For our children?

[Horn]

Originally posted by lukster
I submit school prayer as exhibit "a". There will come a time when the libs aren't in control of the schools. When that happens, don't say you weren't warned.

You wish there to be prayer is schools? Would you start off with a Jewish prayer or something from Islam?

Originally posted by Dead Man Flying
I wish I frequented a website that told me about which issues I should become righteously indignant.

-- Todd/Leviathn

LMAO

[benytree]

Originally posted by SaburoS
Most likely children at that age would just say "Ewwwee!! Grosss!" and check out another book.

nope, in the 5th grade everyone talks about crap like that. there always hunting for those books and porno sites and CRAP. in the fourth quarter this year (ended on tuesday) me and my parents were sick of it so they took me out of school:aok  the only bad thing about it is that i might have to do 5th grade again:cry . well at least i had a quarter and a summer off;)

[Hawklore]

Parents who want to brain wash their child know better then to send them to public schools.

Public School = Free Choice

Easy said, easy done.

If you want to shelter your child from the world, and life, and never let harm come to them..

By all means do it, but don't let them into society, ever, and don't complain about what is in the society.



Most of your psychos come from those so called, 'super safe' families.

[wrag]

by Horn

"So you would feel comfortable dictating, for all parents, everywhere, what could and could not be read in a school? How did you manage to get so qualified? See what I'm getting at? Your bias--like mine--gets in the way. You have a problem allowing anything sexual in schools. I don't--within already legislated obscenity laws-- and my trust in school boards and their mostly native conservatism because I taught my kids at home what was right and what wasn't and I trust them to make decisions. "

I feel comfortable placing such things within the control of each individual parent, NOT in control of the school.  I THINK I see what you are getting at and I say....

No one is dictating what any parent can or cannot teach their children here.  Nor what can and can not be read in a school.  So your statement is inaccurate IMHO.  I DO NOT have a problem letting anything sexual into school.  If it is age appropriate fine.  Children need to know things as they grow.  I DO have a problem with taking parental control away from the parents.  I DO have a problem with the school or any school for that matter that dictates what children will learn regarding sexual subjects when it is against or overrules parental wishs.

Further as TAX payers IMHO we should remind all those who are paid FROM the taxs collected that in effect we are their employers.  That as employers we do have SOME rights.

As to native conservatism.  Sorry!  Seen to many so called "progressive" school boards in my time.  Such like to scream about the Christian religion intruding into schools and then turn around and require the children study then play act as if they are Muslims for a day or a week?  This is, or was, being done in Kalifornia.

Not against children understanding or studying any religion.  But IMHO you gonna study one then you should study many if not all.  Give the student a well rounded education not an aimed one.  And IMHO no student should EVER be required to play act for ANY religion.

As to your teaching your children at home bravo!

[lukster]

Originally posted by Dead Man Flying
I wish I frequented a website that told me about which issues I should become righteously indignant.

-- Todd/Leviathn

Unlike some of you who have or have had no school age kids I've found reasons in the public schools to become indignant about long before there was a "web".  That's why I am much in favor of vouchers.

[lukster]

Originally posted by Hawklore
Parents who want to brain wash their child know better then to send them to public schools.

Public School = Free Choice

Easy said, easy done.

If you want to shelter your child from the world, and life, and never let harm come to them..

By all means do it, but don't let them into society, ever, and don't complain about what is in the society.



Most of your psychos come from those so called, 'super safe' families.

Only the most washed of brains believe they have "free choice" when it comes to public schools.

[wrag]

Originally posted by Hawklore
Parents who want to brain wash their child know better then to send them to public schools.

Public School = Free Choice

Easy said, easy done.

If you want to shelter your child from the world, and life, and never let harm come to them..

By all means do it, but don't let them into society, ever, and don't complain about what is in the society.



Most of your psychos come from those so called, 'super safe' families.

You have proof regarding these psychos?  Like Columbine maybe?

As to the brainwashing, many parents see it as exactly the opposite.  Perhaps you should research home schooling before making such statements.  It was for many years within the U.S. the standard way to educate ones children.  Many schools, anymore, skip lightly over the Declaration of Independence (dang it speeling here) if they bother to teach it at all.  World geography it SEEMS is not well covered either.

It might interest you to know that many home schooled students SEEM to get better scores in testing for what has been learned then their public school counterparts.

Public Schools = Free choice?  Sure doesn't SEEM that way to me.

Many home schooling parents OBJECT to what they see as a national disgrace  when it comes to public schools.  For having SO much money thrown at them our national public schools DO NOT score high when compared to the worlds, or perhaps a better way of saying it other countries, schools.

[Dead Man Flying]

Originally posted by lukster
Unlike some of you who have or have had no school age kids I've found reasons in the public schools to become indignant about long before there was a "web".  That's why I am much in favor of vouchers.

That's a mighty ubiquitous "you" there, Lukster.  Do "they" fly around in black helicopters too?

