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Originally Posted by #1bulldog
This is just my opinion after 36 years as an educator. I've been a teacher and assistant principal in both settings and I've seen how the charters are pushing many more kids through to graduation. The charters have an edge in parental involvement. Parents go to great lengths to get their kids admitted to charters even though there's often a lottery system used for admission. Check the data across the country. Graduation rates are higher in charter schools and kids are more likely to complete at least 2 years of college, but standards are often not as high as in the public school despite the fact that both must follow state guidelines, no child left behind standards and common-core standards.
Our charter schools in Pennsylvania just don't stack up to the public schools in standardized testing in math literacy and science. There are sometimes uncertified teachers in those areas in the charters. They are well-intentioned, but may lack the depth of knowledge and experience to convey concepts and learning strategies to our youth.
And just try to expel unruly students from the public schools. There are usually disciplinary schools for those "who don't fit in." The charters tend to dismiss their difficult children with great ease, right back to the neighborhood public school. Believe me, I've seen it.
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Well said! I say BLAME PARENTS, NOT TEACHERS! It’s not a matter of poverty, or ethnicity, or crowding, even though the problems are worse in poor families and among some ethnicities. If it were, we wouldn’t see some students doing well in the same conditions. Parents need to recognize their moral duty to devote themselves to educating their kids, instilling in them a love of learning, and instilling in them respect for learning and for those who teach.
Kids need to be exposed to interesting adult conversations that are thought-provoking and respectful. The dinner table is a good place for this to happen. Parents should plan interesting conversational gambits based on the days’ events.
Kids need parents to read to them, from infancy, an hour or more a day, and ideally that reading should have vocabularies kids find challenging.
Kids need to see parents reading and figure out that reading and learning are engrossing.
Kids need parents who are respectful, available, and able to answer questions well. Raising kids well isn’t easy, but it’s important.
Kids need time to read and think. They will usually turn to things that are more exciting and require less thought unless those exciting things are restricted so there is time to read. Phones, computers, video games, television, and sports need to be limited.
Parents need to study and prepare and devote themselves to being the best parents possible. They shouldn’t yell. They shouldn’t call their kids names or use bad language. They shouldn’t hit their children. Parents have to sacrifice their time and pleasure to get good outcomes. Bad parents tend not to accept that.
Kids are quite capable of learning to appreciate things like fine art in museums, classical music and opera, great architecture, the nature of beauty. However, it doesn’t come naturally. They need to be taught HOW to see a painting, how to really SEE it, notice and enjoy similarities and differences, color and shape and contrasts. They need to be taught how to hear music and what to enjoy about it. To teach kids these things, parents need to learn it themselves. There are books and websites and videos that teach it. What a wonderful gift to give to children.
I don’t think the worst schools are getting the worst teachers, though many teachers have low morale and are essentially broken and hopeless. The worst schools have the worst-prepared students. Often they have students who are determined not to learn and do everything possible to keep learning from happening in the classroom. They get the education they deserve. The answer is not bussing them to “better schools.” If a lot are bussed in, they just drag down the better schools. Bussing in a handful of average students can work, to some extent. If they are in whole classrooms of good students, they soon learn how to do what they have to do. If they are with a lot of their friends, this doesn’t happen.
The answer starts with parents raising kids to admire learning and want it for themselves. As a college professor, I’d get students determined to come to class late, interrupt classes, not learn. Nearly always there were inner city students at my school with athletic scholarships or some other sort of free education. Some would learn. Most would flunk. My daughter teaches at a university in central Georgia. Most of her students are minority kids. They treat her like garbage and rebel when she tells them to put away their phones and computers. Then they complain when they don’t study or follow directions and get bad grades as a result. These students have been failed by their parents.