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I have a question for our regulars, and of course, nobody has to answer this...totally up to you.
I am curious if you:
a. currently have children in the public school system
b. had children in the public school system in the past
c. never had kids in the public school system
d. have or had kids in private schools
e. why are you a "regular" in this part of the forum
I'll be happy to answer. B. My children attended public schools K-12, graduating within the last 10 years.
Why are I here? Combination of:
a. Some years ago my employer recognized the risk to our national competitiveness, esp in STEM compared to our international competitors. It funded STEM outreach programs, provided labor hours to support education outreach activities (very broadly defined so there was a lot of opportunity), and encouraged volunteers to be outreach coordinators.
b. At near the same time my professional association(s) recognized the same risk in STEM and developed outreach programs to educators. I was the local coordinator for the last 15 years or so.
c. As my kids progressed through school during an era of NCLB, Common Core, and other "improvements" I saw the following:
1) How much the school system became obsessed with what the school scored on the standardized tests rather than with how well the students learned.
2) Classroom teachers more focused on bringing the bottom up than on maximizing the rest of the class. How "gifted" was seen as a nuisance to be "put in the corner to color" (ok figure of speech. Actually, put on a computer to occupy themselves) so the teacher could focus on the bottom performers.
3) How few classroom teachers, esp at the middle school and high school levels really understood the key basics of the "hard" math based sciences (physics & chemistry) and math. Part of the "leaky pipeline" for STEM students.
During that time, I have been a member of several groups as well as city committees (nonpartisan, volunteer due to limitations of the Hatch act) related to STEM education at k-12, as well as trying to bring higher education resources to the community.
I'm here because I had hoped to find other individuals interested in improving outcomes, esp in STEM.
I have a question for our regulars, and of course, nobody has to answer this...totally up to you.
I am curious if you:
a. currently have children in the public school system
b. had children in the public school system in the past
c. never had kids in the public school system
d. have or had kids in private schools
e. why are you a "regular" in this part of the forum
Again, obviously, no one is required to answer.
A. No
B. Our son attend roughly 2.2 years of public schooling (K into 2nd grade).
C. See B.
D. Our son attend 2-12 private and our daughter K-12 private.
E. My wife and I were both very focused on education for our kids and ourselves. Now the same per our grandkids where appropriate. As such I remain interested.
I'll be happy to answer. B. My children attended public schools K-12, graduating within the last 10 years.
Why are I here? Combination of:
a. Some years ago my employer recognized the risk to our national competitiveness, esp in STEM compared to our international competitors. It funded STEM outreach programs, provided labor hours to support education outreach activities (very broadly defined so there was a lot of opportunity), and encouraged volunteers to be outreach coordinators.
b. At near the same time my professional association(s) recognized the same risk in STEM and developed outreach programs to educators. I was the local coordinator for the last 15 years or so.
c. As my kids progressed through school during an era of NCLB, Common Core, and other "improvements" I saw the following:
1) How much the school system became obsessed with what the school scored on the standardized tests rather than with how well the students learned.
2) Classroom teachers more focused on bringing the bottom up than on maximizing the rest of the class. How "gifted" was seen as a nuisance to be "put in the corner to color" (ok figure of speech. Actually, put on a computer to occupy themselves) so the teacher could focus on the bottom performers.
3) How few classroom teachers, esp at the middle school and high school levels really understood the key basics of the "hard" math based sciences (physics & chemistry) and math. Part of the "leaky pipeline" for STEM students.
During that time, I have been a member of several groups as well as city committees (nonpartisan, volunteer due to limitations of the Hatch act) related to STEM education at k-12, as well as trying to bring higher education resources to the community.
I'm here because I had hoped to find other individuals interested in improving outcomes, esp in STEM.
I've been a regular on this forum since I joined. Long-time members know that I talk too much!
I
a. do not currently have children in the public school system.
b. had 2 children in the public school system in the past.
d. had 1 kid in private school enrolled a year early for k-1. She transferred to public for second grade and remained until graduation.
A bit of elaboration on our family and our local schools: My kids were the fourth generation to attend public schools in our town. For most of that time, our public schools were at or near the top of all schools in the state. I was the only generation in five that did not become a doctor. My great-grandfather was the first dermatologist in the state. The public schools were good enough for his son to become a doctor, for his grandson to become a doctor after attending Yale to learn Chinese for the Air Force, for me to get a choice internship in computer science at the Johnson Space Center, and for my daughter to become a pediatric intensive care doctor with one year left on her fellowship.
