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The public schools suck thread.

Jose said:
I asked you about where you live now. You responded with an anecdote about schools where you used to live.

And there is NFW that I am going to believe that you, living right in the middle of f-ing Boston cannot find more than one example of private school tuition.
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I used the location where I've spent a majority of my life because I know about it, and it's where I went to high school. I'm not familiar with the private schools in the Boston area. But I'm not sure why it should matter what location we're discussing, since we're not just talking about public versus private education in Boston.


Look, I think this conversation has been played out. I've presented what I see as the good things about public school (provides an education to all kids, regardless of their parents wealth and/or idiocy). Everyone else has presented the negatives of public education (no competition means they're often not very good, and they take money from everyone to run them). My ideal would be a mix of pros of both systems. If kids whose parents can't afford private schools could be guaranteed an education through decreasing costs, charitable donations, and/or scholarships, that would solve the problem as I see it.

But good posts like "the cost of private schools would likely decrease as competition goes up, making it more likely that poor families could afford them, plus the tax burden of paying for public schools would be eliminated, making it easier still" were rare is the sea of "idiot, thanks for outing yourself as a socialist and a statist." I don't know how people think they'll ever convince anyone of their side like that, but I promise, it won't happen. Maybe some civility is in order, even when you disagree with someone.
 
goofycj7 said:
Trinity Catholic Academy in Southbridge is $3,100 per student per year.
http://www.trinitycatholicacademy.org/admissions-and-general-information/180-tuition-
If you search around there are less expensive private schools around and they need students. My sister has worked at private schools for four years, one school closed, one downsized and she starts #3 this month.

There are plenty of teachers applying for all of these positions even with the lower pay and no union.
Click to expand...

not everyone wants a religion based education....
 
There is also the option of home schooling. I have multiple friends that have done this. One has a son entering Princeton this year.

[Sarcasm on]
Yup.....effing a Princeton from being home schooled in Indiana. Yeah, seriously...that ivy league one in NJ.

But get this......he didn't get a break on his taxes and still had to pay into the public school system....can you believe that?????
[sarcasm off]
 
derek said:
Not all private schools are religious. [thinking] Next.
Click to expand...
Not only that, my personal experience is that, provided you research your school, aren't going to be militant about their religion...

Frankly, in many school districts, its a pretty easy choice between religious and political dogma - all things considered.

If I have to chose between indoctrination to religion and indoctrination to socialism - I'll take the religion in a heartbeat - even if it is not my chosen faith...

I say this as someone who attended both private (of multiple denominations) as well as public school.
 
derek said:
Not all private schools are religious. [thinking] Next.
Click to expand...

I was calling more into question using a religious school as an example of affordable education, there are better, non religious picks out there to make the point.

I went to catholic high school and I loved it. If I can afford it, my kids will go as well when the time comes.
 
cekim said:
Not only that, my personal experience is that, provided you research your school, aren't going to be militant about their religion...

Frankly, in many school districts, its a pretty easy choice between religious and political dogma - all things considered.

If I have to chose between indoctrination to religion and indoctrination to socialism - I'll take the religion in a heartbeat - even if it is not my chosen faith...

I say this as someone who attended both private (of multiple denominations) as well as public school.
Click to expand...

Agree...went to Catholic HS 83-87 as a non Catholic and found it had morals based classes compared to hardline religion classes.
 
Flyer007 said:
Agree...went to Catholic HS 83-87 as a non Catholic and found it had morals based classes compared to hardline religion classes.
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Not only that, but in many cases, the theology classes are pretty well contained in courses about theology... Might see some bleed over into the literature, but your math course is going to be about math, and your science course is going to be about science...

By contrast, many of the socialist public schools have grading and tracking systems that expose you to their dogma in every course... If no one fails, no one can succeed...
 
Timber said:
My wife and I actually went down that road when we finally got fed up with the bullshit the public education system had to offer. My oldest was in 4th grade when we pulled our three school aged kids out and took a crack at it ourselves.

We've cherry picked different curriculums, and helped set up a small charter school. It's expensive as hell, and our lives are pretty much dedicated to educating our children properly. In the first year alone they went from 60% on their year end CATs to 99%, and have been there ever since. It's also given us the opportunity to have them spend time in foreign countries, at events and museums they wouldn't necessarily visit, etc., if it were left up to the schools, and it's allowed them to flourish and pursue interests that wouldn't have been fostered by the public system.

And you can spare me the socialization arguement. My kids are take part in, and excel at more extra-curricular activities than 90% of public school kids. They're better mannered, and more socially acceptable than just about any public school kid I meet. ( Despite my best efforts to turn them into ruffians and scalliwags.[smile])
Click to expand...

