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Post by thedude on Aug 18, 2012 6:51:45 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 think that makes good sense.
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Post by Holy Schist on Aug 18, 2012 7:43:16 GMT -5
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. Legislation proposed where I am penalized teachers who work with kids who cannot be measured in conventional ways. I'm for the idea of incentives for performance otherwise. Pay based on performance would have been great for most of wife's career. In past few years she's had high school kids with grade school reading, mental illness, criminal records, kids that physically act out, kids that to be honest are making progress if they make it to the school and through a day without a physical incident. Kids who don't go home to anything that resembles a family or order as we might know it. I think it's great that she took the challenge to work with them but legislation proposed here would hurt the courageous teachers who work with the worst.
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Post by thedude on Aug 18, 2012 8:02:22 GMT -5
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. Legislation proposed where I am penalized teachers who work with kids who cannot be measured in conventional ways. I'm for the idea of incentives for performance otherwise. Pay based on performance would have been great for most of wife's career. In past few years she's had high school kids with grade school reading, mental illness, criminal records, kids that physically act out, kids that to be honest are making progress if they make it to the school and through a day without a physical incident. Kids who don't go home to anything that resembles a family or order as we might know it. I think it's great that she took the challenge to work with them but legislation proposed here would hurt the courageous teachers who work with the worst. I think one of the unfortunate canards about performance based teacher pay is that good performance must somehow mean having students do well on some kind of standardized test or otherwise measure up to their peers elsewhere. That would never work, but it's the type of ruse used by those who are against performance based pay. The real merit of a performance based system is that it should entice and reward people like your wife who are willing to take on the tougher assignments. Most large districts have both good and bad schools, so teachers naturally want to work at the good schools, and those who are interested in tackling the harder problems don't have any real incentive other than their personal motivation. In a normal profession, those who do the easier jobs aren't generally paid as well as those who have the talent and skill to excel in the tougher ones (within the same field).
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Post by naill on Aug 18, 2012 10:34:32 GMT -5
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. If I understood her explaination of the pursuit of excellence versus perfection, it is a type of game, and in a healthy/positive sense. Her daughter is able, via the coach/consultant, to have success, the essense of gaming, using the purpose of coaching.
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Post by donalgdon on Aug 18, 2012 11:09:50 GMT -5
The funny thing about "good" schools and "bad" schools is that the good ones today are on par with what the bad ones were ten years ago. The slide continues.
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Post by thedude on Aug 18, 2012 12:20:36 GMT -5
The funny thing about "good" schools and "bad" schools is that the good ones today are on par with what the bad ones were ten years ago. The slide continues. There is a lot to be cynical about public education, but that's just nonsense.
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Post by naill on Aug 18, 2012 13:31:09 GMT -5
The funny thing about "good" schools and "bad" schools is that the good ones today are on par with what the bad ones were ten years ago. The slide continues. There is a lot to be cynical about public education, but that's just nonsense. The fact is, you could not be more wrong. It is a mess and the teachers understand it better than anyone. The only thing that keeps them in public service are the benefits.
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Post by donalgdon on Aug 18, 2012 15:57:03 GMT -5
The funny thing about "good" schools and "bad" schools is that the good ones today are on par with what the bad ones were ten years ago. The slide continues. There is a lot to be cynical about public education, but that's just nonsense. Yeah, okay. So, tell me about the two decades you spent in the inner city schools in the US. What was it really like teaching there? In my second decade, I got out of the public system, the unions, leaving the guns, violence, drugs, etc. that had become a progressively larger part of my experience. How did you turn it all around? I'd like to read your book. If you haven't written it all down yet, you should. My first contract was in an alternative school, filled with "students" who were removed from their home schools after being suspended and/or expelled so often that this was the end of the line. All of them were violent offenders, drug dealers/users, gang members, etc. I slowly made my way through the system transferring to the "better" schools, and my last job was in the "best" school in the district. The year I left, there were two shootings on the campus, three stabbings and 14 drug related arrests. That's wit h school resource officers on the campus. Later that year, the mayor decided to cut funding for the school resource officers and the police were reassigned to neighborhood patrols and various other duties. I'm curious to know what you did to solve these problems. Please, correct my "nonsense."
