California judge says no to homeschooling

[BT]

Why do right wingers oppose public schoolteachers?

I don't oppose public school teachers. My sister is one.

What i oppose is generations of public school children who can not meet minimum standards of reading, writing and arithmetic and the litany of excuses that flow from the educational establishment as to why this is so.

I certainly oppose some judge limiting choice for parents who just want the best for their kids.

I certainly oppose the hypocrisy of issuing emergency credentials to public school teachers yet failing to offer the same considerations to those who choose to take direct control and responsibility for their children's education.

I oppose the dumbing down of america. I oppose the Harrison Bergerac method of leveling the playing field.

Hope that helps clarify my position.




 

[kimba1]

Opponents of homeschooling often say that, but I have yet to see any evidence that all or even most homeschooled children grow up without social skills.

I haven`1t seen any data on that also
But in my personel life I see problems
It`s not homeschool per se thats flaw it`s the parent who teaches them.
My 7yr. old nephew talks like a baby due to the fact he`as rarely is around other kids his age.
academicly he`s super bright,but he has no friends to hang around with to use his vocabulary and match up
I know he`s behind because my ex. son is the same age and he talks way more mature and he`s just a average boy .
social skills isn`t a great priority but it`s still important.

[Amianthus]

In Florida, the FCAT is not given to anyone except public school students. So there is no comparison between the public and private schools.

According to the FCAT site (http://www.fldoe.org/) the FCAT test can be taken by anyone, including home schooled student and those in private schools.

In addition, Florida law requires annual evaluation of all home school students by the local school district to make sure the students are achieving year to year goals. Private schools are required to be accredited by an approved accreditation agency in Florida. Part of the accreditation process involves standardized tests.

[sirs]

Why do right wingers oppose public schoolteachers?

Who the hell is saying that??  I defy Xo, or anyone else to provide quotes in context that make such a claim.  The only thing this RW'er opposes is being denied the CHOICE of a parent to send their child to Public School vs being Home Schooled.  How that equates to opposing public school teachers is beyond me

Again, the supposed "pro-choice" side advocating no choice other than theirs

[Cynthia]

Why do right wingers oppose public schoolteachers?

Who the hell is saying that??  I defy Xo, or anyone else to provide quotes in context that make such a claim.  The only thing this RW'er opposies is being denied the CHOICE of a parent to send their child to Public School vs being Home Schooled.  How that equates to opposing public school teachers is beyond me

Again, the supposed "pro-choice" side advocating no choice other than theirs

BT:

The standardized tests will set benchmarks. And that will in fact monitor the teachers as well as the home school students.
 
Ok, true.  I meant monitoring more of WHAT is taught, not how it is assessed. Sure, I realize that the home school students must and do take standardized tests, and that the parents are required to make certain their children do just that each year.
I believe public education needs to be a high priority in this country. We have every right to have decent PSchools....it's part of the infrastructure just like building roads,etc.

Currently, the private school has fewer teacher student ratio, and more....as Xavier pointed out

 Observe that even if the private schools WERE better in that their students scored higher, this is not proof of whom has the best school, because private schools get to choose who attends. They can shut out students with learning difficulties and can throw out students whose behavior is bad.

It is also true that the parents of private school students (a) have more money and (b) tend to care more about whether Junior learns. Parents who don't care will not pay extra. Wealthier parents are usually better educated than poorer ones, and that also makes a difference.



My sister took her child this past week to enroll her in a very prestigious private school here in the city.  She asked pertinent questions, insisted that her child be assessed before being placed. Normally, one would think that assessing a young 5 year old would be par for the course, but the policy of this private school is any child with a late summer birthday has to attend a pre-K. hands down!! My niece is as bright as they come. The head master of the school offered to do just that....and indeed my niece does not have to attend pre-K! But, one has to wonder why would an institution who has received blue ribbon accolades, skip the assessment part of entering school? Stay on top. Don't fail.
Ok, that's their right. So be that one, but the public schools do not have near the choices and opportunities afforded the Pr.Sc.
I think that's a shame.


