Reply #34: As a teacher [View All]

[Maestro]

of course I am going to say that public education serves a purpose. But keep in mind that most of what the media and politicians moan and groan about is bunk. Sure we have problems, but we are the only system that I know of in the world that accepts anyone regardless of race, religion, creed, sex, socio-economic status, language spoken, physical or mental disabilities, etc...Education will never be successful because that will leave politicians without a huge issue to harp on about in debates. For once, I would love to see a politician say that hey, we aren't doing so badly. Test scores don't tell all the story. In fact, when you look at expectations from 20 years ago for the typical third grader and expectations that we have today for a typical third grader, the jump in academic performance is startling. My kids are expected to be able to write fully elaborated stories. I was barely able to write a complete sentence in third grade. Math skills are not just about memorizing tables. Now we are making the kids actually use logical reasoning to solve problems placing numbers in some sort of context. Reading is not just the phonics, fully decodable text that Bush and his lackeys propose, it is using literature to stimulate critical thought. My kids use thinking maps to organize their thoughts and analyze literature for example and we do it in two languages. And this a public school system.

Our system is so huge and we test so many different students that the law of averages would tend to suggest that the national norms are never going to be outstanding for the US when compared to other smaller countries who are only testing the cream of the crop since most systems either do not test kids are unable or push them onto more vocational paths that require less testing and more manual skills. The US public school system strives to test all. Now, before I am attacked as sounding "freeperish" I am not.

I teach in a low socio-economic area where the vast majority come from homes where English is the second language. However, my expectations are just as high for these kids which is different than most freepers who just want the kids to speak without an accent. Forget about actually teaching them academics.

So yes, public education provides those that otherwise would have no education an education. What makes the difference is how the communtiy allows the public system to teach. Is the community progressive or stuck in the ways of the freepers that continually believe that public schools are a lost cause and vouchers are the answer along with teaching creationism, revisionist history and "the basics?" Public education can do wonders with the right people in charge.

Here are some pics of some budding scientists when we were studying properties of H2O. Permission from parents was given to post pics of the kids. These are also available at my website which currently is having some problems with its site map so it is hard to navigate but here are some direct links.

http://www.irvingisd.net/~spollard/children's_work.htm

http://www.irvingisd.net/~spollard/articles.htm

http://www.irvingisd.net/~spollard/bilingual_debate.htm

http://www.irvingisd.net/~spollard/research.htm