-- Todd/Leviathn

[lazs2]

well... I don't agree with the super strict and protecting parents on what my kids should see or read and I don't agree with what most public school teachers think.

I would rather see a school teach...  how would that be?  basic skills in math, history,reading and science.   They don't need to teach morality or lack thereof.   They don't have time in any case since they can't even get the basics taught.

The point is...  basic morality and sex and ethics should be taught at home and basic math and science should be taught at school.

Public school is extremely dangerous in that is has no competition and takes away all choice from parents.

Not to mention... it is probly the most wasteful and bloated tax money sink next to the military.   There is no excuse for how badly public schools are doing their job.

I have never heard the arrogant, overpaid part time workers called teachers ever.....  get on tv or tell me in person that "since I have your kid most of every day... it is probly at least partly my fault that he is not learning"

Have you?   Nope... mostly I get the arrogant "I am a saint that only appears to be working part time and how dare you question that!"

lazs

[Chairboy]

No response on the islamic prayer in schools?

[Shuckins]

Lasz,

As a former public school teacher, I should take offense at some of the things you just said...

...but I don't.

I may be something of an oddity in my profession...I favor the school voucher program and the expansion of the private school system, as well as home schooling.

The public school system in the United States can't do a proper job of educating the young because it has become a bastion of political correctness and a testing ground for every squirrel-headed educational "fad" spawned by arrogant, without-a-clue instructional "experts."

The near total abandonment of the phonetics approach to teaching reading in favor of the "whole word" method, and the demonization of "rote" memorization during the late '60s and early '70s has bequeathed to our society two generations of citizens unable to read, spell, locate nations on a map, or understand the history of our country.

The same instructional "experts" who pushed these fads on the educational system refuse to learn from their mistakes.  Talk about the necessity of returning to phonetics and "rote" memorization of facts and they get belligerent.  Rather than return to educational methods that have worked for thousands of years, they push new programs that emphasize testing, testing, and more testing.  The paperwork mandated for the teaching profession leaves us with precious little time to teach.

School consolidation is another of those "trends" touting efficiency that have played havoc with education.  It makes little sense to close down small neighborhood and rural schools (Curse you Huckabee!   ), stuff 2000 kids onto a single campus, and then attempt to reduce class size.

Frankly, I'm glad that, after 30 years of a public school teaching career I no longer have to deal with all that feather-headed nonsense.




There...I feel much better.


Regards, Shuckins

[Chairboy]

Here's something I don't get about school vouchers, and maybe someone can explain to me: Since the vast majority of private schools are religious, parents using vouchers would be facilitating public funding of religious institutions.

The most common response to this I hear is "I pay taxes, I should be able to control where the money goes", but that argument seems to overlook folks who don't have kids that pay the same into the system.  If voucher parents should be able to aim their school money at private schools, then why shouldn't child-less taxpayers be able to say "no mas" and keep that portion of their money?

I see this as first and foremost another failure of taxation (why aren't parents paying for education?) and secondly another example of religious folks trying to take advantage of the tax situation to weasel public funding of religious schooling.

[lukster]

If we let the socialists have control of our schools they win, simple as that. They are winning.

[lazs2]

shukins... thank you.

That is perhaps the closest I have ever seen a public school teacher come to admiting that public schools are not "off limits" for critisism.

lazs

[Dead Man Flying]

That's an interesting perspective, Shuckins.  My mother-in-law is a principal at a very poor, urban magnet school in Northern Virginia.  She's found that two major things severely hamper the ability of the children to learn: parents and teachers.  

The former cause problems because so many of the poor, inner city parents take no interest in their children's educations, and many actually approach schooling with hostility.  When one kid (and we're talking elementary school here) brought a knife to school and threatened to behead other kids, his parents were happy that he showed how tough he was rather than aghast at such sociopathic behavior.  Apparently that's pretty typical, and the PTO (i.e. the group filled with parents who actually should care about the quality of their children's eductation) mostly consists of whiny, obnoxious parents who care more about how they look to one another than about what they can do for the educational community.

Now, teachers cause problems because they're all about protecting turf and digging niches for themselves.  So when my mother-in-law first took over, there was a strong element of vested, older teachers who resisted any type of cirriculum change because they saw it as taking them away from whatever type of teaching made them essential.  In other words, they saw it as a plan to remove them and replace them with newer, cheaper teachers.  More junior and newer teachers formed their own cliques, and teachers also split along racial lines.  I'm pretty sure that balkanization of the teaching corps does not benefit a school district, nor do petty sabotage and the other sorts of things that result when teachers try to undermine the principal in order to have her removed.

So before guys like Wrag or Lukster become righteously indignant about lack of prayer in schools or some silly library book, let's look at some actual reasons why some public school districts fail.  Here's a hint, guys:  It's not the school library, not by a long, long shot.

-- Todd/Leviathn