That leads me to ...
e. I taught as a conscious political act. Although the schools I attended were among the best in the state, I very rarely learned anything at school. I liked school, but I would have loved to have been taught at the pace that I learned, which would have required that my parents notice that my needs were not being met. The only intervention to provide me with an appropriate education came on the Monday of the sixth week of first grade, when I was abruptly placed into a second grade class for which I was prepared in reading, but not in arithmetic. Despite having standardized test scored off the charts, no one ever made any effort to talk to me about my studies, college, or my future. Once my father had died during my freshman year in high school, I was left with no one to provide any guidance whatsoever. I went to the college across the street where everyone else had gone, and where my grandfather had been the college physician. By a fluke, I got the position at JSC.
After I left the internship at NASA, again, due to lack of guidance, I became interested in what was being done for gifted children, and I briefly served as the State Gifted Children Coordinator for Mensa. While attending the National Association for Gifted Children conference, I had no answer for the numerous people who wanted to know my credentials. Other than having been a gifted child, I had none, so I decided that if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself. I re-enrolled in college with the intention of teaching for a few years before going back again to do something more in line with my potential as a tech professional.
Life happens, and the seven year target turned into a 36 year career, mostly teaching French at an inner city high school for 29 years. But there were stints along the way at the high-income school in the district, as well as the alternative school for expelled students. There were times that I taught math along the way. About ten years ago I decided that I really didn't like the way that public education was being turned into fodder for the educational testing industrial complex and the students were being turned into data points. So I enrolled in a master's program in computer science that was cut short by a life-threatening illness. I returned to teaching French until the pandemic hit.
After having developed a serious respiratory condition caused by contaminants in the school--black mold, asbestos, and airborne fecal bacteria, the prospect of contracting Covid-19 before an effective vaccine was available made me determined not to be among the fondly remembered teachers that were dropping like flies all over the country. When the assistant superintendent threatened to terminate me if I did not go back into the building without a vaccination, I decided that it was time that I took my expertise and went elsewhere.
Two weeks after I retired, I enrolled in a web development coding academy taught by a former colleague. After graduation, I did contract work before returning to the academy as a junior instructor. I don't make much money, but there is no stress teaching adults, and my pension, though small, makes things manageable.
I miss teaching so much that I dream about it frequently. However, there are strong disincentives to going back into the classroom. I did my best to help kids and their families break the cycle of generational poverty, which I consider a most worthy accomplishment. I met two former students last week at a job fair where I was taking our coders. One, a former colleague as well, thanked me, telling me that I had done so much for my students. The other, a former hellion, had graduated from college with a degree in psychology, after also having studied French.
To know that I am partially responsible for creating taxpayers from children whose families had received more than their fair share from other taxpayers makes me feel that I have made a small but significant contribution to our country. To know that I have helped share the world with children whose own experience was sometimes limited to a small patch of a burned-out hull of a city makes me feel that I have helped them see a world that they could venture into intrepidly, or even just vicariously, while teaching them everything I could within the context of learning to speak French and the various francophone cultures. To know that I was a white person who moved comfortably in a community where most white people feared to go allowed my to fulfill my childhood purpose that Dr. Martin Luther King inspired in me at the age of 8 when he was assassinated--to break down the barriers that we have created amongst ourselves to hem in the wrong people so that the right people don't have to see them. Unfortunately, like digging a hole at the beach, the efforts made are quickly washed away by time and tide, and we see that in the renewal of divisions between public and private schooling for our children.
As I said, I taught as a political act. My message: You deserve the same quality of education as Malia and Sasha Obama, whose parents paid $40K+ for each of them to attend school. My state and district provided just over $9K each at the time that I left. Sidwell Friends has probably gone up significantly since then.
The two things about public education in the United States that I would change are: 1) I would ensure that there were no poor schools, only well-funded schools for every child, even children who come from poor families, and 2) I would ensure early childhood education for every child whose family wants it beginning at age two, with staffing by people with degrees in the subject and not just a part-time program staffed by people with just a diploma or GED like Head Start.
When children are 50% behind on their first day of kindergarten, the odds are stacked so much against them that it is no wonder that many never catch up. When children are being raised by other children, rather than being reared by competent, caring adults who provide nurturing and guidance, important developmental milestones in language and social development are missed and the individual may never be able to reach them.
Our country is stronger with happy, healthy, well-educated children. I am at a loss to see that so many Americans still believe that we can be a great nation when we deny the blessings of liberty to so many of our children.
I've been a regular on this forum since I joined. Long-time members know that I talk too much!
I
a. do not currently have children in the public school system.
b. had 2 children in the public school system in the past.
d. had 1 kid in private school enrolled a year early for k-1. She transferred to public for second grade and remained until graduation.
