Comments on: Public school is making my daughter stupid

By: Dossy Shiobara

Dossy Shiobara — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 01:19:53 +0000

Tom: As a bit of background, I attended a private high school, and my daughters both started out attending a private Montessori pre-school.

My complaint isn’t that there’s peer pressure; there will always be and I’m okay with that. My complaint is that in the public school, the peer pressure discourages kids from being smart! In the Montessori school, kids encouraged each other to do better, to try harder, to master a skill and then help others learn it.

Sadly, the Montessori school our girls started in only goes up to First Grade … and frankly, I can’t really afford to keep them in a private school right now. Like I originally wrote: I really wish I could afford to keep them in private school.

By: Tom Reingold

Tom Reingold — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 00:31:09 +0000

Dossy, why do you blame the school that your daughter caved to pressure that your daughter’s peers created? This is mob mentality, and you can find it anywhere. Do you think there would be less in a private school? I don’t expect so.

Tom

By: Dossy Shiobara

Dossy Shiobara — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 18:27:52 +0000

lefty: Yes, it is clearly a societal thing, but the fact that it’s reinforced by the educational system bothers me.

By: lefty

lefty — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 16:41:52 +0000

i don’t see this as a problem with the education system (this specific case). the education system does have problems, but this seems like a societal thing.

By: Dossy Shiobara

Dossy Shiobara — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 01:20:57 +0000

Oh, Mark … you have no idea. While I keep hearing that “school vouchers will destroy the public school system” (yeah, so? that’s kinda the point…) I firmly believe that being able to “vote with your wallet” is really the only way to drive up the quality in education.

Either that, or we need qualification/entrance exams; fine, keep the schools publically funded with tax dollars, but segregate students based on their aptitude. Turn public schools into boarding schools and send kids to schools that match their abilities.

One way or another, we need to stop educating to the lowest common denominator. We cannot continue to dumb down students to the center of the bell curve.

By: Mark Atwood

Mark Atwood — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 22:57:04 +0000

Are you a fan of vouchers yet?

By: Dossy Shiobara

Dossy Shiobara — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 22:23:13 +0000

It’s a slippery slope–if you give more funds to under-performing schools, then where’s the incentive to excel? As soon as the kids do better, you get less funding …

So, of course you have to tie funding to achievement otherwise it’s too easy to game the system. However, how do those under-performing schools advance? It’s not easy: it takes a lot of hard work and doing more with less. It definitely isn’t easy, but it’s possible.

Oh, and developing character–I remember growing up having to learn to be a “good winner” and learning not to be “a sore loser.” Kids today? Not so much: everyone has to win “or it’s bad for their self-image and self-esteem.” That makes me sad.

By: Drofen

Drofen — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 13:42:11 +0000

Here in Texas we are afflicted by acheivment test-itis as well. I’m not sure how it is where you live, but the amount of money a school receives from the government is directly tied to how well the school scores on the tests. Seems bass-ackwards to me in some regards. Shouldn’t schools that are performing poorly be getting more funding to make up the gap?

Not only does competition develop internal drive, but the occasional losing effort goes miles towards developing character–something this nation is woefully deficient in…

By: Dossy Shiobara

Dossy Shiobara — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 02:42:27 +0000

Drofen: Fortunately, the public school teachers are wonderful and intelligent so I guess we’re lucky there, but the teaching “agenda” leaves much to be desired. I’m shocked at how much focus there is on the NJ ASK test because of the NCLB Act.

I recognize that we’ve become a very anti-competitive culture where every kid has to “win” or else it’s “not fair” but sometimes that competitive environment helps foster a certain amount of internal drive in children that will help them continue to achieve as adults. Or, maybe that’s something that can be taught at home which can carry over into school – I will certainly try harder.

By: Drofen

Drofen — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 02:14:10 +0000

My daughter’s 4th grade teacher sent home a note stating she needed after-school tutoring. Concerned, I immediately set up a conference with him to understand what issues he had with her work. I was a bit confused as she had brought home an all “A”s progress report only the week before. He stated that she was lagging in reading and writing, (by far her best subjects–she reads at a 12th grade level.) He offered two examples of her poor work. The first was an editing exercise that she had failed. Much of the editing had to do with converting run-on sentences into proper diction. He had marked each sentence with large red X’s, but when I read them, they were all properly edited. In fact, her sentences were much more varied and complex than what he expected of her, and since she hadn’t marked them where he thought she should have–F. The other piece of evidence was a journal entry she had written. He had highlighted several words stating that although creative, making words up was not acceptable in a required assignment. Asking for the dictionary I promptly looked up several of them. Lo and behold, plain as English. He got very red in the face when he could not define them. And I was simply in shock.

Frightening. Very frightening.

The evidence for home-schooling mounts daily.