To tell you the truth,,, IT'S ABOUT TIME!!!!!!!!


Christie is trying to make right by the tax payer.... The education system in NJ is BROKEN.....

Tenure is a thing of the past.. I'm so glad that we are having so many charter schools opening this year and hopefully many more to come...

But it does have to start at home first..

James

 

I'm not sure where you are from but this isn't just CPS. There are gangs in most communities. Many like to hide that fact but it is all around.

We have the same problems...different scale in the suburbs too.

Do you realize how few of these crimes get prosecuted and how few of these gang members get thrown in juvie. Crawl out from under your rock please!

Some of these suburbs would have half their schools students in juvie.

 

Juvie is a great place to learn to be a lifelong low-life (and meet future employers/co-workers).

Bottom line? American family values and family structure are broken.

Parents take their 12-16 year-old kids to R rated movies.

They let their 12 year-old play Black OPS and watch Sex in the City on Netflix.

They have no idea what websites their kids are surfing (Ever go to playmates.com? My (at the time) 7 year-old did by mistake, looking for Playmates toys).

By example they teach their kids that lying, cheating, and stealing is okay, as long as you don't get caught.

How many of us with tuners are going to set our trucks back to stock when we take it in for warranty work? How many of us accept cash payments and don't declare it on our taxes? How many of us 'borrow' office supplies, tools, materials, etc. from our workplace?

Parents spend less than 10 minutes a day in REAL converstation with their children. How many minutes are they spending discussing school?

When ALL parents take an active role in their kid's life, future, moral development, and education, the school system succeeds.

Until then all the money in the world won't fix the problem.

/RANT over (sorry).

 

Just a few questions:
Is this a cause or effect ?
The ever tightening circle it is hard to tell which came 1st the crime or the bad school.
Honest question, I have no idea, I only know ( think ) one does feed the other, and until something is done to break the cycle it will continue.
From the last one, it seems the crime is the cause of the bad school, so something needs to be done on that side to break the pattern.

Cutting PE made kids dumber ? How is this ? I see other things it can cause, but making kids dumber ?
Is cost effective a good question to ask ( answers would tend to be subjective ) ?
Which would you rather have, music class or books so students can learn actual material ( math, English, etc ) ?
If the ability to have books for students to learn, I would call it Cost effective, but who knows what was actually cut when the class was cut (i.e. did the PE teacher get bounced, or relocated ?)

I will confirm ( at least in NW IL suburbs ) there were gangs at more schools than just the inner city. At least a few decades back there were, current day I cannot comment.

 

Great post. Too many immature, self centered, selfish parents. It starts at home and it starts at birth.

Edit: No, I'm wrong. It starts before birth, with the commitment of the parents to being good parants, preparation, and the pregnant mom taking care of herself with the baby she is carrying in mind.

 

Wow! You guys really know how to take a topic and run with it. Very impressive! I do believe the original post was about how teachers should be judged by classroom performance and student test scores. And they should be. There are way too many crappy teachers out there, so they should be judged by how well they teach the students and the content in the classroom. Also yes, test scores mean the child is learning so that should be included also. The parents do play a major role in it as well, but the children are in the classroom with the teacher for most of the day. Are there crappy parents out there too? Sure there are. Way too many than there should be. But this is not a legislature on parenting. It's on teaching in the schools. I have 2 kids and I play a very active role in their learning. But over the years I have noticed that there are teachers out there that definitely shouldn't be and it's kinda scary that they are protected because of tenure. Every other job out there is based on performance. Why shouldn't a teacher's job be as well?

 

Pretty sad day when we have to call stating the facts a rant.

very good post!

 

I agree teacher performance needs to be measured and evaluated somehow.

FWIW, the governer's plan not only rewards for test scores, but 50% is based on student IMPROVEMENT. IMO, this is a nice attempt at reaching a balance, and would reward the teachers who start with a bad group of kids and make a difference, even though those 'bad' kids never get up to the tested level of the 'good' kids.

The discussion raises a few issues:

1) What are the good teachers afraid of?

2) Just because parents and our culture play a bigger role than teachers does not mean we have to fix all the families and all the culture before we fix any of the schools. To demand we 'fix' the families and culture first is obstructing necessary change at the school level.

 

Well when you cut out PE you get obese students that know how to do nothing more than watch TV.

If you cut music and art the students lose interest in the three Rs because they have nothing to read or write about.

I think that all of the gangs and crime stem from the failure of the family. I can't believe I am defending a Republican but forget was it Romney or who got chastised for criticizing the actress who is having a child with her finance. It would be better if she was already married.

Most families don't have a mom and dad. Mom is too busy worrying about her social life and the kids are running the streets.

