There is a grandmother in the video I cited, who at 6 minutes and about 40 seconds into the video says: (Paraphrasing) "My 4rth grade granddaughter could not even do basic addition. Within the two weeks she was with me she knew her math facts to 20. Why was it so easy for me, but the school couldn't do that in four years?" Granted, she is a former teacher, but still. It shows what happens when you take a kid out of the factory of low expectations, where the teacher is NOT allowed to be in control of her classroom. And put that child in a "Class" where lessons are directly learned by someone who keeps the child in line. I just wish they would let the teachers teach and let the teachers have control of their classrooms again. Even my teenaged cousin will tell you that in todays highschools the teachers have been neutered by the state and the kids know it. Which means the kids take advantage.
my school asked me for some advice on hiring a teacher. I advised them to avoid all certified teachers. check out Sowell's column here: http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=1733
That's so sad it's funny. I have an acquaintance. She is a certified teacher with a 4-year college degree and special ed teaching on top. She placed top of her class in teaching college in math and I was so impressed with that until she showed me how incredibly easy her exam was. I believe that most of the veteran homeschoolers on this site would have beaten her score blindfolded. Still there were tons of her classmates that failed the same exam!
I would love to see a copy of that test! Kind of makes me want to go try for the certification, just to see if I could swing it, ya know?
Hi Thanks for the links to the article and youtube 20/20. My mom is an algebra tutor and homebound teacher for a neighboring school district. She has noticed that most of her students have trouble with fractions and some of their basic math and that is why they have difficulty with algebra. I must admit that I have trouble with fractions and percentages more than any other kind of math. I don't remember learning that well enough in school. When I entered into algebra I had so much trouble that my mom sent me to a tutor. My mom tried to teach me, but I resisted against her teaching me and I did better learning from someone else. About the 20/20 video....I don't agree with everything John Stossel and the some of the people he interviewed said, but I do think something has to be done with public school system to make it better. Personally, I think they do need more money, but it needs to be better spent. Instead of spending a fortune on administrators, consultant fees and teacher meetings (that admin. requires them to attend) they should be spending on good quality curricula, reducing class sizes and boosting teacher pay (at least that's what I've noticed in the local school district). I also think we need to get rid of the NCLB act (IMO). There are so many things that need to be fixed in the public school system. It is overwhelming. That's one of the reasons why I am homeschooling. My hubby talked to the school board over a year ago about an issue that the local public elementary school was facing, but it fell on deaf ears. Or they just didn't have the resources to fix it. The lack of willing to change things or the amount of time it takes to produce change, was too overwhelming for my husband and I. We figured by the time anything was changed our kids would be out of that school anyway (only a K-3 building). I still pay taxes and I do want to help the local kids out with a better school, so I will be voting and standing up for what I think is right. I think that is all I can do though.
Where I live it is not so much the economy that is bad for the schools as their attitude. It seems that the school system here attracts women (yeah, not many men in the school system here) with a holier-than-thou attitude who thinks that they are better parents than the parents. I am so fed up after sending our son to two different schools and meeting the same attitude: Nothing is wrong with our system, YOU'RE wrong. Same thing when I was in school too. I don't know what kind of people are in the system in the US, though.
