If you want a job done right, you can either do it yourself, or hire a professional. I imagine that most people would hire someone to fix their car AC, for example. Is educating your child more or less important or complicated than a car AC? I'd say teaching the kid is both more complicated and more important. Most people have someone else do their income taxes, which I have found is not hard at all using software on the PC. I'd call this less complicated and more important than educating a child as well.
American schools are a long ways from the best, compared with schools in Europe and Japan.
The way we run schools, with elected schoolboards staffed by non-professionals results in out students knowing considerably LESS than students the same age in the Netherlands, Scandinavia, France, Switzerland and Germany, just to name a few countries that outdo us.
There should be SOME supervision over parents who wish to homeschool their children, They should have some degree of preparation evident. Perhaps the parents need to pass some sort of exam.
One of the reasons that the schools in France are better than those in the US, is that they have a predictable and consistent plan of action from year to year to year. Their system pulls no surprise punches on the community, the educators, or the parents andchildren. The expectations of all involved remain consistent with high standards year after year after year....
The parents know what is expected of the student from year to year. The teacher has a solid plan from year to year. The students are aware of exactly what is expected of them from year to year. Progress!
In our school system, we mess with the tangles in the hair so damned much that wearing a wig is required to walk into the society!! We tend to cover the mistakes the system is responsible for creating, by blaming those very teachers who have had to endure such comb outs. Some of the educators in the system are bad apples...but NOT ALL. We blame on a daily basis. Schools ON THE NEWS for minor things....like recently in our own city....a speech therapist doesn't get to service a child for just three hours...and she is sued. When in fact, the lack of the three hours comes down to interruptions like assemblies, and other things principals require. But no one looked at that as the reason..the speech therapist is blamed and better make up the hours.
A school fails to service a bi-lingual program by a mear two hours...and it is ON THE NEWS.. my god!
Change(and not positive changes for the most part) are the only consistent things we can expect from year to year in US schools. I suppose that is par for the course to get on course in any system overhaul.
And of course, change is a good thing; but when there is a turn over of board members and superintendents year after year...... sometimes within the school year.....When there are curriculum switch-a-roos year after year sometimes month after month....when there are demands that teachers become highly qualified by taking a magic bullet test, or a one credit hour in math even if those veteran teachers after having taught for years and well....those types of changes do more harm than good. Inconsistent and damaging to moral, etc. The cure does not fit the illness.
While, I agree that changes are necessary in order to improve schools, it is also damaging when not done right.
The flip flopping of individuals who have the final say in a matter...i.e. board members, superintendents, make for a dysfunctional system if the child has to bear the brunt.
So you ask yourself.....are the French people better educated than we? Or...Do are they better prepared because they have been able to sustain growth through consistent best practices as a whole system?
More intelligent is not necessarily the outcome of such a system.
NCLB is a good idea. Sure, there I said it..... I have always believed we need such an act to find that sense of consistency ...why? who the hell wants to LEAVE A CHILD BEHIND?
But, I also say that the way we are going about it has a lot more to do with politics than brilliant educators who know and have studied education and who are at the very top of the system ---guiding it into port.
But, we are headed in the right direction at least. I have a better feeling about the whole thing. If we can get through the storm, we might find that consistency and stay the course, if we don't throw the teachers who are good...out with the bathwater. The fear of being good enough is backfiring and leaving some children not only behind but scrambling to learn....THUS HOME SCHOOLING..Who in their right mind wants a child to go without all that can be offered in education? I wouldn't want that for my child. I would want my child to have a well rounded education.
But, I do have to admit, I feel more hopeful that through time we might see a solid base for educating our young people in the PS. I hope. My biggest gripe is that we have had to throw out several vital subjects to make room for three basic subjects..."reading, writing and arithmetic".
When I started teaching, the curriculum included everything. Everything. Perhpas we have cleaned the chalkboard to start over? One step at a time? Bring in the jazz later? Well, god I hope so...or we will see very dysfunctional, culturally and artistically challenged beings in our society.