It's continued stories like yours that make us think about this for our two........Congrats on your families success!!
 
Timber said:
My wife and I actually went down that road when we finally got fed up with the bullshit the public education system had to offer. My oldest was in 4th grade when we pulled our three school aged kids out and took a crack at it ourselves.

We've cherry picked different curriculums, and helped set up a small charter school. It's expensive as hell, and our lives are pretty much dedicated to educating our children properly. In the first year alone they went from 60% on their year end CATs to 99%, and have been there ever since. It's also given us the opportunity to have them spend time in foreign countries, at events and museums they wouldn't necessarily visit, etc., if it were left up to the schools, and it's allowed them to flourish and pursue interests that wouldn't have been fostered by the public system.

And you can spare me the socialization arguement. My kids are take part in, and excel at more extra-curricular activities than 90% of public school kids. They're better mannered, and more socially acceptable than just about any public school kid I meet. ( Despite my best efforts to turn them into ruffians and scalliwags.[smile])
Click to expand...

I'd like to hear a little more about this, as we'd like to do something similar when we have kids.
 
Unfortunately in NH it would require a constitutional amendment since the court read something in it that isn't there
[Art.] 83. [Encouragement of Literature, etc.; Control of Corporations, Monopolies, etc.] Knowledge and learning, generally diffused through a community, being essential to the preservation of a free government; and spreading the opportunities and advantages of education through the various parts of the country, being highly conducive to promote this end; it shall be the duty of the legislators and magistrates, in all future periods of this government, to cherish the interest of literature and the sciences, and all seminaries and public schools, to encourage private and public institutions, rewards, and immunities for the promotion of agriculture, arts, sciences, commerce, trades, manufactures, and natural history of the country; to countenance and inculcate the principles of humanity and general benevolence, public and private charity, industry and economy, honesty and punctuality, sincerity, sobriety, and all social affections, and generous sentiments, among the people: Provided, nevertheless, that no money raised by taxation shall ever be granted or applied for the use of the schools of institutions of any religious sect or denomination. Free and fair competition in the trades and industries is an inherent and essential right of t he people and should be protected against all monopolies and conspiracies which tend to hinder or destroy it. The size and functions of all corporations should be so limited and regulated as to prohibit fictitious capitalization and provision should be made for the supervision and government thereof. Therefore, all just power possessed by the state is hereby granted to the general court to enact laws to prevent the operations within the state of all persons and associations, and all trusts and corporations, foreign or domestic, and the officers thereof, who endeavor to raise the price of any article of commerce or to destroy free and fair competition in the trades and industries through combination, conspiracy, monopoly, or any other unfair means; to control and regulate the acts of all such persons, associations, corporations, trusts, and officials doing business within the state; to prevent fictitious capitalization; and to authorize civil and criminal proceedings in respect to all the wrongs herein declared against.
Click to expand...
 
Timber said:
My wife and I actually went down that road when we finally got fed up with the bullshit the public education system had to offer. My oldest was in 4th grade when we pulled our three school aged kids out and took a crack at it ourselves.

We've cherry picked different curriculums, and helped set up a small charter school. It's expensive as hell, and our lives are pretty much dedicated to educating our children properly. In the first year alone they went from 60% on their year end CATs to 99%, and have been there ever since. It's also given us the opportunity to have them spend time in foreign countries, at events and museums they wouldn't necessarily visit, etc., if it were left up to the schools, and it's allowed them to flourish and pursue interests that wouldn't have been fostered by the public system.

And you can spare me the socialization arguement. My kids are take part in, and excel at more extra-curricular activities than 90% of public school kids. They're better mannered, and more socially acceptable than just about any public school kid I meet. ( Despite my best efforts to turn them into ruffians and scalliwags.[smile])
Click to expand...

Do their PE classes include range time? [wink]
 
i was in the class with slow kids because when we first moved to MA, people felt like they could play jokes on me when they didn't know me. so i'd beat them sensless with dodge balls, sticks and my fists.

then they figured out i was smart and could actually read, i just needed to channel my energy in a more positive way. so they put me back in the normal classes and i became a pack leader...

[rofl]


eta: it was Harrington Elementary School in Lynn, MA

Alumnai. [rockon]
 
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I get its true then ...you dont come out the way you came in. My family is from the City Of Sin..I .lived there and worked there for ten yrs.
 
