Public School

is public school a success or has it fail our childern. And what make public school a success or failure.

Good morning class and welcome to education 101. My name is Professor D and today we will be learning about the importance of all roles involved in the life of a student/child. As you can see from previous posts (Holly), some parents are aggravated with the public school system of their community. It is a right they have to be aggravated but simply complaining does nothing. Here are the facts of Holly's plight. The teacher says he/she does not have time to help each student individually. The teacher is not paying enough attention to her child. The teacher is a whiner who does not care about children. The teacher..well anyways class, you get the point. This is problem number one with parents, everything that happens to their children educationally is the fault of the teacher. Since you are in this class I assume you want to be a teacher. Get used to the idea that, even though as a classroom teacher you have very little control over such issues as state and district curriculum requirements, district policies, and how much you have to teach in a short, concrete amount of time, parents will expect you to give their child one-on-one attention. You see, the parent does not come and sit in the classroom day in and day out trying to educate 20 or 30 different students using the same curriculum. In elementary school this is more difficult as there is less room for variety.
Now class, also note that there are critics of the education system who use the scientically irrelevant statitiscal data set of N=1. Their student is their data set! Amazing that, through their students experience, they can decide that you are lazy as a teacher. Do not get discouraged, after a few years of teaching you will realize that Professor D is right and knows what he is talking about. As teachers, your day starts usually about 5am when you wake up and start to get ready for school. Shower, dress, gather up your things, polish off the last few details of today's lesson plans, finish the grading that you stopped doing because it was 2 am already, eat a quick breakfast, jump in the car and head to your school. You will get there at 7 am or so and set up your classroom for the day, finish the grading you still have to do, write down any notes you have, read your email from the principal, parents, district, and other sources, make sure you have all your materials handy, straighten the room from the day before because the kids do not do it, and sit down for 5 minutes until the bell rings. WHOA!! it is 8am and here come the kids. Little Johnny, Little Susie, Little Javon, Little Ty...etc. all walk into the classroom bouncing off the walls and acting crazier than a nutjob in the local lockdown. Then Little sally comes in and, as usual each day, heads straight for you. You know what she is going to ask and you hold out the apple and juice box you bring daily so she can have breakfast. The other kids in their craziness to get to their seats, talk to their friends, toss their books in the right place, and all the other things they do take notice and think it is so cool that you do that (even though they will never say that too you!). Today is a special day and is the reason the students are wound up and crazy, it is State Examination day. This is the day the previous 150 days has been building up to. The students will sit in their seats for the next three days and take test after test to measure THEIR success or YOUR failure. Meanwhile, as you and the much needed assistant you get for testing quiet the kids down and get the materials ready, you use these last few minutes before testing to hand back the assignments, talk quick about what you saw, encourage the students to do their best and, silently you PRAY TO GOD that they pass as it is your job if they do not pass. You look over your classroom of students and realize that, as an inner city school, most of them will not pass because after they leave school they get no other stimulation outside of Grand Theft Auto and Master P. You realize that Little Sally, who you gave the apple too, is probably not the ONLY one who did not have breakfast but was the only one who told someone she is not getting breakfast and you volunteerd as her homeroom teacher to bring her something ever day! You also realize that since then, Sally has been doing better in your classes and other teachers have noticed the change as well. Since your school does not have the funding from the state or district to enact a breakfast program, many students who need breakfast to succeed are getting it in the similar way. This, my class, is a problem of parenting not teaching that we are expected to solve.

Of course..that is fictional...but ..that is what my first year of teaching was like and I taught HIGH SCHOOL! As a teacher, I had on my roster up to 50 students and I thanked GOD daily that some did not come to school because I was in a room provided by the school that had 28 desks! When I went to my principal to ask for a textbook for one class he told me that we had none and I had to buy my own! Well, I sure as heck could not afford to buy a 90 dollar book for myself and 100 plus student editions at 50 bucks a pop! so we did what we could with 30 year old books I dug up at the school. My first day I was cussed out by students on a regular basis and immediately questioned why I wanted to t each in an environment like this! I went on for two years in that district and then left thinking the grass was greener elsewhere. Unfortunately I was wrong. I have now returned to school to get my PhD and become Professor D! To try to help college students who want to be teachers to understand they CAN NOT DO EVERYTHING FOR EVERYONE! The biggest failure of the public schools is COMMUNITY. The Second biggest is FAMILY! Of course, Holly and others will disagree with this but, until you come sit in our shoes for a week or more and do our jobs, you have no idea what it is like to be a teacher. Everyone is quick to judge and even faster to blame someone else. It is so important that parents talk to their kids and ask them about their school day and try to help them understand when they do not. The reality in school has nothing to do with lazy teachers, if a teacher is lazy they will not last long in today's education world. Public schools have far more accountability than do private schools. The lack of control over teachers by one poster here is ludicrous! I had someone from adminstration or the district in my classroom at least once a week reading my lesson plans, questioning me and my students, and observing my class. My friends in private schools say they may get a class observation every month or two if that. They have a ton of freedom compared to public schools. The reason most teachers are getting tired and are not able to go one-on-one with students anymore is NCLB and the reality of that is one of time and money. We, as educators, spend more time than other professions on our work for less pay. We also do more with less in the classroom than many people think. from old textbooks to using our own money to buy paper supplies, pens, pencils, crayons, and other needed items. I spent on average as a teacher about 500 dollars a year out of my pocket for my students to have what they needed to succeed. At one point I made student BUY pens and pencils to help offset my costs (especially since they could lose them by the end of the hour).

