Please tell me our schools are better than this!

[mamabearCali]

So apparently it is perfectly fine in the great state of TX to charge 8 year olds for bus fracas with criminal charges, and 16 year olds with disorderly conduct for mouthiness to teachers. Please God, tell me that our schools here have not lost their minds and are not doing the same thing....We home school, but those who must send their children to the public schools deserve better than criminal records for their children for simple childishness.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/edu ... print.html

[allingeneral]

Unfortunately, the way I see it - this is a NATIONAL problem, not localized to certain states or localities.

Teachers don't want to be accountable for anything these days. They would rather call the law than handle a situation themselves. They would rather have a parent sign a piece of paper indicating that the parent understands that their child has an assignment than to enforce due dates themselves.

School administrators are afraid to do anything themselves because there are so many defensive parents out there who would rather sue someone than admit that their child was at fault for something.

It makes me sick. If I could afford to private or home school all of my kids, I would. As it is, I have my high school junior in private school. The next to go will be my 8th grader. I have to save them from the madness, and the sooner, the better.

[seeknulfind]

A lot depends on the school district but, overall, yes, things are that bad. Even worse - no child left behind - almost guarantees the brighter kids will sit on their hands while the teachers grovel to get those precious few who would rather be out doing dope to just do SOMETHING.

I had a kid the the STEM program last year. In his classes they put a number of low-achievers in the higher level classes in the remote hope that they would settle down and actually learn something.

It is NOT that these kids are stupid or that they can't do the work. THEY DON'T WANT TO. All they seem to care about is screwing it up for the ones who want to learn. The admins are too busy cowering to their parents to put their feet down. The whole situation is pitiful.

Joe Clark had it right - kick the dregs out of school and lock the doors.

Andy

[gunderwood]

The state only knows how to punishes criminals who break its laws, it's wholly inadequate to properly and lovingly discipline children. It's sad, but more or less expected when you practically turn over the raising of our children to bureaucrats.

[allingeneral]

The state only knows how to punishes criminals who break its laws, it's wholly inadequate to properly and lovingly discipline children. It's sad, but more or less expected when you practically turn over the raising of our children to bureaucrats.

I've never turned over the raising of my children and I take full responsibility for the people that my children turn out to be in adulthood.

This is another case of "Class warfare" within our society. Generally, those who are content with living off of government programs are more than happy to let the government raise their children.

Those of us who work our way through life, pay taxes, pay our bills and pay attention to the people that our children become are quickly becoming the minority in this country.

[gunderwood]

The state only knows how to punishes criminals who break its laws, it's wholly inadequate to properly and lovingly discipline children. It's sad, but more or less expected when you practically turn over the raising of our children to bureaucrats.

I've never turned over the raising of my children and I take full responsibility for the people that my children turn out to be in adulthood.

This is another case of "Class warfare" within our society. Generally, those who are content with living off of government programs are more than happy to let the government raise their children.

Those of us who work our way through life, pay taxes, pay our bills and pay attention to the people that our children become are quickly becoming the minority in this country.

Which is good for you and great for your kids like the OP (I have been planning to do the same with mine). It hardly seems like the norm though.

[Diomed]

Teachers don't want to be accountable for anything these days. They would rather call the law than handle a situation themselves. They would rather have a parent sign a piece of paper indicating that the parent understands that their child has an assignment than to enforce due dates themselves.

Why would they want to be? Accountability without authority is called being a patsy. They have no real way of forcing children to do anything, they can only ask. Once the little monsters figure out that nothing bad happens when they refuse - and nothing bad can happen anymore, since schools can't do anything but wag a finger, and if something's serious enough, give the kid a vacation - it becomes chaos in the classroom. There are plenty of worthless teachers, but when the system is set up to make even the good ones no better than the failures, who is to blame?