@ Timber, et al

As a public school history teacher and gun owner, I'd like to make a couple observations about your comments (and those of others) thus far in this thread, and your experience at home schooling your children. First, I applaud your family's efforts and obvious successes. However, you and your wife have had the the greatest impact on the behavior and discipline of your children, far outweighing the negative social impact of their peers at a public school. Every parent I've ever worked with who deeply cared had successful kids, and the inverse is likewise true. If I was in a situation where I thought my son was being harmed by uncontrolled youths or by a malicious educator or system (Provincetown, for example) I too would seek alternatives. But my family is not as financially fortunate to be able to afford that option without jeopardizing our future, and I do thank you for recognizing that not everyone is. Thankfully, my wife and I had the forethought to select a community that had a decent public school system to provide my children with a range of opportunities.

However, I can't stand the several comments made by many in this thread casting a wide net upon all public educators as mouthpieces of socialism; myself and many of my peers are conservative, and what's more, most teachers I know view the discussion of politics in the classroom as the most crucial time for the educator to leave his opinion in check. The ridiculous examples highlighted in the media, like the knuckleheads at Dennis-Yarmouth, are newsworthy precisely because they are so far from the norm.

Additionally, deciding that public education is prima facie evidence of socialism is so outrageous it hurts my head. My tax dollars go to a police force that has never protected me and a fire department that has never rescued me and for roads in town I never drive on, but I am bright enough to appreciate that maintaining all those services is a good thing. At the very least they contribute to whatever my property value might still be, thanks to the actions of REAL socialists like Barney Frank. If my willingness to participate in a social contract lumps me in with the whackos who believe in that sort of thing, then cast my lot with them. Their names include Thomas Jefferson.

Of all the services a modern civilized nation can provide to its people, a free public education is among the most vital. It was never intended at its creation to compete with the best private schools, nor by too many proponents of it today to produce 100% matriculation into higher education. I wholly agree that this country needs more manufacturing and production, and therefore more skilled trades to service those industries, but that is a much larger problem that public schools have not been the evil mastermind of. The irony in all this is that the recent trend in more liberal history education has been to highlight the personal experiences and tribulations of America's working classes, not just the dead white guys on our money from our ruling classes. They are precisely the stories, of a people downtrodden by a system set up to keep them down, that if our students knew more about and could identify with, could enlighten them to really get involved in politics and make informed choices at the ballot box and change the way the system operates.
 
bigbo said:
However, I can't stand the several comments made by many in this thread casting a wide net upon all public educators as mouthpieces of socialism; myself and many of my peers are conservative, and what's more, most teachers I know view the discussion of politics in the classroom as the most crucial time for the educator to leave his opinion in check. The ridiculous examples highlighted in the media, like the knuckleheads at Dennis-Yarmouth, are newsworthy precisely because they are so far from the norm.
Click to expand...
I know there are good teachers out there - I've met them and there are some on this forum.

That said, what you must recognize is that many who express this concern about our public schools having become the "mouthpiece of socialism" (myself included, obviously) is that we are not making this observation based solely on textbook/classroom content, though I can point to many examples where this is the case - history books and the stated progressive agenda to teach "government as a force of good," but rather the entire system.

As students first and now parents we see a progression over the decades from rewarding success and punishing failure, to a focus on "self esteem, independent of performance" (again the stated agenda of progressive educators).

BTW - the two key quotes above ("self esteem" and "government as a force of good") come from a debate on NPR over the Texas school book content a few months back. I am not making them up...

We see classrooms with efforts, curriculum and resources shifting violently toward trying to bring the bottom 1/3rd of the class up while the top 2/3rds wait around. We see by any objective measure (test scores) since the Federal Government got involved in schools that the bottom has come up a little, but the top and middle have fallen. We see grade inflation attempting to avoid punishing bad performance with bad grades. We see behavioral science thwarting "normal" but less desirable conflict (as an important emotional development).

At the collegiate level we see institutions foregoing grades all-together. We see entrance based on "diversity" and things other than (and in spite of) performance. The collegiate level is a cess-pool of liberal programming with some of the most radical mouthpieces of socialism being retained and promoted to positions of influence within our universities.

This is a system that has, at every level, abandoned the idea of a meritocracy. Kids see this. They aren't dumb. Early on, while the primary education system is refusing to give them grades, their natural competitive spirit has them grading/ranking themselves despite the schools attempts to stop or hide relative performance. Eventually though, they learn that extra effort is not rewarded and failure is not punished and they revert to playing the game. Amassing social and political credentials in place of grades indistinguishable from their peers to get into college.

Much like the socialist systems we see around the world - when it comes to what you can get - its not what you do, but who you know...

