[...]Sites of interest we have a link to. Their service is self explanatory[...]……

No deadlines–students must be allowed to turn in work at any time. You can penalize, but not by more than 50%. Zeros are too punative according to the school board.

If a child skips a final exam–they get a 50%.

Teachers grade books are available online, all year and we send out four report cards. You would think they might know a kid is failing, nope–they must be called so they don\’t die of shock.

Students aren\’t expelled for behavior issues and if you try their parents will sue, because \"my Susie can\’t possibly be wrong.\"

Parents have more excuses than the kids. Here is an example, a child in my class did not turn in an assignment. The parent said another student must have stolen it and thrown it away–yeah right!

Parents need to be responsible and teach the concept to their children.

And FYI–Lest you think I am one of those teachers who has such an easy job, with the summers off and all that… I have a masters degree, working on my second (one in education, one in American History and Government). I am serving as a teacher fellow at a local museum, going to 4 conferences this summer and taking 8 credit hours. Then I will plan lessons for the up coming school year. I love my job and I work hard at it. My students leave the room knowing a lot about this country and its history. They learn to write and they learn to work hard. I wouldn\’t trade my job for the world. But the US needs to wake up. We are raising a generation that lacks work ethic, responsibility, and manners. We can\’t teach for fear of a law suit or bankruptcy. The schools are not funded (note that the book I teach world history out of is close to 12 years old).

Let the professionals do their jobs, stop tying our hands. Lets have consequences for irresponsibility and bad behavior. It wouldn\’t take long to turn this situation around.

At one time a teacher could stand at the front of a class and be secure that (s)he was going to be supported by administration, parents, and the community.

Today teachers stand in the front of the class and pray the kids will be in a good mood. They can’t expel children because this means the loss of matching funds regardless of how much of a disruption the child represents. All admin sees is the money. Any other discipline is usually trivial at best since any meaningful punishment might arose the ire of the parents resulting in a complaint, report to the School Board, or a law suit.

In most cases parents are no help. Parent / Teacher interaction is typically superficial and limited to the occasion conference. “You are the teacher. You do something about it.” Oh? Well you are the parent. Maybe you should do something about it. How about disciplining your child rather than expecting me to do it and then complaining about it afterward.

The most important reason private schools tend to better than public schools is the attitude of the parents. If they did not care they would not be spending the extra money. This is an invaluable tool because it has an extended effect by ensuring that complaints and advice from the teacher are going to be taken seriously, homework is more likely to be completed, behavioral and mental discipline is more likely to be enforced, and the children are more likely to be motivated to learn. True education starts at home. If the parents do not care about their kid’s education, the child probably will not either, and the teacher is doomed to failure.

Add to this that parents are given a list of rules and what the results will be if the child does not follow them. If a student violates rules to the point the teacher is forced to expel him, the child is gone and the money is not refunded.

Public schools can work, just not if we are going to hamstring the teachers and degrade them while we are at it.

These schools work very differently than regular schools so it is often difficult for people to understand them at a glance. I wrote a series on the differences between democratic schools and regular schools (http://www.teach-kids-attitude-1st.com/democratic-schooling.html).

Enjoy,

Don

http://theautodidactsymposium.com/start.htm

When you move on to college you have something a little more like a free market, where people have more choice in their classes, can avoid bad teachers, etc, and you get substantially better results. By the time you get to graduate school you get much more freedom and the results are exponentially better.

Even within a certain level or institution you can see the variation–at college, for example, a huge fraction of required general ed classes are complete wastes of time. The teacher doesn’t want to be there, the students don’t want to be there, but they are all forced to be by the bureaucracy. (Well, technically it’s worse than a waste of time because it turns the students off to what is probably a fascinating topic if it were studied out of interest rather than requirement.)

Finally, let me point out that school classrooms are mini dictatorships. Is it any wonder that Americans swing between voting for left-wing dictators and right-wing dictators when their childhoods were spent learning the futility of attempting independent thought and action?