Documentary: Waiting for Superman

[OE800_85]

I wanna say, I haven't been this enthralled by a documentary in years. This movie is a really strong attack on the American Public School System, and is creating quite a controversy. Some criticize its position, others applaud it. If you haven't seen it, I really recommend watching, whatever your opinion is. I was wondering if anyone else has seen this and had any comments.

Personally I think their suggestion, putting higher expectations on teachers, is a tough pill to swallow. On the one hand, there are often quite a lot of teachers who have lost passion, and because they have so much protection, don't take accountability. As a result, there are teachers who shouldn't be teaching, doing their jobs, but little can be done about this. However, especially in bad schools, they're stretched so thin, with undisciplined students, rough neighbourhoods, and the undeniable correlation between income level and academic achievement. We would only compound their stress by making teachers worry about their job security. I'm torn on this issue.

Anyways, I would guess that a lot of members of this forum are homeschoolers, and often anti-public school system. I'm curious about your opinions.

[burbuja0512]

*Edit to delete long rant*

Lol.. great topic for discussion, I just decided I couldn't post without getting a little bit more offensive than I like

[OE800_85]

Aww I wish I could have read your long, "passionate" rant, now I'm only left to wonder...

[ryoder]

Teachers like the rest of us need to face facts. We are all replaceable in the workplace. If you start slipping you are out.
Its what have you done for me lately time for teachers. I don't care if you were a great teacher in 1978, if you are a poor teacher now then you need to be on an improvement plan. If you do not improve then you are let go.
This is standard practice in the real world. Teachers do not live in the real world. Yes their job is valuable and important, but so is the garbage man's job, the cop, the librarian, the computer programmer, the auto body repair man.
Its time to use market driven solutions to our problems instead of sheltering a certain few protected class of employees.

There is my rant.

[burbuja0512]

Aww I wish I could have read your long, "passionate" rant, now I'm only left to wonder...

hilarious

Here's a condensed, toned-down version of what I posted:

I think that school problems have to do with the system more than the individual teachers, and I would like to see a CEO of a district rather than a superintendent. Someone with some business sense that can maximize school budgets and create an effective merit system that doesn't reward bad teachers just because they have privileged students, and doesn't penalize excellent teachers that happen to have a class full of non-english speaking kids. You just can't compare teaching a class full of kids that come into kindergarten reading at a second-grade level to teaching children whose only English comes from Cartoon Network.

I also mentioned that I'm not entirely supportive of homeschool in spite of the fact that my oldest is homeschooled. I have been to a very large local homeschool group and met parents that I didn't think should be teaching kids. I'm talking about parents whose spoken grammar was atrocious and those that thought that it was ok to let their kids skip classes whenever they didn't 'feel' like working. (when can I skip work just because I don't feel up to dealing with it?)

I also LOVE LOVE LOVE all of the totally awesome religious homeschooling parents and kids here, so I want to be careful how I phrase my next idea: Diversity exists in life. If you don't get any exposure to other cultures and creeds, how will you react in the workforce? I guess what I'm saying is that while I totally believe in a parent's right to socialize their kids only with children of the same religion, and teach only according to one belief system, it can make for a rude awakening once the child is old enough to work. What do you do if the co-worker sitting on one side of you has a burka and on the other side you have a guy in a yarmulke? Does that make you uncomfortable because you've never actually talked to someone of those religions or are you more concerned with the work you have to do that day? Like it or not, public school teaches us and forces us to interact with everyone, just like in the real world. I don't think that anyone here wants to shield their kids from diversity, it just happens when you're not going to school outside of the home. I'm still not sure how I'm going to handle it with my homeschooled DS, I'm probably not as worried as I should be because he was in public school through middle school.

Anyhow... I almost didn't repost because the most important thing to me here is to have a place to talk about CLEP/DSST tests, regardless of all of our personal beliefs, but since we are off-topic, I hope that anyone reading this can understand that I totally and completely mean no offense whatsoever.

Lol.. I'll also be travelling all day tomorrow with limited access to internet so please be nice. I won't be here to defend myself

[Ruddigore]

I also LOVE LOVE LOVE all of the totally awesome religious homeschooling parents and kids here,

Why, thank you! :p

so I want to be careful how I phrase my next idea: Diversity exists in life. If you don't get any exposure to other cultures and creeds, how will you react in the workforce? I guess what I'm saying is that while I totally believe in a parent's right to socialize their kids only with children of the same religion, and teach only according to one belief system, it can make for a rude awakening once the child is old enough to work.

(Disclaimer: I've been homeschooled since kindergarten.) You are quite right that this happens. Not all homeschoolers, however, are so sheltered. I think part of the key to successful homeschooling is balancing protection from the very real negatives of public school with proper social and cultural exposure. Naturally, this requires a bit of creativity from the parents, but it isn't impossible.

I don't see why anyone should be taught according to more than one belief system, provided part of that system is sensitivity to other systems.

But it's time for me to hit the hay. Hope that was somewhat on-topic.