I appologize for sounding so harsh in this post but the reality is parents do not get it! Teaching is one of the hardest professional jobs out there. I agree there are bad teachers but most are not. Most of us spend anywhere from 3 to 5 hours a day at home ignoring our families so we can get our work done! I used to go to school for my 8 hours and then come home and spend about 3 hours every night grading and reading papers, correcting horrible grammar, writing reports for the school about students who are having trouble, etc. I would take off on Saturday to be with my family but on Sunday, after church, I would spend the rest of my day writing lesson plans for the week, finding materials, grading assignments, planning for events, etc. That is right....I would spend upto 11 hours per day M-F and then another 10 or so on Sunday working! I got paid for a whole 30 hours per week (my check stubs prove it!) Then, on those fictional holidays where teachers do nothing, I would use some of that time to plan for the next semester or year, some of that time to evaluate what worked and what didn't and how to change it, and some of that time realizing my kids are older! During summers, I spent more of my families money to pay for the graduate courses and professional development seminars that are REQUIRED if you want to keep your license and your job.

I give up..parents....step into the classroom and do our job then you can be critical if yous ee it that way still.
Public schools work in the places where parents and community are willing to support them.

2006-10-19 03:24:03 by besos

Please Research the following evil men.. John D Rockefeller John Dewey Jp morgan Andrew Carnegie You must understand that school is simply a ...

I am doing a research paper for college comparing public schol to homeschool and would like some respones from those who went to public school
1. What is the best thing about going to public school?
2. Do you think you would've liked being homeschooled?
3. Is there anything you missed out on by going to public schol and not home school?

As the son of a military man, I went to 18 school districts ranging from Alaska, California, Texas, Florida, and a few others.
I went to both public and private schools. No one can describe being the "new kid" better than I can.
1. Public schools are great as long as the nonwhite population does not exceed 20%. Then again, isn't that the reason why homeschool gained in popularity in the first place?
2. I would've liked home school only if it's like the well planned ones I've seen. Ex: all the home schooled girls in a neighborhood formed a sports team and competed with several public schools.
3. My parents didn't graduate college, like I did. Therefore, I was better off in public school. Of all the schools I went to, I was fortunate that I only attended one predominantly minority school. That period was when I was better off home schooled.
I had to sit in class and wait for the rest of the class to catch up.

Public schools is where I saw most of the assaults, burglaries, drug dealing, drug using, vandalism, forgeries, extortions, arsons, larcenies, and robberies. Many of these events where in mostly white, middle class areas.

2008-07-11 14:06:04 by DaddyOf2Princesses

My dad wont let me go to public school cuz he thinks il slack off and shit and im going to a private school which is much better whats the difference between the two and are public schools just as good?

Public schools can be great, if you want to be a little robot who recites standard answers and can't think for yourself. The standards in the public school system have been lowered considerably thanks to the "No child left behind" act. Instead of helping the students who need extra help they lower the standards for everyone. Private school is a much better option because they usually have smaller classes which offers more individual attention.

2008-08-19 21:39:10 by xhatguyx

Price: $12.99

I'm writing a story, and one of my characters has been home schooled all her life and, due to her mother's career change, has to start public high school as a freshman. Does the curriculum differ? How does one adapt to the social structure of public school? Do home schooled kids ever feel "sheltered" compared to their public school counterparts? I would appreciate help from anyone who has gone through a similar transition.

I have recently made friends with a homeschooling family, and also judged a debate competition for homeschoolers and got to know some of the kids. Here is what they told me about dealing with the large groups necessitated by the competition (which is similar to school) and how they felt socially in other circumstances when with non-homeschooled kids.

One girl told me that it was startling to have to deal with lines (e.g. for food at lunchtime). She wasn't used to being in such a large group that they were treated as a group, not as individuals. I found all of them to be quite social and socially adept. I asked about how they felt when dealing with public school kids. Several commented to me that they found it strange that public school kids based so much on chronological age, eschewing contact with kids even a year or two different: most of them came from large families and, even those who didn't, were just as comfortable talking to adults and children far older or younger as they were with those of the same age. When pressed, they confessed that they found public school students to be rather rude and judgemental: they had, for the most part, been raised such that they were not permitted to exclude people (something schools claim to do, but don't really follow through on) and were never permitted to say rude or unkind things to others, even when others are rude to them (which, apparently, is quite often as being from a large family and being homeschooled is often ridiculed).

The ones I spoke to did feel that they were quite unknowledgeable about pop culture (not being permitted much TV or pop music), but they didn't see it as being sheltered. They knew they were missing it, but they viewed it more along the lines of the way I would view someone with a bizarre hobby, i.e. "Why do they spend all of their time doing that?" rather than "Boy, I wish I could do that" or "It's not fair that I can't do that". On the other hand, they were much more knowledgable than their public school counterparts when it comes to academic subjects. Even the ones where their levels were similar, the subject matter was quite different: they focused on different parts of history, they may have done math and/or science in a non-traditional order...they would have a hard time if suddenly switching to a public school (in a similar way that someone who moves from one state to another and has to attend a new school system would have a difficult time).

2008-10-14 13:25:42 by Susan

Since kindergarten to Grade 9, I've attended a Catholic school and now I want to go to this specific Public school for High School. My mom says I can't because she wants me to go to a Catholic school. I don't see much difference besides Religion class. And I know it effects your school records if you switch from Catholic to Public. So what happens with your records? How does your records effect you? And what could I tell my mom to convince her to let me go to a Public school?

public schools are CRAP! and catholic schools rock!

2010-01-03 18:40:51 by Ashley B