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Post by lindaw on Aug 17, 2012 16:54:38 GMT -5
Linda, it sounds like you made a very good decision for your child. Not every parent will advocate for their child like you have. You have gone that extra mile. More like the extra dollar. You have a problem with capitalism and someone earning an honest living?
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Post by lindaw on Aug 17, 2012 16:56:18 GMT -5
Linda, it sounds like you made a very good decision for your child. Not every parent will advocate for their child like you have. You have gone that extra mile. Thank you. The good thing is advocating for her will actually translate advocating for the student body at large. The kids have enough pressure on them without having to deal with the ridiculous.
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Post by herbhunter on Aug 17, 2012 17:44:18 GMT -5
More like the extra dollar. You have a problem with capitalism and someone earning an honest living? That is a non sequitur that betrays a bit of touchiness. There is nothing in my tongue-in-cheek nit picking that suggests I'm against capitalism or earning an honest living. I am, in fact, a capitalist who has argued tirelessly with communists and their sympathizers only later to have the satisfaction of seeing the Soviet Union collapse from within. I also value hard work. Furthermore, I don't see anything wrong with your having hired a consultant for your daughter's educational benefit. I commend you for it.
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Post by sordello on Aug 17, 2012 18:14:39 GMT -5
My main job as a parent is to advocate for and protect my children. In some situations, I recognize it's best not to go it alone. This is one of those times. Congrats on finding an advocate who is actually in your corner. I wonder if this consultancy is in its infancy? I suspect if it catches on and becomes lucrative, the schools may begin to infiltrate, and it won't be long before these consultants will, in reality, be advocating a particular school. Let's face it, what you are doing is trying to get good "customer service" - a thing that more and more businesses consider to be a burdensome cost (which is why you need to pay for it on your own).
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Post by blowtorch on Aug 17, 2012 19:50:31 GMT -5
You have a problem with capitalism and someone earning an honest living? That is a non sequitur that betrays a bit of touchiness. There is nothing in my tongue-in-cheek nit picking that suggests I'm against capitalism or earning an honest living. I am, in fact, a capitalist who has argued tirelessly with communists and their sympathizers only later to have the satisfaction of seeing the Soviet Union collapse from within. I also value hard work. Furthermore, I don't see anything wrong with your having hired a consultant for your daughter's educational benefit. I commend you for it. Then why the snarky comment?
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Post by naill on Aug 17, 2012 20:57:42 GMT -5
As usual, he was just setting Linda up. On other forums it is called trolling.
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Post by Holy Schist on Aug 17, 2012 21:39:30 GMT -5
That's just bizarre to me because what you described about grades, strategies, understanding college entry and guiding your kids is what most I know do as a family. Unless I don't understand it sounds like paying somebody else to do what we consider to be among the core or critical jobs you do as a family and what it appears most do in our neighborhood. Teenagers are notorious for going through a very healthy, rebellious stage. Having an objective individual involved can keep conflicts to a minimum and maximize communication. In addition, these consultants are in- touch and in-tune with college admissions directors and college admissions requirements, something I am just not an expert in. There's so much more, but I won't bore the others. It sounds to me like you feel I would rather pay someone to parent my children. How sad is it, that you would feel a need to express that. I have never been egotistical enough to think I am the 'be all, end all'. I also recognize that the public schools have an agenda all their own that doesn't benefit my daughter or any other child in the school. A consultant acts as the child's advocate in these situations, carrying a clout parents simply don't have. Reason being, is the school systems know full-well these consultants know how they function, and therefore can cut through the BS when needed. My main job as a parent is to advocate for and protect my children. In some situations, I recognize it's best not to go it alone. This is one of those times. I may have misunderstood when you said "gaming the system". I certainly understand how a children can benefit from an advocate. What you said about grading threw me off because most kids figure out thresholds. In a some cases I see the parents needing more counseling than the kids. You comment on getting 100% comes to mind along with a sibling's approach with her kids.
