Government Schools

Elephant In My Coffee blogged I was listening to Neal Boortz on the radio yesterday as he continually referred to "Public Schools" as "Government Schools." The 3 owners of EIMC are products of public/government schools & all our kids attend them as well. Do they fail our children? Do we expect schools to teach our children everything? Do we think we shouldn't have to promote education and love of learning at home? Do we think what they eat the cafeteria will make them not understand good nutrition? NO TO ALL!

I agree with Greta that parents should not expect schools to teach our children everything, and that parents should promote education and love of learning at home, including good nutrition. And I will agree that not all public schools fail our children. There certainly are some good public schools, but there are a LOT that really need improvement.

The failures in schools arise from the decline of the family unit. As we at EIMC have all sacrificed our careers to stay at home, it is hard not to blame the "working" mother and absence of "fathers" for some of these problems. Thought there are exceptions to this rule as we have run into some pretty lousy stay-at-home mothers too!

Society in general, has become lazy & we expect the lowest paid professionals to be "everything" to our children while they are there for the day. So what are the solutions???

My personal recc..
1. Encourage individuality & not the "sheep" mentality for all teachers to just go with the unions. They are way too powerful!

I completely agree.

2. Make it mandatory that all parents volunteer a certain amount of time at their children's school per year. Kind of like a co-op. Offer flexible hours so there are no excuses.

That might be difficult for families where both parents work, or for single parent families, but in those situations if the parents who could not volunteer time could help pay for some needed supplies I agree it would be a good thing. The problem is that in a lot of schools, the school does not want the parents to be too involved, even if they want to. If that is the case at your school, you definitely need to go to the school board to see if that policy can be changed.

3. Cut down on the number of stupid seminars that teachers must attend while they must leave their class for the day.
4. Get rid of "tenure." If you are a lousy teacher - you are out!

AMEN!!!!

5. Stop making excuses for kids that don't do well & don't make those who strive to achieve feel ostracized!
6. Bring back common sense!!!

And I would add, Enable (and expect) the teachers to maintain discipline in their classroom.

While we are the subject of schools, take a look at JackLewis.net's post Oklahoma school adopts religious protection policy