Public Schools Suck!!! (Page 1 of 2)

You also have to be careful if you're going to be at war with the school - and especially with specific teachers - because while they can't get *you*, they can (and very well may) target and single out your daughter.

Your best bet is strength in numbers. Gather up as many other parents as you can to back you up.  Form a group.  If it gets intolerable enough, start requesting meetings.  Do they still have a PTA/PTO in schools these days?  If so, air your concern there, in a public forum in front of everybody....and again with as many people backing you up as possible.  Become a snowball rolling down a mountain.  Not in a crazy way.  In a low key, "I'm not going to tolerate this" stubborn standoff sort of way.

Let me ask you this? Do you have kids?If so any in school? Sounds to me like you didnt do well in school and have something against kids that do get good grades.  There's also the kids that COULD do well in school but dont because of behaviour problems.  Sorry you had that bad experience of not being "put on a pedastal" because you werent an honor student. I was in school in the '60's and early 70's. I was miserable the whole time. I hated school, but not for the same reasons my kid does.  I wasnt inferring that my daughter and her friend were any better because they were honor roll students. . My daughter  is who she is. I cant change the fact that she gets good grades.  I have NEVER pushed her about her grades or that she had to be better than anyone else. She is a good kid  and does well in school. In fact she had some kids harassing her last year because of that. Is that fair either? She came home and said she didnt want to get good grades because of those girls. As far as Im concerned, all school does is teach the kids that are good and successful in school is how to be a good employee for some big corporation. Keep in line,dont rock the boat, do as your told and strive really hard to make someone else lots of money while you try and make your bills.  Same with college. Unless you have a specific profession in mind, most people will end up working hard to make someone else rich, after they spend all that time and money in college and the rest of their lives paying off the loans.  And the kids that dont do well are doomed to living hand to mouth. They teach our childeren NOTHING about surviving in the real world.
As far as the whole story. The math teacher had split the kids off into groups to study math problems. One of my daughters friends was in the group with her. Her freind wasnt helping and so my daughter jokingly told her "you suck". Another kid in the group told the teacher and the teacher yelled at her in front of the class and then had another student walk her to the office. Yes, it might of been inappropriate, but the teacher could of handled it in a better way in stead of making a big deal about it.  You might not think it was out of line for the teacher, but its MY kid and I do. This teacher is not well like by the kids at all, in fact they are all afraid of her. I get the feeling from the principle that parents call about her all the time. My father, my brother, my 2 sisters and my brother-in-law are all teachers. I cant imagine any of them treating their students the way this woman has been treating hers. But you know"kids nowadays" are so horrible that we have to really crack the whip! Pleeeeze!
You dont have sympathy about the shorts? Well, you try being a single mother and keep you daughter who is growing a foot a month in clothes. My friends daughter was not dressed inappropriately, and to have people in the halls confront kids and say," put you hands down, your shorts dont come to your fingertips, go to the office!". These are 11yr olds!!!  Back to the old ,"dont break the rules, act like robots". Uniforms? Talk about making the conformity complete!!! Not only do you have to think alike, we are going to make you LOOK alike too.
Public schools today are a farce. The Carnegie and Ford Foundations pour millions of dollars into public education and rewrite history to their specifications.  And then schools impose more restrictions on the teachers and students because of the uniformed and ignorant knee-jerk reaction to the percieved terrorism and dangerouse students that are in our midst.

Ah, well, I could use the love today!!!! So thank you, and sent back at you!

anything that i can use to feel good, i love to learn

FYM...Yes, my daughter was also put in a GATE program. Honestly, I dont think she is any more gifted and talented than her other friends. I think it just labels them. The only thing I have seen the program do is load her down with more homework, which I dont think kids should be given to begin with. Here in Virginia, the students and schools are saddled with the Standards of Learning (SOLS, us parents call it the shit out of lucks) tests on a yearly basis, which determines state and federal funding for the schools. The teachers are forced to race thru their curriculum to try and make sure the kids are prepared for the SOLS. It is such a waste of time.

Hi Treehugger! I hope you're having a better time with the school year.  I know this thread is a little old, but I came across it and had to respond.