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Post by thedude on Aug 18, 2012 19:55:59 GMT -5
There is a lot to be cynical about public education, but that's just nonsense. Yeah, okay. So, tell me about the two decades you spent in the inner city schools in the US. What was it really like teaching there? In my second decade, I got out of the public system, the unions, leaving the guns, violence, drugs, etc. that had become a progressively larger part of my experience. How did you turn it all around? I'd like to read your book. If you haven't written it all down yet, you should. My first contract was in an alternative school, filled with "students" who were removed from their home schools after being suspended and/or expelled so often that this was the end of the line. All of them were violent offenders, drug dealers/users, gang members, etc. I slowly made my way through the system transferring to the "better" schools, and my last job was in the "best" school in the district. The year I left, there were two shootings on the campus, three stabbings and 14 drug related arrests. That's wit h school resource officers on the campus. Later that year, the mayor decided to cut funding for the school resource officers and the police were reassigned to neighborhood patrols and various other duties. I'm curious to know what you did to solve these problems. Please, correct my "nonsense." Oh, please. You made a ridiculous statement that you can't support, and now you're beating your own drum as a distraction about what you really said. The reality is that no matter how bad many public schools are, they aren't all bad. Both imwjl and I have already explained that our kids go to good public schools. Even if these were the only two good schools in the country, your statement wouldn't stand. Considering that they aren't, the foolishness of your statement is only emphasized. So, if you want to make a point about how bad some public schools are, go ahead, but just be fair about your statement and don't try to pretend that all of them have declined in the past decade. You have good experience that legitimizes many of your points on teaching, so don't ruin it with such blanket statements that are obviously inaccurate.
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Post by donalgdon on Aug 18, 2012 20:15:04 GMT -5
I was speaking in general terms, yes, it was an accurate statement based on actual experience. The trend in US schools (particularly in the inner city) is downward, and thankfully there are those rare few which are bucking the trend.
Can we not be honest?
Really, I think the fear of speaking the truth is part of what keeps the downward spiral in place. Nobody wants to stand up and say something about it, probably because it's an unpopular message.
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Post by thedude on Aug 18, 2012 22:27:56 GMT -5
Only you would claim that nobody wants to stand up and say anything about the public school system in a thread about complaining about a public school.
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Post by donalgdon on Aug 18, 2012 22:47:17 GMT -5
That's not what I mean. I AM saying that nobody in power wants to do it.
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Post by naill on Aug 19, 2012 4:42:07 GMT -5
The reason even good schools are less today is because teachers today must deal with increasing family dis function, substance abuse, and moral laxity while maintaining no child left behind.
The reason no one in power wants to say anything is because you cannot get elected by focusing on morality and questioning the diagnosis of ADHD for an increasing population of children and their parents.
Linda has apparently found a way to make PE work for her children, but it takes this type of parental involvement to assist the system. Anyone leaving the system to work for them and not be involoved is a fool, even for those in affluent communities.
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Post by thedude on Aug 19, 2012 8:16:50 GMT -5
That's not what I mean. I AM saying that nobody in power wants to do it. That's not what you said, but if it's what you meant, fine by me. The next question then is who you are referring to by 'no one in power.' I recall that Obama actually had a performance based pay system that had mixed reviews.
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Post by thedude on Aug 19, 2012 8:35:18 GMT -5
The reason even good schools are less today is because teachers today must deal with increasing family dis function, substance abuse, and moral laxity while maintaining no child left behind. The 'lax morals' argument is vague and has been made as long as we have a written history of humankind. The myth of the golden age and all that... I wouldn't know if substance abuse is more now than in the past, so I can't argue that point. I'm sure we have more information about it, though, and I assume that more drugs are available to kids than when I was in school. When I was a kid (I'm 47 now), kids started smoking pot in the 7th grade. I remember starting junior high and all of a sudden there were all these 'stoners' (as we used to call them). Alcohol use was much less than pot (pot was cheaper and easier to get for kids), at least until high school and even then, there were rare cases where kids drank alcohol during school hours. Lots of weekend drinking, of course. I heard rumors of cocaine use but never saw anyone use it. My high school was kind of middle class to lower middle class, so most kids probably couldn't afford it. I never heard of anyone doing anything else, with the possible exception of mushrooms or speed, but it certainly wasn't popular. This would have been in the late 70s and early 80s, and I think most of the kids of my generation and where I lived had older siblings or knew older people who had done the hippie thing in the 60s. I grew up close to Berkeley, so there were lots of those people still around (still are!), and I think that for many of us (me, definitely), we made the connection between doing drugs and what it can lead to.
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