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Post by lindaw on Aug 16, 2012 6:32:28 GMT -5
My daughter is not interested in doing either. I'd send her to private in a heartbeat. And now that I've taken the veil off the utter crap that goes on via the administration, it's only fair that they have to answer to their own ineptitude. I am just saying that in the end, you daugher, not the system will be affected most. IOW, you can fix the system and fail the child for all your efforts. Agreed. My daughter is a great student and doesn't want to be singled out. The educational consultant will help her fine-tune where her efforts need to be, how not to overstudy, etc. He told her to strive for excellence, not perfection, and how to do that. She was stressing herself out in areas where she could relax a bit. He also is guiding her on when to take APs (school pushing them as early as Sophomore year), when to take honors, and more importantly, when not to. His role re: the school is to keep them honest and focused.
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Post by Holy Schist on Aug 16, 2012 7:42:27 GMT -5
I'm aware of what you say and the abuse that goes on by some who don't realize it. I don't know what the solution is. Seems like it would make sense to rethink the whole idea of grouping kids together by age instead of ability. Seems like that would be a better use of resources and it would put kids in an appropriately challenging environment. Even that could be tricky. My daughter's the youngest in her class. Now we see that's probably why she was behind int he earliest years. Now at middle school she's on fire with success and I'm sure girls maturing earlier has something to do with it. My boys are 45 minutes apart. One works his butt off to get to average, the other is a bum who usually tests 1 - 4 years ahead of his age or peers. As much as parental involvement goes, of course that's important but I see it overdone too. Some of these young people I described in the work place have or had helicopter parents and the sorts of tutors Linda described and have problems from it. I'll say everything in moderation?
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Post by thedude on Aug 16, 2012 8:29:34 GMT -5
I don't know what the solution is. Seems like it would make sense to rethink the whole idea of grouping kids together by age instead of ability. Seems like that would be a better use of resources and it would put kids in an appropriately challenging environment. Even that could be tricky. My daughter's the youngest in her class. Now we see that's probably why she was behind int he earliest years. Now at middle school she's on fire with success and I'm sure girls maturing earlier has something to do with it. My boys are 45 minutes apart. One works his butt off to get to average, the other is a bum who usually tests 1 - 4 years ahead of his age or peers. As much as parental involvement goes, of course that's important but I see it overdone too. Some of these young people I described in the work place have or had helicopter parents and the sorts of tutors Linda described and have problems from it. I'll say everything in moderation? I more than agree that parents can provide too much of a good thing, but I was talking about the average or under performing school and not one in an affluent area where the parents are heavily involved already. We live in one of those areas as well and I'm very cautious about what our son will do in school and extracurricularly (sp?). He seems like a better than average student, so he does well in school, but I don't want to pressure him with expectations that he needs to get into one of the "best schools." If he did get into Harvard, fine by me, but I think the education he would get at a state school would be just fine. As far as the age thing works, it sounds like my idea would have worked for your kids because they would have excelled and advanced at their own pace. Your daughter, for example, wouldn't have had to compete with older kids for all those years when she was younger. Same thing with your boys - the one who doesn't have to work as hard should probably have different peers if he is ahead of them. Like him, I could do well in school without trying very hard and all that got me was poor study habits that I eventually had to overcome in college. So, what I'm saying, is that we need to rethink who we put together in the classroom. Right now, it's done arbitrarily by age, and then those groups all engage the same material at the same pace and advance to new material together (as they go from 1st to 2nd grade then to 3rd, etc.). While that material might be suitable for the "average second grader," it's no more suitable for students that struggle any more than it is for students that aren't challenged enough. In response, the schools exhaust their limited resources trying to meet the needs of these two groups via special ed and gifted/talented course work. On top of that, at least in a school like my son's, we have about 5 or 6 teachers doing the exact same thing for each grade level. That's why I'm thinking it might make sense to have kids go through some kind modularized system where they move from one level to the next at a more natural pace. By modules, I mean broken up by subject, so that each kid would do the "fraction module" when they are ready for it. Something like that. For example, my son started taking private piano lessons in the spring. He seems to do well, and I think that it's mostly because he enjoys it and has a good teacher. Each week, he gets new "assignments" based on what the teacher thinks is appropriate, and not based on some arbitrary schedule designed by someone who decided that the average student should be at such and such place at a certain time. That's the kind of approach I think we should consider for public schools.
