, physical measures) instantaneously, thereby providing meaningful and effective corrective feedback to straying students. Now as then, some students need such feedback [Disclosure: I, at times, was one such student.]. But now, the student is entitled to d-u-e p-r-o-c-e-s-s such as a hearing before being paddled on the posterior. The delay inherent in the process severely detracts from the effectiveness of the corrective feedback.
B. Teachers were not reticent to teach values. My parents may well have disagreed with some of the particular values taught (what with our Jewish faith amidst a predominately Christian environment), but at least there were some definitive values. Today, teachers are under great pressure to be value-neutral. The educational process is ineffective without some definitive values: whether the student and/or his/her parents choose to deviate from such values is a whole separate matter entirely.
C. In our day, schools were basically safe. There were no rent-a-cops in the hallways, and the worst weapon ever brought to one of my schools was, on one unusually egregious occasion, a switchblade knife. None of the Columbine-type firearms, etc. that we hear about so often today.
D. In our day, you didn’t have so many damn administrators. There was the Principal, a vice-principal (often with teaching duties), and the guidance counselors. The bureaucracy was more efficient, and did not lose sight of its objective to teach the children.
E. In our day, the egregiously deviant teachers were easy to get rid of. Nowadays, the fact that a teacher may be the President of the local NAMBLA chapter is irrelevant because (so say the teachers’ unions) it has nothing to do with the job of teaching.
The public school system just keeps deteriorating more and more, even the best of them. How anyone can send their kids there is difficult to fathom.
Query: Howcum the government, which is so quick to highlight the evils of monopoly power in the business and industrial sector, insists upon maintaining its own monopoly on education?
Our sons went to public school from 3rd grade on, and did well. However, I was so worn out at fighting for them to get what they needed (they were Lake Wobegon kids) that I just didn’t have it in me to fight again for their sisters, so I homeschooled both of them. We tried public school with the youngest for kindergarten, but the school seemed to be completely incapable of dealing with a child who entered school already knowing how to read.
I am a developmental education (Translation: remedial English and reading) professor in a small private college. Statistics now say that ~70% of all first-year college students will need at least 1 remedial class. In my experience, many of them need at least 3 semesters of remedial math and 2 semesters of English and reading to come close to having the skills necessary to pass college-level courses. In 15 years, I have rarely seen a homeschooled student in my remedial classes. Most of the homeschoolers in my college seem to end up on the dean’s list.
Steffen says: Some really iteresting and good comments! Thanks everyone for being open.
Now I don’t think I or my daughter “fit in” as she is going to a German public school.
Cassy I think it is unfair to label the entire public school system so bad. I know there are bad schools as well as good schools. But as far as the internation side maybe I can shed some light.
German schools are NOT as great and wonderful as the press might lead you to believe.
My daughter is in the 5th grade. She does well but is not challenged at all. I have to pick up the slack at home. No I don’t push her but I challenge her to think and solve problems.
Her school day is only 4-5 hours long. She has 70 vacation days a year. Not counting bank holidays. She started English in the 2nd grade. Was a joke. She fell asleep during that class but still got A’s. I took her to the university and she did very well on a test that showed she was well above the level being taught in her school. I was told that she had to continue in that class but her behavour needs to change??? WTF Over?? then challenge her! All kids are “equal” Yah right.
In the 3rd grade they had 6 weeks of “German History” The time between 1932 and 1948 were never covered. Now I can almost understand the decision but since my grandfather died in Germany during the latter days of WWII I decided to atleast go over the war. When she asked her teacher about it one day the teacher got upset and called me. She demanded to know why I don’t support her in teaching. This same woman who was trying to teach 25 kids English and can barely speak it herself…?
When my daughter started learning long division I noticed that she was taught differently than I was in the late 70’s (yep I’m that old) the way she learned was long and complicated. Sooooo I showed her how I learned. She loved it. She used it on a test and even though she got the answers 100% correct she still failed the test. It wasn’t done right was the only answer I got.
I could go on and on and on.
Basicly the German public school system sucks.
Should anyone like to have more information please let me know.
Cylar says: My uncle has worked in public and private education his entire adult life. He spent part of that time as a teacher at a Christian school in Romania. The environment there is similar to where it was in the US around fifty years ago…in short, similar to what Expatriate Owl describes. In Romania and other ex-Eastern Bloc countries, things are a lot simpler than in the US.
I had a similar observation when I visited a private high school in Uganda, in east Africa. The students there were sitting in conditions similar to what existed in the US around 1900. There wasn’t even any glass in the classroom window, but the 13-year-old students were all wearing clean, pressed uniforms and asking our team two-part questions on economics and current events. Stuff you’d expect to hear from university students in the USA.
I think what’s most embarrassing (and frustrating) is seeing our kids not only falling behind the students in other Western countries…but also behind the students in a lot of Third-World countries. When you mention this to educators here (like my girlfriend or my mother), they come completely unglued, like you questioned their personal integrity. Then they rattle off a bunch of rubbish about how educators in those countries don’t have to deal with the level of diversity that we have, or the layers upon layers of rules.
