The Saddest Thing

[Tired_Old_Man 1]

If teachers are required to be mothers and fathers and baby sitters at once, then the school system should be funded to have enough teachers and teachers aids so that they could be effective mothers and fathers and baby sitters.

Whatever it takes to get well educated students must be done. I bet when the coach of the high school football team says, "we could have won the state championship except that I didn't have the facilities to practice in the rain", a building will be built to allow the football team to practice in the rain.

Education of our young is not priority one. The first thing cut when a municipality has financial problems is the school budget. Yes, in a democracy, people have a right to cut the school budget rather than increase taxes, but then we can not complain when a P/E teacher is found wanting in ability. Well we can complain, but we make our own bed. No, I am not saying the individuals here who faced or saw abuse from P/E teachers deserved it, but the vote of tax payers to put children's education below tax rates on the priority list caused the situation.

[K@t 38]

Your missing my point. Teachers SHOULDN'T be required to be anything other then a teacher. Parents need to take accountability for their children. Just like Jachut said she helps her son exercise and eat properly. Thats what parents should be doing, not sending their kids to school expecting teachers to teach them manners and basic good sense. These values should come from home.

[Tired_Old_Man 1]

Your missing my point. Teachers SHOULDN'T be required to be anything other then a teacher. Parents need to take accountability for their children.

No! I am not missing your point. I disagree. Schools need to do whatever it takes to educate the children. I would have more teachers per student and/or teacher's aid to help control, discipline and teach manners if that is what is required.

Just like Jachut said she helps her son exercise and eat properly. Thats what parents should be doing, not sending their kids to school expecting teachers to teach them manners and basic good sense. These values should come from home.

And if parents of other students (I say other, because all our children are perfect), don't teach their children manners and good sense, then we wind up with a society of uneducated adults and adults who are muggers, thieves and criminals, but at least the teachers didn't have to teach them manners.

We are all in this together. Let's say that your neighbors are slobs, who dropped out of school in the 7th grade and are functionally illiterate. I guess we should just write their children off. When one of those children (as an adult) many years later, mugs your child or your sister's child, it will be of little solace to know that teachers only had to teach the "3 R's". Better to light one single candle than to curse the darkness.

[K@t 38]

I continue to disagree...it is not my job to teach kids manners and values, my job is to educate them in the subject that I teach. The rest is up to the parents. I didn't choose to bring those lives into the world, their parents did and there for it is totally their responsibility to see to the welfare of the children. They need to raise their children with their values and morals. I might have a completly different take on life then parents might have for their children and who is to say I get to dictate how the kids should be raised. Thats why we have so many uneducated kids now. Because teachers are to busy raising kids for their parents instead of teaching them the basics like math and reading and language arts. If parents were held responsible and did their jobs you would see a lot more progress in schools.

When my grandfather was in school there was 1 teacher for grades 1 - 6 and she delt with all the kids and did a great job. Why? Because the kids were well behaved and had manners and they knew if they didn't do well in school they were in trouble when they got home. 1 teacher could deal with it all. Today it's impossible. Kids know if they get in trouble at school they can run home and mommy or daddy will sue the school district.

[mom of many 0]

I agree,

My mom works for the school district in Texas, she told me a very disturbing story the other day about the lunch room. (we all know it happens) They normally do about $1000. in sales in the snack bar each day. (not the school plan meals) and they enlarged their snack bar to accomidate the number of students this year. Keep in mind the school is a 3 A school (not very big), however the sales in the first day of school at the snack bar soared to over $3000.00, can you imagine???? If we as parents teach our kiddos good nutrition, and not leave it up to the schools as a babysitter, or demand that Mcdonalds and taco bell be taken out of our schools, (yes in Texas we have fast food places in the schools) we as a nation just maybe can improve our childrens life not only on the outside but the inside too.

Please keep in mind at the snack bar, they sell things like pizza, , french fries, cakes, Cookies, icecream, and such. Have we as parents gotten so lazy in our efforts to protect our children that we assume that someone else will look after them or things will work itself out? I remember what got me to this point in my life to have this surgery, is this what I want for my children? The answer is no.

Sorry to ramble, but my children are grown now and they are fortunate, they do not struggle with their weight, and I like to think I taught them well or they have seen what has happened to me and my struggle with weight, and choose not to go down this path.

I didn't mean to upset anyone and this is not an effort to single out anyone who has children it's just my observation and a collective oppinion.

It's our responsiblity!

