No child wants to really work at anything. No child wants to clean their room or do their homework or memorize times tables. It takes an adult to demand a child’s best. A child can progress greatly when a teacher demands their best work each and every day. Even when home-life is shitty, a child can learn. When BOTH families and teachers demand a child’s best work, you create a beautiful citizen. But, it is not easy. Adults must step up and do their best work. Funny, I get paid well to do my best work. Parents must also step up too.

I have no answer. Each school, community and school system is different. What I do see that works is when a school comes together as a community and parents and teachers work to see all children, even those who are underprivileged at home, do their best work at school. It is happening in public schools all over the country. It is happening in mine in Tennessee. Sadly you hear more about the bad than the good. Yes, kids who graduate from public school also go on to Harvard and Yale. I know some. But, I know more that drop out.

More needs to be said about what is working to empower others to seed success, promote engaged parents, teachers and administrators and make public education relevant again.

Amy, thank you for the request for my humble opinion.

Now, let’s qualify “ME”.

Mom was a career teacher. Dad was on an hour or so short of his degree when yours truly showed up. He went to work instead.

Point of fact, and this will color anything I have to say. I gave up on public education a long time ago after an incident in my oldest son’s school.

Teachers are out numbered: True
Teachers are underpaid: Probably Not. Entry level is $38K? More than a Cop.
Teacher Want more money: All of us do, they need to produce a better product than they do.

I’ve noticed that once a teacher reaches a certain stage in their career they (most of them) stop trying.

My mother never did. She was the same fire breathing “YOU will LEARN if I have to drill a hole in your head and pour it in” teacher she started out as. For some reason we stop demanding excellence from the teacher and more important from the school, but we demand more and more from our kids…

Teachers are protected by something like the “race card”.

NEVER speak badly about teachers, it’s not right… Frankly, from my experience, teachers, for the most part, suck. They reach a certain point and can not be fired, disciplined or reassigned just because they fail miserably at their job. They have to to something SERIOUS, (and get caught or reported for it) like have sex with a kid, get caught smoking dope, etc. They just don’t have to try and can mark time until they retire on a nice pension then move on to what ever it is they really wanted to do with their lives.

There is NO excuse to not try, and this is what many of them do.

Our kids were in the Mesa AZ school systems. At the time, it was one of the bottom ranked in the nation. As you might imagine we were not all that happy with what we were seeing and began to look for answers.

The state of Arizona realizes it’s poor ranking in the education of American kids and allows for other options.

We turned to the Charter system and got immediate results. The kid’s grades came up, their habits and behavior got better and all in all they became more productive Americans. I just don’t have any other way to state it.

Let me explain why I think this was. In AZ the charter system is basically a “public” funded school with a private and specific curriculum. As long as it meets the basics of the states standards they keep their funding. Parents are very often VERY involved and help form the “flavor” of the school.

We went though 3 (and only 3) schools. Some parents go through a lot more before they find what they want.

The first school was a school that focused on the Arts, very important to my wife and myself and to the kids. Problem? To Liberal.

The second school was extremely conservative and seem to be working well, then we found that because they kids were not members of the church that the founders and most of the other kids were… well its not to hard to figure.

The third and final was to the right of center, was TOUGH on grades, very small sports programs and took no CRAP, at all.

Bingo.

At the first school an instruction was given to one of my children, by US. This instruction was countermanded by some snotty little 22 year old teacher… well she thought it was. She also made the mistake of putting her hands on one of my kids without cause.

We got her fired. We also got ask to find a new school. (We were NOT very nice about this whole thing and we already had a new school in mind)

Yes, FIRED. Because in a Charter, you will TEACH and TEACH as the school decides you do or you will BE FIRED…

Bloody AMAZING how much better the teachers are in a charter school. And the really interesting part? Teachers that want to TEACH, stand in line to get these jobs.

To those that teach and teach with ALL THEY HAVE, Thanks, from the bottom of my American Heart.
For those that teach because its a bullet proof job and retirement is coming, may the fleas of a thousand camels infest your…

The Incident that happened at the public school is a long story but has to do with gangs and the administration’s refusal to address it.

This may be seen as pretty general, it could be seen as rambling. Shrug.

Happiness = Money

nevermind fulfillment, nevermind doing a *REAL* good in the world. make lots of money and you’ll be happy.

The reason for this? We have a consumption based economy. Our economy only works when we’re spending money. So to teach our kids how to be good consumers is the only way we can continue to exist as we do.

Make more money, spend more money, etc.

Well guess what. That only works in the short-term. it’s not sustainable, and if we keep teaching our children this, we as a country, as a society, and as a race are doomed.
.-= ShredderFeeder´s last blog ..On Piss-Poor Support… =-.

I don’t see anything wrong with wanting to work hard to make a lot of money. Some will. Some won’t.

That’s the American Dream – “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Some define happiness differently.

For some, happiness is having a million dollars. For others, it’s having a roof over their head – no matter what that roof looks like.

The idea our public education system is broken beyond belief is a very depressing thing to consider if the cause of the break is American culture and it’s broken beyond repair.

A few numbers. Based on one million students.

——————–
US 23.6 students/teacher @ #35,807 per year =

42372 Teachers making a total of 1.517 Billion dollars/year
——————–
Finland 19.8 students/teacher @ $28,201 per year =

50505 Teachers making a total of 1.171 Billion dollars/year
——————–

So because of their cultural differences, they manage to do a better job for less money.

We raise our kids to be greedy then can’t figure out why none of them want to be teachers. So we have to pay more, so we can hire fewer, so our kids get screwed by teachers who don’t really want to be there and teach our kids that teaching is a chore, and not a joy.

Then add to that that everyone bitches about the school systems but not a damned one of us want to vote for a tax increase to make it better. (Stafford County Virginia is a PRIME example of that) but then business owners in the area can’t understand why our schools have only a 50-75% graduation rate, and even those are mostly idiots.

Our culture is what is BROKEN….possibly beyond repair.
.-= ShredderFeeder´s last blog ..On Piss-Poor Support… =-.