Unfortunately many in the Public School system feel that it is insulting to use standardized testing to monitor themselves.

No we don't. Who said that. That never even entered my mind, BT.

Currently the standardized tests do not align with the type of curriculum that we are mandated to teach in our classrooms, BT. MANDATED!!! Scripted!
I have nothing against testing. I have nothing against competition. I have nothing against being held accountable, either.
But the government is PUNITIVE.....to the point where people are stressed to the point of not being able to do a good job. That is not right!! I don't think you realize how bad it is out here in this setting. You jump tot conclusions that we must not want to compete. . .we must not want to be held accountable...NO.

We are treated like crap! Written up for not teaching one minute after a lunch bell from recess. Written up, and warned that we better NOT DO ANYTHING BUT teach RRR's. IF we are caught teaching science, our head roll. IF a kindergarten teacher, for example, is caught letting a child experience play in an early childhood classroom....heads roll! We are on notice to produce at all costs....New reporters, letters to editors, walking into  schools and escorting the entire staff out the door...but what? For not pulling blood out of a turnip. This is not right, BT> Not right! You tend to blame the teacher each and every time this thread comes up.

YOu must see first hand the injustice that is occurring out of the need to avoid the bullet of probationary action. IT is not the same thing as being professionally held accountable for being one of those bad apple teachers....ALL TEACHERS are in the process, being treated as if they are no good.
Good teachers are not rewarded in this system either. The panic and pressure are too great.
I am all for competition...but you tend to imply that teachers are afraid...across the board?? Silly.

 Teach a special needs child. Teach her/him.
But don' require that the 'special needs' child test out at the exact same level as your wealthier, smarter kids at the same grade level. That's not possible! You can argue till the cows come home that it is possible, but your Kool-aid is ripe with blueberry juice.

The issue is who can teach and who can't. And yes, standardized testing is a good way to measure those skills. Isn't that the way the chosen are credentialed?

Sure, ONE GOOD WAY....but not the only way.
Who can teach? I would agree with XO on the truck driver comparison......

In the private school my daughter went to, there were 3 people in the administration for a school with over 20 teachers, and one of those also taught an advanced math class during one period.

Ami, true.....but why can't we attempt to fix that instead of make these ridiculous new rules....mandates to cut out quality in our PS's.
Tell me ---just why do you think your daughter's school offered such a ratio.  3:20. If it were the other way around, you bet tha would never fly with the stock holders of that school--the parents.

They would be willing and capable of fixing the problem.

I guess I am saying here that I just want that same attention paid to the public schools in this country...as a right to offer good schools as part of the infrastruture.

[Amianthus]

Tell me ---just why do you think your daughter's school offered such a ratio.  3:20. If it were the other way around, you bet tha would never fly with the stock holders of that school--the parents.

Mostly because the couldn't afford to have more administration staff. They asked for volunteers among the parents to help with office work. The public schools in that area got about three times as much money per pupil, and a large part of the difference was paid to administration staff - not to people who teach students.

[BT]

If you were a semi truck driver, and suddenly the boss came along and said :"I am going to replace some or all of you guys with guys who will work for less and have never driven a truck", what would your thoughts be?]

Your analogy is flawed. A better analogy would be the government requiring CDL's to rent a u-haul moving truck.

Public schools are funded based on average daily attendance. They (administrators, teachers and the unions that represent them) are fearful of an exodus from the public schools to more efficient and responsive alternatives.

[BT]

Currently the standardized tests do not align with the type of curriculum that we are mandated to teach in our classrooms, BT. MANDATED!!! Scripted!

Why not?

[Universe Prince]

So, instead of abandoning the system in favor of going home to learn...why not put effort into fixing the problem?

Some people are doing that, and being fought every step of the way by teachers' unions and school boards. Some folks would prefer to simply see that their child gets a better education now, rather than fight and fight for improvements that may not come for years. I don't blame them, but I wonder why you do.

In some ways the schools of the past were fine..never broken compared to today.