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Post by herbhunter on Aug 16, 2012 8:53:48 GMT -5
...We live in one of those areas as well and I'm very cautious about what our son will do in school and extracurricularly (sp?). ... Rest assured that the spelling is correct!
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Post by cakes on Aug 16, 2012 13:50:38 GMT -5
The way I see it, the public schools systems are paid for by the city/county taxes. The Republicans get elected by promising not to raise taxes so the public schools are not properly funded. All this doesn't bother the politicians who send their kids to private school. There is a misconception that more funding = quality education. Funding is necessary, but better management and administration coupled with increased localized control are necessary as well. John
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Post by sordello on Aug 17, 2012 1:45:01 GMT -5
The way I see it, the public schools systems are paid for by the city/county taxes. The Republicans get elected by promising not to raise taxes so the public schools are not properly funded. All this doesn't bother the politicians who send their kids to private school. There is a misconception that more funding = quality education. Funding is necessary, but better management and administration coupled with increased localized control are necessary as well. John Very true that. Which is why whenever stories about huge salary or bonus increases for top executives hits the news, that old canard about "you have to pay more for better quality candidates" is shown to be a false argument. After all, no one seems to mention paying teachers more money to get "better teachers" do they?
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Post by naill on Aug 17, 2012 6:11:53 GMT -5
I am just saying that in the end, you daugher, not the system will be affected most. IOW, you can fix the system and fail the child for all your efforts. Agreed. My daughter is a great student and doesn't want to be singled out. The educational consultant will help her fine-tune where her efforts need to be, how not to overstudy, etc. He told her to strive for excellence, not perfection, and how to do that. She was stressing herself out in areas where she could relax a bit. He also is guiding her on when to take APs (school pushing them as early as Sophomore year), when to take honors, and more importantly, when not to. His role re: the school is to keep them honest and focused. How did he or she distinguish between perfection and excellence? I like that but am interested in their concept.
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Post by herbhunter on Aug 17, 2012 6:42:41 GMT -5
I'm curious as to the consultant's fees.
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Post by Holy Schist on Aug 17, 2012 6:44:53 GMT -5
The way I see it, the public schools systems are paid for by the city/county taxes. The Republicans get elected by promising not to raise taxes so the public schools are not properly funded. All this doesn't bother the politicians who send their kids to private school. There is a misconception that more funding = quality education. Funding is necessary, but better management and administration coupled with increased localized control are necessary as well. John I am not sure what you mean by increased local control. School boards are local control, and they can choose to not take state or federal funding if they don't like the strings attached. Something people forget or don't realize with funding is how organized and powerful interests for some kids are. For generations kids with problems went to the state, or Kennedy family as a perfect example went to a private institution they funded and influenced. There were big changes after the parents of kids with problems organized and became significant special interests. The beliefs of how much power the unions hold on a local district also need to be considered. The local of the same larger union in my current small city holds considerably less power than they do in area communities because as a whole this community has more people who shut up, put up and stand up instead of bitch. Both of engaged community and a good union local have done a really good job facing the cuts known around here as Fitzwalkerstan. I think the whole country would do better with some more of what we do here, and by coincidence we call ourselves "the good neighbor city".
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Post by lindaw on Aug 17, 2012 8:53:59 GMT -5
I'm curious as to the consultant's fees. Similar to a therapists, about $100/hour. For that you get a wealth of knowledge and really practical tips that work, as well as an advocate for the kids.
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Post by lindaw on Aug 17, 2012 9:00:23 GMT -5
Agreed. My daughter is a great student and doesn't want to be singled out. The educational consultant will help her fine-tune where her efforts need to be, how not to overstudy, etc. He told her to strive for excellence, not perfection, and how to do that. She was stressing herself out in areas where she could relax a bit. He also is guiding her on when to take APs (school pushing them as early as Sophomore year), when to take honors, and more importantly, when not to. His role re: the school is to keep them honest and focused. How did he or she distinguish between perfection and excellence? I like that but am interested in their concept. Good question. He told my daughter since her school grades on a letter system, not a number system, in the end the transcripts going to colleges will be A, B, C, etc. Since an A in her school is a 94 and above (90-93 being an A-), he asked her why she was concerned about getting 100% on everything. He said that was an example of being a perfectionist. Instead, excellence is when you take your workload and decide how you can achieve the A, without overworking to get the 100, since in the end, a 95 is an A as well. He asked her to consider where can she cut corners in the interest of time management, as that is what real life is like. Another example. My son is horrible at foreign language. The effort he would need to get even a solid B would diminish his other grades. So last semester, he got 4 As and a C in French. The consultant said this is much better than getting a B in French at the expense of other grades because you can put right in your application that your have difficulties with for foreign language and your grades will support that. Colleges get that people aren't good at everything. What this guy does to perfection is what I call 'gaming the system', i.e. figuring out the psychology of how things work and learning how to be more effective as a result.