A bit of elaboration on our family and our local schools: My kids were the fourth generation to attend public schools in our town. For most of that time, our public schools were at or near the top of all schools in the state. I was the only generation in five that did not become a doctor. My great-grandfather was the first dermatologist in the state. The public schools were good enough for his son to become a doctor, for his grandson to become a doctor after attending Yale to learn Chinese for the Air Force, for me to get a choice internship in computer science at the Johnson Space Center, and for my daughter to become a pediatric intensive care doctor with one year left on her fellowship.
That leads me to ...
e. I taught as a conscious political act. Although the schools I attended were among the best in the state, I very rarely learned anything at school. I liked school, but I would have loved to have been taught at the pace that I learned, which would have required that my parents notice that my needs were not being met. The only intervention to provide me with an appropriate education came on the Monday of the sixth week of first grade, when I was abruptly placed into a second grade class for which I was prepared in reading, but not in arithmetic. Despite having standardized test scored off the charts, no one ever made any effort to talk to me about my studies, college, or my future. Once my father had died during my freshman year in high school, I was left with no one to provide any guidance whatsoever. I went to the college across the street where everyone else had gone, and where my grandfather had been the college physician. By a fluke, I got the position at JSC.
After I left the internship at NASA, again, due to lack of guidance, I became interested in what was being done for gifted children, and I briefly served as the State Gifted Children Coordinator for Mensa. While attending the National Association for Gifted Children conference, I had no answer for the numerous people who wanted to know my credentials. Other than having been a gifted child, I had none, so I decided that if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself. I re-enrolled in college with the intention of teaching for a few years before going back again to do something more in line with my potential as a tech professional.
Life happens, and the seven year target turned into a 36 year career, mostly teaching French at an inner city high school for 29 years. But there were stints along the way at the high-income school in the district, as well as the alternative school for expelled students. There were times that I taught math along the way. About ten years ago I decided that I really didn't like the way that public education was being turned into fodder for the educational testing industrial complex and the students were being turned into data points. So I enrolled in a master's program in computer science that was cut short by a life-threatening illness. I returned to teaching French until the pandemic hit.
After having developed a serious respiratory condition caused by contaminants in the school--black mold, asbestos, and airborne fecal bacteria, the prospect of contracting Covid-19 before an effective vaccine was available made me determined not to be among the fondly remembered teachers that were dropping like flies all over the country. When the assistant superintendent threatened to terminate me if I did not go back into the building without a vaccination, I decided that it was time that I took my expertise and went elsewhere.
Two weeks after I retired, I enrolled in a web development coding academy taught by a former colleague. After graduation, I did contract work before returning to the academy as a junior instructor. I don't make much money, but there is no stress teaching adults, and my pension, though small, makes things manageable.
I miss teaching so much that I dream about it frequently. However, there are strong disincentives to going back into the classroom. I did my best to help kids and their families break the cycle of generational poverty, which I consider a most worthy accomplishment. I met two former students last week at a job fair where I was taking our coders. One, a former colleague as well, thanked me, telling me that I had done so much for my students. The other, a former hellion, had graduated from college with a degree in psychology, after also having studied French.
To know that I am partially responsible for creating taxpayers from children whose families had received more than their fair share from other taxpayers makes me feel that I have made a small but significant contribution to our country. To know that I have helped share the world with children whose own experience was sometimes limited to a small patch of a burned-out hull of a city makes me feel that I have helped them see a world that they could venture into intrepidly, or even just vicariously, while teaching them everything I could within the context of learning to speak French and the various francophone cultures. To know that I was a white person who moved comfortably in a community where most white people feared to go allowed my to fulfill my childhood purpose that Dr. Martin Luther King inspired in me at the age of 8 when he was assassinated--to break down the barriers that we have created amongst ourselves to hem in the wrong people so that the right people don't have to see them. Unfortunately, like digging a hole at the beach, the efforts made are quickly washed away by time and tide, and we see that in the renewal of divisions between public and private schooling for our children.
As I said, I taught as a political act. My message: You deserve the same quality of education as Malia and Sasha Obama, whose parents paid $40K+ for each of them to attend school. My state and district provided just over $9K each at the time that I left. Sidwell Friends has probably gone up significantly since then.
The two things about public education in the United States that I would change are: 1) I would ensure that there were no poor schools, only well-funded schools for every child, even children who come from poor families, and 2) I would ensure early childhood education for every child whose family wants it beginning at age two, with staffing by people with degrees in the subject and not just a part-time program staffed by people with just a diploma or GED like Head Start.
