I read a recent article decrying the dysfunction of our public schools (no link, simply because I have no interest in appearing to criticize the author, who I'm sure means well).
After talking about the obvious attempt to indoctrinate children with a certain point of view and posting some of the usual dismal statistics - for instance, that only a third of our eighth-graders are proficient in reading, math, or much of anything else - his solution is for more parents to get involved with the public schools to try and change this sorry situation.
I'm afraid the author of this piece has misplaced expectations. The average public school could care less what parents think, although surprising exceptions sometimes occur on a case by case basis. Not only is there a great deal of money at stake in the process itself, but let's not forget that the Democrat Party gets a significant amount of its funding from the teacher's unions and this have, to put it mildly, a vested interest in keeping things exactly as they are.
That is, except in one area, discipline and providing a safe learning environment. They're more than willing to change there with a 'prompt' from President Obama's Department of Education, particularly in regards to one demographic that now has special rules designed to make suspending them for even the most egregious misbehavior 'racist' and simply not to be tolerated no matter what it does to the quality of the other kids' education.
Also to be considered is the current policy of allowing thousands of illegal aliens into public schools that aren't even literate in their own language let alone English and the effect this on the learning curve and the progress of the other children, especially when it comes to minority area schools.
Nothing's going to move on these areas no matter what, barring radical reform in Washington.
So while parents getting more involved at this point isn't likely to change things much if at all at this point, there is a fairly simple solution...
Get your children out of the public schools immediately before the mind rape is complete. That's exactly what we did.Not only did our kids receive a superb secular education (at more than one third less than the cost per pupil of our local big city school district), but what I call 'faith armor' which serves them very well in today's society.Yes, it cost, but the parochial schools frequently give tuition aid based on your income and in any event, this is your children's future you're talking about. So go to the parochial schools or other private schools. Get them out of the public schools.
Or home school them. Buy a curriculum (there are some excellent ones to choose from) and teach them at home. And that need not be very expensive, considering the cost of the alternatives.
I know parents who have banded together in small groups to share the cost of buying one of the fine the home school curriculums out there and even organized 'teaching shifts' to lessen the time factor if you're dealing with working parents. I even know one group of a dozen parents with kids the same basic age who actually split the cost of hiring a teacher and basic supplies. Which of course, is how it used to be done in America.
Aside from saving your kids, doing it this way saves others. Any honest teacher will admit that it's drilled into them that the most crucial part of the day is the morning head count, because it determines how much money the school gets from the feds. When your kids leave the system, that lessens the school's take and essentially starves the beast, along with voting against every local school bond.
That's what will save the schools as long as school choice is not an option and kids are used as pawns to feed and perpetuate a corrupt dysfunctional system. The Public schools will only take notice when their money/traffic decreases and they're forced to provide a better product.
That's going to take time. But until real school choice becomes a reality, we're going to have to do what we can do to destroy the system in order to remake it and save it.
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