They’ll usually also complain about money, even though per-pupil spending is higher in the US than nearly anywhere else in the world.
Cylar says: In the 3rd grade they had 6 weeks of âGerman Historyâ The time between 1932 and 1948 were never covered.
A public school…re-writing history? GET OUTTA HERE!
/sarcasm off
It’s one thing for the German public school system to be embarrassed about the Nazi period, about being the nation most responsible for starting a world war that claimed 50 million lives. It’s another for them to pretend it never happened.
It’s a bit like us having to pretend the Vietnam War never happened…except the schools here actually enjoy discussing the antiwar movement of the time.
Cynthia says: I’ve homeschooled my 3 for 8 years. Decision was because we lived in a large city with classroom size of 35 kids per room. I thought I could give my daughter more attention (even with 2 younger siblings to distract her) and one on one tutoring to keep her learning. Its been a struggle for family acceptance, both my extended family & husband’s family have been in the public school system for years.
Now we live in another state, much better school system but still we homeschool. I’ve heard (and read in the papers) about the drug issues, STDs and other items I’d rather not have to struggle with. My children’s friends spend hours in the evening on homework, or parents spend days retraining what their kids have learned at school from peers & liberal teachers. We homeschool now because my kids would rather do other things during their day, not what the state deems they need to read & learn. I homeschool and focus on their moral developement. My kids are best friends with each other, and that’s because they are in the place they belong, at home.
Larry says: My 3 children have gone through public school with one left in school. Thankfully, even though we live in a highly populated area, we live in an area where my children go to a relatively small school district and have had wonderful experiences with the district. I live within 1 mile of Minnesota’s largest school district, ISD 11. If I was in that district, I’d take on a second job to send them to private school.
There are good public schools out there, but for every good one, I’d say there are 50 bad ones.
BobV says: But don’t you dare blame the teachers or parents for our students lack of success.
It must be that they aren’t getting funded. Right now we’re only first in the world in terms of funding, we can do better.
History shows that despite a steady trend to increase spending per student the quality of our students has been going down, so I’m pretty sure the solution is more spending.
I’m about as conservative as they come, but allow me to say a few words in defense of public schools . . . or, perhaps more accurately, public school teachers.
First, I second everything Expatriate Owl said, especially with regard to school administration. Most public school teachers I’ve met are fantastically motivated and feel hemmed in by administration. And I think the students they are given to work with make their jobs extremely difficult. When students come to school with bad attitudes and values because of their home life, the limitations noted by Expatriate Owl make it awfully hard to turn that around.
Finally, there is a factor that skews these statistics. I read a long, long time ago (hence no link), perhaps in the Wall Street Journal, that one of the reasons for the gap widening in higher grades is that in most other countries with public education, it is universal only through grade school. Even in “advanced” countries, students start to separate around the middle school level into those going on to higher education, those headed for a trade, and those headed for something else, and they branch off into different educational tracks. Only those going on to higher education (as opposed to trade school) take part in these tests. These tests, therefore, tend to pit the US’s entire school populace against the cream of the crop in other nations. Or so I hear…
Cylar says: hese tests, therefore, tend to pit the USâs entire school populace against the cream of the crop in other nations. Or so I hearâŠ
That’s an interesting theory. I haven’t heard of that before. Are you saying that a lot of students never get past 8th grade or so in these countries? That many of them already studying a trade by the time our kids are in high school?
You know, in a way that would make sense. So many high schoolers aren’t motivated to be there anyway. I remember those years quite clearly. About a quarter of my class treated the time like it was just a holding pen, a place to escape from. They didn’t want to be there. The only place they accomplished anything was in shop class…and even there the discipline problems came up frequently. What if they had some way of opt’ing out of the traditional high school setting and choosing something purely vocational instead? Would those kids have been better behaved, having made a choice rather than forced to attend high school?
Just thinking aloud.
Bob Harper says: I spend the money to put my three girls through Catholic schools. Good Lord, it’s expensive, but it’s worth every penny. The academics are important, but they’re not the only reason….
Also Cassy, thanks for the Ronnie Reagan piece. I was in tears. Thanks for making my week.
My daughter went to public schools and did well (when she remembered to turn in her homework). She knew how to read when she started. Homeschooling, unfortunately, was not an option – my wife and I divorced when my daughter was five.
Another education quote you may want to look up is in the preface to, IIRC, the Grace Report from the early 1980s, to the effect that if our system of education had been imposed on us by another country, we would consider it an act of war.
MomInAL says: I’m not the first to say it, but it’s true: Not all public schools are created equal. First of all, private school is out of the question in our family, due to cost. My son will be in 1st grade next year, and I love his school. While they still have to deal with the a lot of the bureaucracy junk, they are far more concerned with TEACHING than they are with INDOCTRINATING. (At around 300 students, they’re still small enough to get away with it, I guess.) Plus, if I find out he’s been taught anything that is incompatible with our family’s values, it’s easy enough to explain that to him. My parents did the same with my siblings and myself when we were going through public school. Public school is far from ideal, but it’s not the end of the world, either.
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