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Post by lindaw on Aug 18, 2012 0:31:46 GMT -5
You have a problem with capitalism and someone earning an honest living? That is a non sequitur that betrays a bit of touchiness. There is nothing in my tongue-in-cheek nit picking that suggests I'm against capitalism or earning an honest living. I am, in fact, a capitalist who has argued tirelessly with communists and their sympathizers only later to have the satisfaction of seeing the Soviet Union collapse from within. I also value hard work. Furthermore, I don't see anything wrong with your having hired a consultant for your daughter's educational benefit. I commend you for it. But there was absolutely nothing snarky about your comment
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Post by lindaw on Aug 18, 2012 0:40:18 GMT -5
Teenagers are notorious for going through a very healthy, rebellious stage. Having an objective individual involved can keep conflicts to a minimum and maximize communication. In addition, these consultants are in- touch and in-tune with college admissions directors and college admissions requirements, something I am just not an expert in. There's so much more, but I won't bore the others. It sounds to me like you feel I would rather pay someone to parent my children. How sad is it, that you would feel a need to express that. I have never been egotistical enough to think I am the 'be all, end all'. I also recognize that the public schools have an agenda all their own that doesn't benefit my daughter or any other child in the school. A consultant acts as the child's advocate in these situations, carrying a clout parents simply don't have. Reason being, is the school systems know full-well these consultants know how they function, and therefore can cut through the BS when needed. My main job as a parent is to advocate for and protect my children. In some situations, I recognize it's best not to go it alone. This is one of those times. I may have misunderstood when you said "gaming the system". I certainly understand how a children can benefit from an advocate. What you said about grading threw me off because most kids figure out thresholds. In a some cases I see the parents needing more counseling than the kids. You comment on getting 100% comes to mind along with a sibling's approach with her kids. Most kids figure out thresholds yes and we parents also teach them. You would not believe, however, the messages they receive from the school itself that attempt to nullify messages received from the parents. It's a rare kid who doesn't get confused as to what's right, what's wrong, etc. When a public school is concerned with how they rank and test scores because it's tied to their funding, the numbers game becomes important, but only for the school. The school however, has to manipulate the kid in order to get them to perform as close to perfection as possible and they do this by scaring the students into thinking getting into a good college requires X, Y and Z, when it doesn't. Because they are the school, it's easy to see how teens could feel that the schools know more in this regard then the parents because the students don't understand the politics and how it affects them.
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Post by herbhunter on Aug 18, 2012 6:00:10 GMT -5
That is a non sequitur that betrays a bit of touchiness. There is nothing in my tongue-in-cheek nit picking that suggests I'm against capitalism or earning an honest living. I am, in fact, a capitalist who has argued tirelessly with communists and their sympathizers only later to have the satisfaction of seeing the Soviet Union collapse from within. I also value hard work. Furthermore, I don't see anything wrong with your having hired a consultant for your daughter's educational benefit. I commend you for it. Then why the snarky comment? It wasn't intended as a critical or snide remark but I can now see how it could have been taken that way, especially if over the four years I've been on the forum, my propensity to be a stickler about word usage has gone unnoticed.
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Post by thedude on Aug 18, 2012 6:33:23 GMT -5
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. It looks like ours is just a little bit larger. It serves two municipalities and a hand full of townships. What does that mean? Ours serves three different municipalities as well.
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Post by thedude on Aug 18, 2012 6:38:05 GMT -5
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. I suggest watching the specific legislation before being too excited about it and realize it's an area where unions have an appropriate roll. So far in this state the laws drafted and not yet passed have not addressed the superb teachers who work with kids that can't be measured in conventional ways. Your comment doesn't address my statement. I said I'm for higher salaries for better performance, and you're referring to legislation that doesn't do that. I'm confused.
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Post by naill on Aug 18, 2012 6:38:57 GMT -5
Then why the snarky comment? It wasn't intended as a critical or snide remark but I can now see how it could have been taken that way, especially if over the four years I've been on the forum, my propensity to be a stickler about word usage has gone unnoticed. Are you not familar with "gaming"?
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Post by thedude on Aug 18, 2012 6:46:07 GMT -5
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. The only problem is that what your best is today may not be your best without "gaming the system" as Linda wrote. IOW, focusing on what you can do well and being successful is different and more strategic than trying to do your best. The two are not the same. There is a baseball book out about this fellow who figured out the stats that best contributed to winning games which had nothing to do with what the public comes to see necessarily. They made this into a movie and stared Brad Pitt, but I can't remember the title. Anyway, it had nothing to do with doing your best. I was getting the right people on the bus. You're referring to Money Ball. If the system is broke, then I think it makes even more sense to just do your best and move on instead of tilting at windmills. So, my point is that if the school is pressuring kids to take a bunch of AP classes, has a hyper focus on getting everyone into college, and allows too much homework, then my opinion is that the school isn't doing what it should be doing. In Linda's case, I don't see her as gaming the system (even though those were her words), but instead using the consultant to navigate a broken system so her kids can get what they need out of it.
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Post by thedude on Aug 18, 2012 6:48:49 GMT -5
No, not yet. I am not a real big sports fan. I'm not much of a baseball fan, and my wife has no clue about sports, and she liked the move (and not just because Brad Pitt is in it.) She and I both liked it very much, actually. I wouldn't write it off as just another sports movie. Give it a view. Yeah, it's a good movie for sure. Pitt does a good job and I don't think he even takes off his shirt in this one. I like baseball a lot, so I might have gotten some of the humor a bit more than a non-fan, but the movie ultimately isn't about baseball but about people.
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