Reading this thread just reinforced my joy at commiting to homeschooling!  I knew public schools were getting bad, but come on...It wasn't that locked-down when I was in school. Still, I hated the school system. I did well, but that's because it was expected of me (by Mom), and I loved to learn. I just didn't like being there around a bunch of kids who I felt alienated from (pardon the pun).

I wanted to quote something Lyra said, but not all the posts are shown on this page and there's no arrow or second page link to take me to them.  But I just wanted to comment on the sentence about PTAs.  I have an old friend whose kids are in ps, and she told me that it's no longer called the PTA. The teachers threw some hubbaloo and got it turned around to read TPA. But yeah, it's still there, just called something different.

I liked dylanfarms response. It's an ideal way for kids to learn. But realistically, that will only happen with homeschooled children until a LOT of aware parents get together and do something about the situation in the public system. I can't see that happening really. They would likely get shot down (figuratively) by the government.  The system is just the beginning of the Matrix, then comes college, and on to the corporate world. They want all the kids in one tidy box to keep them controlled. It (public school) was formed during the early days of the Industrial Revolution when they needed to churn out a bunch of conformist and factory workers. They have yet to change the way they teach kids to correspond to the way our society has changed.

They only way out is homeschooling. Seriously. Unfortunately, some states have really stringent rules about hs-ing, so it's not always easy to get around the red tape. I'm lucky, in that my state is one of the easiest to perform this type of education for our kids. The rules are in the 'minimum' category. They don't have to do yearly tests for the Nazis; the requirement is that they must be ABLE to pass the testing in the grade for which they would fall into by age if they were in the system. NO problem there!  My boy would be in kindergarten this year according to his age, but he does 2nd grade level work in most areas. Most homeschooled children are quite ahead of the game, even though their parents aren't (usually) teachers--certified, that is.

I never went through college, but I don't doubt for a minute my abilities to give my child a useful education that will prepare him for the 'real' world. And what I can't teach him, others can. He learns through daily living. We combine homeschooling techniques that fit our lifestlye and his learning ability. But basically, we're 'un-schooling' him. That is, he doesn't have a set schedule or do grade-specific lessons. He learns at his own pace. He learns from me, his father, our friends, the internet, the (gasp!) TV--PBS and Noggin, and the workbooks I found for him at the bookstores.

The only problem I really have is providing interaction with kids he can play with and such. We're not religious, at all, so we don't do the normal church activities that are usually associated with homeschooled kids. There are other avenues out there, but I don't think it's absolutely necessary for kids to have to be hearded together to grow up with each other based solely on their age.  I don't know about everyone else, but most of the people in my life are *not* the same age as I am.  It's just that kids his age are more fun to play with at this stage in his life.  He does have a friend his age that he sees every once in a while, but mostly it's just different-aged relatives and friends he gets to interact with/learn from.

The benefits of homeschooling are:

--Kids learn at their own pace. They don't get labeled because they're having a hard time in their class, whether it's because they're bored or they don't understand.

--One on one (more or less) teacher-student ratio. You know they won't get left behind if they don't catch it the first time, because YOU are the teacher and you'll know when you need to go over the material again.

--You'll know what's being taught to them. (We all know that the history books in the school system are terribly inundated with errors.)

--They'll learn more about how to survive the real world than 98% of the other kids their age.

--You know what's being fed to them all day, rather than hope for the best in the cafeteria. 

--Special closeness to your kids.

--Vacations and holidays last as long as you want and can occur at whatever time of the year that is convenient for your family.

I could go on and on about how all children could benefit from homeschooling. But, once again, I have already written enough to put someone asleep...

There will always be obstacles for those who wish to try this at home. Rest assured, though, that they can be overcome. It highly depends on the situation, as to what the solutions would be. But really, all things can be rearranged if that is what's important to your family. Kids can be at home with one parent during the day and the other at night, both of them contributing to the child's education. Maybe Mom's better in language arts than Dad and he might be better at math. Or for a single parent situation, child care can be arranged for times when parent is working and schooling can be done when they come home, or other family members could help. There are a myriad different obstacles, and as many solutions.

I'm sorry this is so long. I hope it helped a little in the 'something to think about' category.