Schools in the past didn't have federal interference and if a child failed, he failed, none of this passing a child on to protect his self-esteem. Then again, if you back far enough, students if various grade levels were often all taught together and allowed to progress at their own speed. Which is obviously not the way things are done today. But that is really the wrong direction to look. We don't need the past. There are solutions now that can be implemented, but the battle is uphill because there is so much opposition to change.

I say don't kick us when we are already down. Help fix a broken system that can work for those who don't have the choices.

Don't tell us. Tell the teachers' unions that oppose charter schools and school vouchers and school competition. Tell the people who run the school systems that have rules in place that make firing "below average" teachers nearly impossible. Don't tell us we can fix the system. We know we can. We want to. Tell the other people to quit trying to stop us.

[sirs]

If you were a semi truck driver, and suddenly the boss came along and said :"I am going to replace some or all of you guys with guys who will work for less and have never driven a truck", what would your thoughts be?]

Your analogy is flawed. A better analogy would be the government requiring CDL's to rent a u-haul moving truck.  Public schools are funded based on average daily attendance. They (administrators, teachers and the unions that represent them) are fearful of an exodus from the public schools to more efficient and responsive alternatives.

So, would a more relevent question, taken from an earlier post be "Why do left wingers oppose home school teaching?"  Is it the competition to Public Schools, and ironically inhibiting precisely the incentive to better Public school education??

[Xavier_Onassis]

According to the FCAT site (http://www.fldoe.org/) the FCAT test can be taken by anyone, including home schooled student and those in private schools.

The operative word is CAN, not MUST.

In addition, Florida law requires annual evaluation of all home school students by the local school district to make sure the students are achieving year to year goals. Private schools are required to be accredited by an approved accreditation agency in Florida. Part of the accreditation process involves standardized tests.

There are LOTS of private schools that are not accredited and the state does nothing about it.

The only students who are required to take the FCAT are public school students.

[Xavier_Onassis]

Public schools are funded based on average daily attendance. They (administrators, teachers and the unions that represent them) are fearful of an exodus from the public schools to more efficient and responsive alternatives.
=================================================================
They may oppose an exodus, but it's not because of a "more responsive and efficient alternative".

Private schools have no collective bargaining, teachers can be fired for no reason at all at any time, and make about 3/4 or less as much as public school teachers. Florida is very nearly 50th in salaries paid to public school teachers.

I did not mean to say that all right wingers are against school teachers, but they pretty much always oppose raising salaries or any sort of collective bargaining or tenure.

I recognize that public schools in FL tend to suck. My daughter attended only the last three and one half years of public school. Te rest of her education was in private schools. The local schools she would have been assigned to were pretty awful, and we faked an address so she could go to HS in North Miami rather than Miami Northwestern, because NM was where all her friends attended. Most of them were outside the NMHS district as well.

So I am all for choice. It is really not hard to send your kids anywhere you wish if you are only slightly clever. I don't consider this unethical in the least, because any way you look at it, my taxes paid for all the schools, not just the ones in my neighborhood.

I taught at Miami Jackson for about three months, as a permanent substitute. The bureaucracy and size of the school (1500+ students) and the crappy facilities made a decent education damn near impossible.

[Amianthus]

There are LOTS of private schools that are not accredited and the state does nothing about it.

Then they are violating the law.

[Cynthia]

Currently the standardized tests do not align with the type of curriculum that we are mandated to teach in our classrooms, BT. MANDATED!!! Scripted!

Why not?

In the effort to improve public schools and make certain that every child read at grade level by 3rd grade......[ "Reading First" schools ].....have  adopted programs that have to be research based.  I like that part of the system, I do. There's nothing wrong with research based programs. Terc Investigations math, Every Day Math, Houghton Mifflin Core Reading and Harcourt Brace Core reading programs are actually a step in a terrific direction...