Again schools can only do so much. If you have no interest, desire or motivation to do well in school, what can a teacher do? They can try to work with you but if you walk away then what?

One thing with books is they are expensive and most schools buy new ones when a new edition comes out. Why? Changes in English or math? Maybe the old ones are good enough!

 

I can't agree more!

 

While I agree that you aren't going to fix every family and you can't just throw your hands up and say so what? I do think that totally chastising teachers and saying they all suck is too harsh.

I have studied education and have a M. Ed along with an MBA. I know teachers can easily improve test scores with those that have some motivation yet turn out idiots. Testing on standardized tests is as much about knowing how to test as it is about knowing the material.

 

K-Mac, Our kids went to 2 different private schools and our grandkids have gone to one private school from Kindergarten through 6th grade and then an affiliated school through 8th grade and in ALL those cases, the teachers had to have a Bachelors and teaching credential. They probably make less money than a public school teacher, but it's their choice to make that sacrifice to see to it that their students excel, and indeed they do!

 

The school my kid goes to is very proud of the academic credentials of their teachers. They give out the stats freely. There aren't any teachers with Ph.D's, but there are many with Masters and a few with Bachelors. None of the teachers have failed to obtain a degree. I think it is a requirement to remain accredited. If the school loses loses its accreditation, then they can't charge as much and they lose much of the prestige of being a private school. Nobody who can afford to send their kid to a private school is going to send them to one that is not accredited over one that is. The teachers at my kid's school make 15% less on average than the public in the same city, but they care more. Just one example, my kid was having problems in a class at his current school. I e-mailed the teacher on a Saturday, to try to find out why. I wasn't expecting a response until Monday at the earliest. I received her response on Sunday. That was a big improvement over the public system where on several occasions I had to not only e-mail the teacher several times, I had to include the principle and school supervisor (an elected position) to get a response for issues concerning my kid's safety.

This whole debate about what is wrong with schools is kind of pointless. As many have pointed out family is needed for a student to excel in school. Government can not force much more than requiring a child be in school. Even if the parents are dumb as rocks, if they support the school and emphasize the value of an education it will be impressed upon the kids. Right now we have a system that requires kids to be in school until a certain age (anywhere from 15-17), even without the support of the parents. That doesn't make any sense. Without the parents' support the kids don't try and won't succeed. Requiring kids to be in school without the support of the parents also does nothing for the quality of the schools. This pursuit of quality education for all has only lessened the education for those in borderline school districts. If the system allowed those who don't want to go to not go the education will be better for those who do want to attend and learn, even if they are in a borderline or horrible school. I know it will result in a permanent underclass, but I think it will serve to reduce the number of students receiving a crappy education because of the distractions and fear of the thugs.

 

THis might be the case in some families but I for one can tell you that if your a single parent raising a child you need MORE than 1 job to make ends meet..

So mom or dad aren't worried about their social life, they are going from one job to the next to provide for their kids...

I'm sure there are parents out their only worried about going out and having fun...

But still there has to be a way to evaluate teachers.. They can't just not teach because the child is a tough learner or causes problems..

I would say 50% of the teachers don't give a crap cause they have tenure.. They KNOW they won't get fired, or have anything happen to them at all..... Complete BS... Things need to change...


James

 

This is making a big assumption by extension.
Last IEEE conference I was at, looked like the auditions for the A&E show Heavy, the 2015-2016 season ( they would be in that condition to make the cut then ). The dumb ones in the group only had Masters degrees, the average was a single PhD, some had 2 PhDs. This group contained the guys developing the protocols and standards for 5G.
They look at a screen all day, but it is not connected to DirectTV... These are the guys that always get made fun of for not being able to climb the rope in PE.

School must have changed a lot, as world history had more to do with what guy at what battle. We did not read about music and art in history class.....
A science book has music and art in it ?? There is a ton of material to read that has little or nothing to do with art or music, and you can read about it without having a class on it ( that WW-I section, the action class would be a heck of a release form ).
In my opinion, this is a very weak statement, it has little or no facts to back it up, sounds like a music or art teacher came up with this statement...

True, they don't care, but this is where failing them comes into play. They do not pass the material, they will be the only one with a learners permit in 6th grade. If the parent are really that detached from the kids, they would not care they are redoing 6th grade for the 3rd time.
NCLB was just a method to pump billions of $ into a failing system, we can only hope that the NCLB ver 2.0 will actually be useful ( not holding my breath for that ).
Yes I know the source of NCLB, this is my 2nd strike towards losing my GOP status, 1 more and I will be sent to the minors in the Independent party. What is that catch phrase, "Hear that sucking sound......"

Must be the new way schools are running now days, when I was in school my 1st history book stopped at landing on the moon, do not recall the 2nd one having any thing on Vietnam either.