You may be trying your best to teach objectivity and fight the tendency of the texts to push a liberal/progressive agenda, but you are being drowned out by EVERY facet of this system...

This is the true evil of socialism: that that support it think they are promoting "fairness" and "justice". Those who tolerate it cannot see that they are being used by it. Those that oppose it are silenced....
 
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cekim said:
I know there are good teachers out there - I've met them and there are some on this forum.

That said, what you must recognize is that many who express this concern about our public schools having become the "mouthpiece of socialism" (myself included, obviously) is that we are not making this observation based solely on textbook/classroom content, though I can point to many examples where this is the case - history books and the stated progressive agenda to teach "government as a force of good," but rather the entire system.

As students first and now parents we see a progression over the decades from rewarding success and punishing failure, to a focus on "self esteem, independent of performance" (again the stated agenda of progressive educators).

BTW - the two key quotes above ("self esteem" and "government as a force of good") come from a debate on NPR over the Texas school book content a few months back. I am not making them up...

We see classrooms with efforts, curriculum and resources shifting violently toward trying to bring the bottom 1/3rd of the class up while the top 2/3rds wait around. We see by any objective measure (test scores) since the Federal Government got involved in schools that the bottom has come up a little, but the top and middle have fallen. We see grade inflation attempting to avoid punishing bad performance with bad grades. We see behavioral science thwarting "normal" but less desirable conflict (as an important emotional development).

At the collegiate level we see institutions foregoing grades all-together. We see entrance based on "diversity" and things other than (and in spite of) performance. The collegiate level is a cess-pool of liberal programming with some of the most radical mouthpieces of socialism being retained and promoted to positions of influence within our universities.

This is a system that has, at every level, abandoned the idea of a meritocracy. Kids see this. They aren't dumb. Early on, while the primary education system is refusing to give them grades, their natural competitive spirit has them grading/ranking themselves despite the schools attempts to stop or hide relative performance. Eventually though, they learn that extra effort is not rewarded and failure is not punished and they revert to playing the game. Amassing social and political credentials in place of grades indistinguishable from their peers to get into college.

Much like the socialist systems we see around the world - when it comes to what you can get - its not what you do, but who you know...

You may be trying your best to teach objectivity and fight the tendency of the texts to push a liberal/progressive agenda, but you are being drowned out by EVERY facet of this system...

This is the true evil of socialism: that that support it think they are promoting "fairness" and "justice". Those who tolerate it cannot see that they are being used by it. Those that oppose it are silenced....
Click to expand...

Brilliantly stated![thumbsup]
 
I have an acquaintance that just received his Ma teachers license for K-2. He would tell me stories during his trip through Ma state college. The one I liked the best was when he told me about today's lesson--"You may not call your students boys and girls"??? I asked why after my shock subsided. Well, you can't "tell" your students what sex they are, they must figure it out for themselves!!!??? I also learned through my friend that Ma teachers have no latitude to what they teach. They must teach the state curriculum. When the classroom door is closed the teachers can go their own way to a point but in the end it's the Ma curriculum that counts. I asked him if what is to be taught is so tightly regulated by the state then how come Ma teachers need to be so credentialed with masters degrees required within 5 years after initial license? He could not give me an answer. He continued to say that the education required was not necessary and that a person with a fraction of the education could teach the class because the program is so predetermined that basically all you need to do to teach it is read it off the page.

I agree that Ma schools most definitely have a progressive socialist agenda.
 
cekim said:
The collegiate level is a cess-pool of liberal programming with some of the most radical mouthpieces of socialism being retained and promoted to positions of influence within our universities.
Click to expand...

This... As a college student this is extremely true. The scariest part of it is the students around me who have been programmed not to question what professors say, and take statements of opinion and register them as facts. All they know how to do is memorize and have no critical thinking skills (a symptom of the Public school system).

It makes it much more difficult when over 70% of your grade is based on writing assignments, essay form tests, and class participation that is graded on a subjective scale determined by the professor who does not appreciate you questioning the ideology that he/she is preaching. But makes it all that much more rewarding when you do get good grades.

I have made it a point to try to take as many classes with associate professors(part time professors) who have other jobs outside of the College. I avoid PHd in Educations professor morons like the plague.

PS: Parents make sure you are reading your kids text books and homework assignments you might be shocked at what is being put in your children's heads.

Disclaimer: I have had great great teachers in my years and by no means am I condemning all teachers I am condemning a system that is based on personal politics and not results. An organization with little or no accountability, incentives nor reprimand breeds mediocrity.
 

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