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Post by thedude on Aug 17, 2012 9:04:14 GMT -5
There is a misconception that more funding = quality education. Funding is necessary, but better management and administration coupled with increased localized control are necessary as well. John Very true that. Which is why whenever stories about huge salary or bonus increases for top executives hits the news, that old canard about "you have to pay more for better quality candidates" is shown to be a false argument. After all, no one seems to mention paying teachers more money to get "better teachers" do they? Many people who are in favor of education reforms are very much in favor of paying teachers bonuses and higher salaries for good performance. I'm all for it, by the way.
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Post by thedude on Aug 17, 2012 9:14:39 GMT -5
There is a misconception that more funding = quality education. Funding is necessary, but better management and administration coupled with increased localized control are necessary as well. John I am not sure what you mean by increased local control. School boards are local control, and they can choose to not take state or federal funding if they don't like the strings attached. How many schools are in your district? We have 9, including 1 high school, 2 middle schools, and 6 elementary schools. Being a small district not only allows it to be more flexible, it also means that there is much less overhead than in one of the big unified school districts. So, in our case, there is considerable local control. Our district also pays teachers in the upper ranges of the area, but it not really that much more than other districts for comparable experience. It gets good teachers because it's a good school system and had its pick of the local talent. I'm not sure about the particulars of the teaching contracts, but TX is a right to work state, so teachers don't have to join a union and I doubt that most of them choose to join one. They also have 1 year contracts that the school can choose to renew each year. I'm guessing a lot of that is based on performance. Teachers, of course, can hop around to new districts if they want to without losing anything. That gives both the teachers and the schools a lot of flexibility, just like in other fields where talent comes and goes for a variety of reasons.
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Post by thedude on Aug 17, 2012 9:19:24 GMT -5
Agreed. My daughter is a great student and doesn't want to be singled out. The educational consultant will help her fine-tune where her efforts need to be, how not to overstudy, etc. He told her to strive for excellence, not perfection, and how to do that. She was stressing herself out in areas where she could relax a bit. He also is guiding her on when to take APs (school pushing them as early as Sophomore year), when to take honors, and more importantly, when not to. His role re: the school is to keep them honest and focused. How did he or she distinguish between perfection and excellence? I like that but am interested in their concept. Well, the cub scout motto is 'do your best'. I think that is a good starting place. I expect my son to do his best in school, and I expect him to get good grades because he's a smart kid. But, I don't expect perfect grades. I want him to enjoy his life, both during his school years and beyond, and having a single-minded pursuit of perfection is a very unhealthy approach, IMO.
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Post by cakes on Aug 17, 2012 11:16:37 GMT -5
There is a misconception that more funding = quality education. Funding is necessary, but better management and administration coupled with increased localized control are necessary as well. John I am not sure what you mean by increased local control. School boards are local control, and they can choose to not take state or federal funding if they don't like the strings attached. Something people forget or don't realize with funding is how organized and powerful interests for some kids are. For generations kids with problems went to the state, or Kennedy family as a perfect example went to a private institution they funded and influenced. There were big changes after the parents of kids with problems organized and became significant special interests. The beliefs of how much power the unions hold on a local district also need to be considered. The local of the same larger union in my current small city holds considerably less power than they do in area communities because as a whole this community has more people who shut up, put up and stand up instead of bitch. Both of engaged community and a good union local have done a really good job facing the cuts known around here as Fitzwalkerstan. I think the whole country would do better with some more of what we do here, and by coincidence we call ourselves "the good neighbor city". What I mean by "increased local control" is the actual elimination of the federal Department of Education. John
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