A whole lot of the fault lies with the parents, generations of them. Their perfect little angel could never screw up, it's the school's fault. No discipline, it'll harsh little Johnny's self-esteem. Don't hold little Janey back, it'll be bad for her self-esteem/social development/college transcript. No matter that Johnny can't stop hitting other students and Janey can't read. I don't know what's worse, the ones who actively undermine their kid's education or the apathetic ones who don't care what their crotchdroppings do as long as the government sends the checks and the school looks after them nine months of the year.

Public education is evil, but that's no excuse for making it even worse.

[Daholt757]

I graduated in 2008 from a public school where being white and middle class made me a minority. Other students often told me I was rich simply based on my parents owning a house with a yard. For me, high school is whatever the kids want to make of it. If a kid wants to learn, they will. Other kids acting up in class was always annoying and some teachers were better at dealing with it than others, but that won't make or break the educational experience. I believe a very important part of being in school is learning how to interact with people. Kids who go to private school, at least from my observation, seem to be slightly less well equipped when encountering people who did not originate from the same social class. This article appears to be an isolated inscident, thus it was deemed news worthy

[zephyp]

The fundamental problem with our schools (K-12 and colleges/universities) is they have been taken over by the wrong crowd...progressives, socialists, communist, racist (against white), homosexuals, etc...that coupled with the vastly progressive media is killing our country...

[mamabearCali]

I graduated in 2008 from a public school where being white and middle class made me a minority. Other students often told me I was rich simply based on my parents owning a house with a yard. For me, high school is whatever the kids want to make of it. If a kid wants to learn, they will. Other kids acting up in class was always annoying and some teachers were better at dealing with it than others, but that won't make or break the educational experience. I believe a very important part of being in school is learning how to interact with people. Kids who go to private school, at least from my observation, seem to be slightly less well equipped when encountering people who did not originate from the same social class. This article appears to be an isolated inscident, thus it was deemed news worthy

On this being an isolated incident--it was not. There were 3 incidents listed in the story and after talking with people from TX on a TX gun forum there were several others relayed to me. Apparently this is rather common though shocking.

As far as kids going to private school being less equipped to deal with others in different social strata, your peers from private school are still fairly young. I am about 10 years older than you (graduated 1998) and I can tell you that at this point you cannot distinguish between the two--if you can it is only because the private school student seems to have a better grasp on history and can write more eloquently than the public school student.

School is somewhat what you make of it public, private, and homeschooling. I have known private school students that became junkies, and I have known public school students that have become MD's. However, on the whole it is easier to learn without people swearing at teachers in class. I did ok in public schools because I was largely in advanced classes come middle and high school. Thus the kids that were strung out or had other social ills following them were not in class with me by and large. When we were it was always a pain.

[allingeneral]

The fundamental problem with our schools (K-12 and colleges/universities) is they have been taken over by the wrong crowd...progressives, socialists, communist, racist (against white), homosexuals, etc...that coupled with the vastly progressive media is killing our country...

+1 That statement is right on the money.

Someone please explain to me why I have my 7th grader coming home to me one day telling me about the "gay boy in her class"? Really? You're in 7th grade and you've decided that you're gay?

There are too many things in school that are distracting from the purpose. I try to teach my kids that going to school is their "Job". They're there to do one thing, and that's learn. I'm not trying to tell them that they can't have fun or enjoy themselves, but when the rubber meets the road, they have one purpose to be there. Forget the little gay boy 7th grader. Forget the idiot in the back of the class with his pants hanging from his knees and his underwear showing. Forget the racial tension associated with being a middle class white child minority. That's a lot to forget unless they remain very focused...it's easy to get dragged down into these issues and allow them to overtake the job at hand.

[Kreutz]

Forced integration (often at gun or bayonet-point) was the death knell of American public schools. From #1 in the world to somewhere below Papua New Guinea these days, it can be traced back to that one court decision and the corresponding busing.