When children are 50% behind on their first day of kindergarten, the odds are stacked so much against them that it is no wonder that many never catch up. When children are being raised by other children, rather than being reared by competent, caring adults who provide nurturing and guidance, important developmental milestones in language and social development are missed and the individual may never be able to reach them.
Our country is stronger with happy, healthy, well-educated children. I am at a loss to see that so many Americans still believe that we can be a great nation when we deny the blessings of liberty to so many of our children.
This is going to sound patronizing and silly. Regardless, I admire you because your words and intentions ring honest and true.
That said we cannot help people and yes kids who do not want help. Kids from our worst funded schools are trounced academically by kids from second world emerging economies that receive far less funding.
At the end of the day we either take kids away from crappy parents or we simply deal with uneducable - or close - kids.
I'd much rather, and in fact do, invest/give money to cancer and neurophysiology research than waste the same on kids in say Baltimore who are in many cases unsalvageable academically. I use Baltimore with intent.......a city with some of the worst K-12 public school outcomes and Johns Hopkins is incongruous to me.
I'll close with this. It isn't my fault or your fault. However, at least you had the guts to really try.
...
That said we cannot help people and yes kids who do not want help. Kids from our worst funded schools are trounced academically by kids from second world emerging economies that receive far less funding.
At the end of the day we either take kids away from crappy parents or we simply deal with uneducable - or close - kids.
I'd much rather, and in fact do, invest/give money to cancer and neurophysiology research than waste the same on kids in say Baltimore who are in many cases unsalvageable academically. I use Baltimore with intent.......a city with some of the worst K-12 public school outcomes and Johns Hopkins is incongruous to me.
I'll close with this. It isn't my fault or your fault. However, at least you had the guts to really try.
Except I've seen kids who seemed "lost" who turned things around when someone reached out.
And, frankly, you exaggerate the academic performance of kids from "second world" economies. It's still very much an individual thing, kid by kid. No one -- unless they are mentally retarded or something of similar import -- is "uneducable". At least not for a good teacher. When you have a kid you had in middle school come in on high school graduation day and they say, "You changed my life", it makes it all worthwhile.
Except I've seen kids who seemed "lost" who turned things around when someone reached out.
And, frankly, you exaggerate the academic performance of kids from "second world" economies. It's still very much an individual thing, kid by kid. No one -- unless they are mentally retarded or something of similar import -- is "uneducable". At least not for a good teacher. When you have a kid you had in middle school come in on high school graduation day and they say, "You changed my life", it makes it all worthwhile.
1. Agreed. I've seen kids, usually boys, turn it around. Although in all cases but one the improvement happened from 12 into college.
2. PISA test results make your second point difficult to accept. If money beyond certain thresholds really mattered NY and DC would be lapping the country in K-12 outcomes and they do not. More broadly Luxembourg should the clear and easy worldwide #1 it isn't even close.
I have a question for our regulars, and of course, nobody has to answer this...totally up to you.
I am curious if you:
a. currently have children in the public school system
b. had children in the public school system in the past
c. never had kids in the public school system
d. have or had kids in private schools
e. why are you a "regular" in this part of the forum
Again, obviously, no one is required to answer.
A. Currently have children in the public school system
D. Had kids in private school (and likely will in the future for university)
E. I don't know if you'd call me a regular, but I feel education (not necessarily through our glorified baby sitting K-12 system, or often pay-to-play university system) is something that can never be taken away from an individual and the cornerstone for self-development, critical thinking, being a responsible human/adult, etc.
Quote:
Originally Posted by EDS_
I'd much rather, and in fact do, invest/give money to cancer and neurophysiology research than waste the same on kids in say Baltimore who are in many cases unsalvageable academically. I use Baltimore with intent.......a city with some of the worst K-12 public school outcomes and Johns Hopkins is incongruous to me.
Johns Hopkins does try to create outreach programs for Baltimore, just as I see other schools, like MIT for Boston, Rice for Houston, etc. That being said, I more strongly support Hopkins trying to do a little to support gifted education.
The university isn't the local area, just like "relatively" high ranking Collin County schools aren't SMU, UT-Dallas, etc.
A parent (or other relative, etc.) is concerned with the influence they have, not by the destructive influence of mass culture, tribalism, group (lack-of) think, etc. Everyone needs to work within their means in spite of outside influences, and try to improve probabilities. It's great that my daughters have gotten to know world champions, people on Team USA, etc., in addition to some individuals going to "highly ranked" universities, but at the end of the day, I can't say "education" is really supported in any society or culture.
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