BUT, these programs share an equally limiting factor.....they are coupled with strict time constraints. 120 minutes to teach a reading program daily...and we better not get caught teaching anything else or losing time on task, lest we join the union...which I am not a member of nor do I want to be!
 Teaching reading also includes time for interventions. A time set aside to help those kids who need more so then you are looking at about 30+ more minutes. After PE, Library, Recess, lunch....we have enough time to squeeze in writing, which deserves another 180 minutes sometimes for these kids in the inner school.
 AND SCIENCE? That's not even in the mix.

The tests assess ALL OF THE above curriculum areas.....

Currently,our staff and administration are at a cross roads, butting heads on that very issue. We live in fear taht we will be observed not following a script that actually anyone who is trained can teach. We are brought down to the level of stepford teachers.
We just can't live in fear of teaching, but because of the constraints we sneak in good teaching whenever we can..that's reality. That's no joke.

  I am afraid more than children are left behind.....complete subject areas and critical elements that are also on the standardized tests.

No one understands that. No one seems to hear that.

The system is very broken right now...and


yet, I have hope that someday it will iron out....but, only if someone steps up and recognized that there is a problem and that we need help. I feel like I'm livin' on top of a roof in New Orleans and Katrina is bearing down fast.

I have been trying o share that problem here on the board.

This is a reality for our district..and I am sure there are others in the nation who have similar issues.


I have taught for too long to watch children cry during a test because they have not been taught the subject matter.

Ok here's an EX: math--made up of much----algorithms, fractions, geometry, and number sense etc...they are all covered on the tests.

But because we have to follow a script in this math program and the fact that we don't teach those very specifics within the math curriculum in time for the SBA test....it makes for a late Feb. test day from hell.
 Instead....in the Investigations math program, we teach  line plots, outliers, medians, data collecting, flips and turns, how to multtiply through mathematicall thinking and exploration etc...and to cover all of these areas takes at least nine months. The tests are given in Feb!!!

I like the idea of constructivist math, don't get me wrong..in fact it's a better method of teaching math to kids imo, but it's not perfectly THERE yet, either. Place value through hands on manipulatives, problems to be solved using more than one strategy...all come in the package of constructivist method...vs...behaviorist method which is memorizatiton of facts, alghorithms ...old time arithmetic.
We are taking baby steps to improve in this nation and the media tends to highlight that we are failing without really understanding what goes on on the front line.  

[Stray Pooch]

Why do right wingers oppose public schoolteachers?

We don't.  We oppose INCOMPETENT public school teachers who cannot be removed because of powerful unions.  And more importantly, we oppose MANDATED GOVERNMENT education.  We believe that private education is often better quality, in better environments, and free of government-sponsored indoctrination.  That is not to say private schools may not indoctrinate.  Indeed, Christian schools teach Christianity by definition.  It's just that we as parents get to choose which sort of values our children are taught when we get to select their schools.  We get to insure the best possible education is provided, instead of whatever the socialized education system serves up.  If we home teach, we get to be sure of what our children learn, what they are exposed to and how our children are treated.

We do not oppose schoolteachers at all.  We also do not oppose public education.  We simply oppose the government forcing us to send our kids to schools where teachers are NOT accountable and then insisting that parents must be accountable.  

I spent my whole life in a public school and my five kids attended public systems in Maryland, Georgia, Massachusetts and Virginia.  Georgia was a travesty of an education system.  I would rather have had them taught by blind monkeys.  Maryland and Massachusetts were mediocre, although a few schools in Massachusetts were pretty good.  And Massachusetts had school choice, which meant that I had three High School age kids in three different schools serving their individual needs (plus two in elementary school).  Virginia has had an excellent school system - best of the bunch actually, which surprised me.  Then again, NCLB has raised the standards so who knows how the Mass system compares now.  But with the exception of Georgia (and I was only there 6 months with two kids in elementary school) each of the systems we attended had some excellent and some useless teachers.  

What is wrong with rewarding the good teachers and dumping the bad ones?  Every other industry works that way.  And private schools and parents certainly ought to be allowed to teach our children if we so choose.  The children should be tested, to be sure, to be certain that they are learning appropriate skills for their level, but if the parents are doing the job there is no reason to force kids to go to government schools.