[wpoppert]

Public education is a foundational element of Marxism, used as a primary tool to alienate children from their parents (after all, "it takes a village to raise a child"). My wife taught in a public school before switching over to private, and our children initially attended public school as well. They already knew how to read and do basic arithmetic before they arrived in first grade, so they were completely ignored by the teachers. It took me working two jobs in addition to my wife's job, but we pulled the kids out and put them in private school. It was a great decision and worth every bit of sacrifice.

In case anyone needs the reference, here is an excerpt from The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels:

"Abolition of the family! Even the most radical flare up at this infamous proposal of the Communists.

On what foundation is the present family, the bourgeois family, based? On capital, on private gain... But this state of things finds its complement in the practical absence of the family among proletarians, and in public prostitution.

The bourgeois family will vanish as a matter of course when its complement vanishes, and both will vanish with the vanishing of capital.

Do you charge us with wanting to stop the exploitation of children by their parents? To this crime we plead guilty.

But, you say, we destroy the most hallowed of relations, when we replace home education by social...

The bourgeois claptrap about the family and education, about the hallowed correlation of parents and child, becomes all the more disgusting, the more, by the action of Modern Industry, all the family ties among the proletarians are torn asunder, and their children transformed into simple articles of commerce and instruments of labor...

The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degree, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralize all instruments of production in the hands of the state, i.e., of the proletariat organized as the ruling class; and to increase the total productive forces as rapidly as possible.

Of course, in the beginning, this cannot be effected except by means of despotic inroads on the rights of property, and on the conditions of bourgeois production; by means of measures, therefore, which appear economically insufficient and untenable, but which, in the course of the movement, outstrip themselves, necessitate further inroads upon the old social order, and are unavoidable as a means of entirely revolutionizing the mode of production.

These measures will, of course, be different in different countries.

Nevertheless, in most advanced countries, the following will be pretty generally applicable.

1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.

2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.

3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance.

4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.

5. Centralization of credit in the banks of the state, by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly.

6. Centralization of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the state.

7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the state; the bringing into cultivation of waste lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.

8. Equal obligation of all to work. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.

9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of all the distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution of the populace over the country.

10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children's factory labor in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production, etc.

[Daholt757]

Someone please explain to me why I have my 7th grader coming home to me one day telling me about the "gay boy in her class"? Really? You're in 7th grade and you've decided that you're gay?

you say that as if being gay is contagious and that your child might catch it. I don't know of any law against being homosexual either. In all reality the kid's probably just acting out for attention but either way, when would yoju consider an "appropriate" age for someone who is homosexual to stop living in denial? I just don't understand why some people get so flustered about other people being gay. It affects no one but them so why should it bother anyone else?

[zephyp]

Someone please explain to me why I have my 7th grader coming home to me one day telling me about the "gay boy in her class"? Really? You're in 7th grade and you've decided that you're gay?

you say that as if being gay is contagious and that your child might catch it. I don't know of any law against being homosexual either. In all reality the kid's probably just acting out for attention but either way, when would yoju consider an "appropriate" age for someone who is homosexual to stop living in denial? I just don't understand why some people get so flustered about other people being gay. It affects no one but them so why should it bother anyone else?

That would be God's law sport. And a 7th grader most likely didnt make that decision all by himself. I'm sure he had plenty of help from adults in the school system and media among others. In that sense, for children who are easily led astray it was indeed probably contagious.

And, from you avatar I'm guessing you are in the military...you might want to give some serious thought about just exactly what you are "fighting" for. If you want to fight for the right of adults to make those decisions freely I'm all for you...but to include children in that equation is patently wrong and evil...

[SHMIV]

In my experience, I find home schooling to be the best option. When I was in school, I attended several different public schools, two private schools, and I was home schooled for a time.

I found that public schools tended to have too many disruptive students, and the faculty seemed to have some sort of liberal agenda.

Private schools have their own issues. Children of heavy investors, school board members, and faculty tended to get away with all manner of mayhem. Further, students with wealthy parents were harsh towards the kids whose parents tightened their belts and went without in order to send them there.