Tell me what you really think.
I am all for the neighborhood schools; ones close enough for the kids to walk and go back to play ball in the afternoons or band practice or drama club, without having to be driven. This should be required reading for all school personnel, especially the planners and leaders.
Bring back small neighborhood schools
I think that is the answer. With the mega school districts (we happen to be in one, a very good one but it's huge) you can't impact anything. The superintendent is just some person thousands of contacts away and that person isn't going to take anything from a single voice in the wilderness. That's just from the voices that decide to speak up, most of them don't even voice an opinion because they don't feel like fighting that much bureaucracy.
I loved the standardized tests. No homework. What's not to love about that?
I work at a small neighborhood school and, believe it or not, our kids are required to be bussed in. I spoke with an administrator about this and he said it's strange but true--even the kids whose back porches can be seen from a classroom window ride the bus.
This is really sad, and I don't know if it has to do with the parents, the school, or saftey. maybe all three. Maybe all three are working, negatively, in unison.
I haven't found any answers, or any admins who care more about kids than their own ladders. I guess that's why I got out before I was sucked in.
school is so political now.. where i am it is constant posturing by the school board and officials. no wonder kids in china and japan are learning more!
Well, ya gotta figure in an age of near-constant challenges to "offensive" books and the substitution of "Intelligent" Design for actual science that yeah, our schools are in a mess o' trouble.
WF
My wife and I bought a house in the neighborhood of the best elem. school in this town where we live and where I teach at the Jr. High. Most mornings, my wife walks our boys to school and later, walks them home.
They also have a stay-at-home Mom who helps out a bit in their classrooms. Yep, we may be freaks by todays materialistic standards, we may not have enough money to do many of the things we want or would like to do, but we are trying our damnest to give our boys a life similar to what we had as we were growing up.
Good post Mamacita! Lots to think about when dealing with parents. What will our kids/students of today think about in the future when they talk about their school days????
So soooo true. I had nightmares about school and decided NOT to go to college because I had such bad experiences in HS> I can't take tests...go blank. It took me 5 years to finally decide to go to college and THERE I finally learned how to study and to apply what I learned. I was nearly straight A's all through college and graduated Magma Cum Laude. I worry about my kids so much going into this same school system although it HAS improved since I was there from what I can tell.
I'm slightly torn about smaller schools. On the one hand, I can see the appeal. On the other hand however, almost all of my contemporaries hated pre-collegiate schooling in part because there were few to no bright kids for them to interact with. Going off to 40k student public universities was a HUGE move forward for many of them because they could finally find kids who where like them.
Make the schools smaller and you make it even more unlikely for there to be a critical mass of bright kids to support each other at a high school.
Scotty, that's a great story (and it's always good to see someone from Our Home Town deciding to go to school), but your typo of "magma cum laude" made me chuckle.
"Well, Mr. and Mrs. Scotty, he would have graduated with honors, but we had to sacrifice him to this here volcano."
WF
Great post.
"I'm slightly torn about smaller schools." -
I feel the same way. Both my kids went to a small elem. school (my youngest still has one year to go). I'm so tired of that school, the day he graduates I'm throwing a huge party for all our friends (feel free to come! 
) Not only like you said, there isn't enough bright students, but there isn't enough good teachers either (so far, there are two that I know of. There was a third one, but she quit). Our middle school is large and the difference is enormous.
A large school, but one that is well-staffed so kids can still get individual attention, seems to be a possible solution.
Of course, as long as schools are funded via levies, this may not happen.
WF
EI tests before they can teach or join the Board of Governors, might be more productive.
Its hard to see in a staff room where they are all human (to their 'equals') but many teachers talk down to pupils so habitually that they do it even to adults in an evening class. Standing at the front triggers something that makes them treat everyone like the worst kind of thirteen year olds, or worse, the distractions that make earning a wage by talking (not relating) 'so hard'.
A young mind only needs one or two like that, for them to shut off and lose trust that other teachers might be nicer. After that school is just something you have to go through by law until you are old enough to escape.
Catch 22 is that they are autonomous; behind closed doors with their pupils, for each class, so there is never a chance for real peer review.
And no, I wouldn't be saying this if it wasn't obvious that you are the nice, caring sort!
I'm not sure such administrators exist. They've been extinguished.
-G
Things are not that bad in my district (my daughter is an elementary teacher). BUT there is too damn much paper work, too damn much theory, and not enough hugging.
While I think my principal is generally well-intentioned, and he usually supports the teachers, he often has to do the political dance because in a district with one HS, there is no place to hide.
I feel so fortunate that my daughter gets to walk across the street to her elementary school every day. And spend the day with a caring, compassionate, but hard-nosed teacher who doesn't let my gifted girl just get by, but challenges her. And after school, she has clubs, Brownies, etc.
I hate that we will only live here for one year. I dread lookingfor a school at our next assignment.
So, the title of your post? Is it like Beetlejuice? Say it three times, and s/he appears?
"Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice!" - and suddenly you've got Michael Keaton in gross makeup?
"Bitch, bitch, bitch!" - and suddenly, there you are, right there in front of me! You know I love you.
My stepdad taught for 27 years in the inner city of Detroit- 5,6 grade social studies, history and English. Twice he was Teacher of the Year for the State of Michigan. Every year for the last 15 they tried to push him into administration. He would budge form the classroom. I thnk the answer is no on administrators.
My daddy never missed a single performance of my marching bands from 7th grade through two years in college EXCEPT the band trip to Hawaii. (Sadly, the trip was too costly for him to participate.) I don't know if he consciously thought at the time that he was creating a memory and confidence in me that would last 25 years - probably not - but that's just what he did. It didn't cost him a lot of money but it did cost a lot of cold nights in football bleachers, early mornings at far away schools' gymnasiums, and long drives to distant 4th of July parades. I hope parents today realize that all of that will be paid back, with interest, by the look in your child's eyes as they catch sight of you cheering wildly in the crowd. Rain or shine, good performance or bad...unconditionally.
Commenting by HaloScan