Thanks for listening,

[Tired_Old_Man 1]

We have a country full of parents who do not raise their children properly. Many of those parents probably were not raised properly, but all we can think about is "it is the responsibility of the (irresponsible) parents to raise responsible children to be responsible adults". That is not going to happen.

I see this as a debate between the relative worth of compassion versus the relative worth of personal responsibility. We can either expect people who have no abilities to be responsible or we can show some compassion for their situation and their children.

It is obvious how we feel in this country. When we fund schools based on property value, we say that those who come from better neighborhoods deserve a better education and those that come from poor neighborhoods deserve what they get.

We can continue to expect people to pull themselves up by their own boot-straps (which as any physics teacher worth his salt can tell you, is physically impossible) or we can lend a hand.

A few years back there were two towns a few miles apart. The towns were almost clones of each other size and ethnic background wise. Both towns had schools that were performing well below standards. One day a teacher noticed that kids were falling asleep in class and then she found out that many kids were hungry. After doing research, the school started a Breakfast program to go along with the lunch program and started giving children food to take home. The test scores soared. The other town's mayor and school board heard about the progress, but insisted that they were a school system, not a restaurant and it was the parents responsibility to feed their children. I would imagine that the town that fed their school children had to raise taxes, but can anyone think of a better use of tax money?

[dpingl 0]

The US Spends More On Education Per Pupil Than Any Other Country Do we REALLY NEED to keep spending more on educaton? What were doing right NOW as a BIG spender is NOT WORKING!

http://www.cnn.com/2003/EDUCATION/09....ap/index.html

Report: U.S. No. 1 in school spending

Test scores fall in middle of the pack

Tuesday, September 16, 2003 Posted: 1:31 PM EDT (1731 GMT)

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The United States spends more public and private money on education than other major countries, but its performance doesn't measure up in areas ranging from high-school graduation rates to test scores in math, reading and science, a new report shows.

"There are countries which don't get the bang for the bucks, and the U.S. is one of them," said Barry McGaw, education director for the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which produced the annual review of industrialized nations.

The United States spent $10,240 per student from elementary school through college in 2000, according to the report. The average was $6,361 among more than 25 nations.

The range stretched from less than $3,000 per student in Turkey, Mexico, the Slovak Republic and Poland to more than $8,000 per student in Denmark, Norway, Austria and Switzerland.

The report cited Australia, Finland, Ireland, Korea and the United Kingdom as examples of OECD nations that have moderate spending on primary and lower secondary education but high levels of performance by 15-year-olds in key subject areas.

As for the United States, it finished in the middle of the pack in its 15-year-olds' performance on math, reading and science in 2000, and its high-school graduation rate was below the international average in 2001 -- figures highlighted by Education Secretary Rod Paige.

The country fared better in reading literacy among fourth-graders, where it finished among the top scorers in 2001. But the declining performance as students grow older served as a warning to the nation, Paige said.

"These results highlight an extremely important truth about our educational system: I think we have become complacent, self-satisfied and often lacking the will to do better," Paige said.

International benchmarks

Appropriate spending has emerged as a key political issue this year as the nation's schools deal with federal reforms. The No Child Left Behind law demands better performance from students and teachers, particularly in low-income districts, but critics say Republican leaders in Congress have spent too little on the effort.

The report, released Tuesday, sets international benchmarks and identifies areas for improvement.

Based on educational level, the report says the United States spends the most on higher education for every student and is a leading spender on primary and secondary education.

Paige said the nation must fill the gap between it and other countries, and bridge another between students succeeding in American public schools and those falling behind. Within that promising fourth-grade reading showing in the United States, Paige said, is a revealing number: the higher the percentage of poor students, the lower the average score.

"There's no such thing as a 'typical' fourth-grader," Paige said. "We want to go to each fourth-grader. We need to see who needs the help."

The new federal law requires states to chart adequate yearly progress -- not just for a school's overall population, but for groups such as minorities and students who speak little English. Sanctions grow by the year for schools receiving low-income aid that don't improve enough. Consequences range from letting students transfer to a better school within their districts to handing control of a poor-performing school to the state.

"No other country is imposing such a rigorous requirement on its schools," McGaw said.

But from school boards to Congress, growing numbers of leaders say the federal government isn't committing enough money to the task. States must, for example, expand their standardized testing and put a highly qualified teacher in every core class by 2005-06.

Federal education spending has grown by $11 billion since President Bush took office, Paige said, but that includes spending beyond the first 12 grades. Even increased money for elementary and secondary education doesn't cover the law's sweeping expenses, said David Shreve of the National Conference of State Legislatures.