Topic : 11/24 Great School Debate

I work with kids in before and after school care. We have a group of 40 to 50 kids on a daily basis. Everyday I get at least 20 kids who I have to help with their homework, because their parents don't want to do that when they get home.

People like to complain but they aren't willing to get involved in their children's school life. The schools don't lock Mom & Dad out, Mom & Dad just don't care.   People don't want to pay taxes to help improve the school systems. They would love everything to be improved but no one is willing to shell out the cash needed to do it. We're fine with ball players making insane amounts of money, how many of you have looked into how much they pay the teachers in your child's school?

School doesn't stop when the bell rings, parking your kid infront of the Play Station isn't parenting, it's being lazy. 

As for Violence, it happens everywhere, after 9-11 did everyone stop flying? Did we stop working in high rises? 

A nut job has gone to work and randomly started shooting people, but did the entire country quit their jobs?

Yea some crazy crap has happened in schools but in Columbine why did those boys get treated like that and no one stopped it? That was entirely the parents, the school, and that community's fault. You can only kick a dog so many times before it turns on you. Pay attention to your kids.  Stop blaming society.

Don't blame your own fears, or bad experiences on the schools today. Maybe you should get out and help.

I agree.  I went to public school.  I was lost among too many students and  triple session.  I was pushed along based on IQ tests, although my grades were not good and I was socially immature.  Nobody noticed & nobody cared as long as I didn't make trouble.  Clearly, I was not a real person to anybody in the school, just one more kid to move along.

I sacrificed so that my kids could go to private school from the beginning.  They were personally known to faculty and administration at each grade.  They were encouraged to think and try new things and the school's atmosphere supported using your brain more than football or proms.  In a recent newspaper story on education, a group of kids from this  school were quoted when  a teacher tried to move them off a subject onto the next topic he had planned.  They protested that they had the right to study the first subject further because they were interested in knowing more & that's what the school encouraged: independent thinking and scholarly work.  They didn't have to modify their learning to meet the demands of some state-wide test (they're exempt from "teach to the test" stuff). 

The real question is why we're not providing this quality of education to people who can't afford to pay private tuition.  I know it's  "too" expensive.  But maybe we should be spending more money on great education instead of on great bombs.

I have heard and read much about parents who homeschool to protect their children from violence.  I can see the knee jerk logic in this and understand wanting to protect you child from any negative or dangerous action.  The one thing I do not think we have heard enough about is the violence being done by homeschoolers or former homeschoolers who do not or have not learned about social acceptable behavior.

We have all heard much about the poor Amish school girls who were shot and killed, but have we heard about the killer who was a home schooled child?  Did he learn how to vent his anger and react appropriately?  There was also a young man in Lancaster County who killed his girlfriends parents this year, he was homeschooled.  That is two homeschool students in Lancaster PA who killed.  I am not saying that homeschool children are more prone to violence, I think people are violent learning how to deal with problems in a socially acceptable way might not be as easily or readily learned in a homeschooled environment. and that being in a public school, you may have to learn how to work your anger in a better way.

Maureen