Entitlement mentality

See now this is funny. We are discussing problems with education and the people discussing the issue are demonstrating poor reading comprehension.

I never said that NCLB didn't have its drawbacks. I never even said it was a good thing. All I did was explain roughly what it is supposed to do. My sister is a teacher as are several other people I know. My sister and others hate NCLB because they say it is unreasonable to expect all children to perform at the same level. As far as teaching to exams, that is a problem any time you have a standardized test, it isn't unique to NCLB.

And I do agree that children are indoctrinated by the Left as I have discussed in many threads. Perhaps I was at fault in assuming the OP was referring to lies from the Right as is the norm in this forum.

Bad parenting is a monumental problem according to every educator I have talked to. Around here many children are neglected and raised in a manner that constitutes child abuse - there is simply no fixing the problem save for drastic measure. The one thing that is certain is that throwing money at the problem is downright stupid and it is essentially considered a debunked approach by all well informed people. Statistics show that there is no correlation between funding and results in our schools - look it up.

Even if there was such a correlation, in management there is a general rule on how best to allocate resources. The rule states that it is best to put your money behind those that perform the best. So, the best thing to do is to put the money behind the best and brightest students and maybe enroll the worst performers in some type of trade school. In the end, the world needs plumbers just as much as it needs lawyers. It makes no sense to try to push a square peg through a round hole by trying to make every student into a scholar. Right now we have no programs for poor students. Wouldn't it be better to place poor students into a program that is a good fit for them instead of setting up a sink or swim scenario in which they will likely sink. After all, not everyone has the intelligence to be a lawyer. In fact, only a small percentage of people do and a much smaller percentage has what it takes to be a doctor.

You know, I'm starting to think someone should start a program in which Liberals are given an eye opening tour of the inner City neighborhoods of Detroit. We could call it scared smart. I have actually seen dyed in the wool Liberals do a 180 degree about face after about a week of working in the ghetto. You know what they say, a Conservative is a Liberal who has been mugged by reality.

The best of intentions usually produce the POOREST results.

real improvement takes guts.....

Apathetic parents and apathetic teachers have combined to create a perfect storm of educational decline.

Some of the so called poor students have behavioral problems.

Whatever happened to reform schools?

doobnVA said:

Really? How did you come up with that conclusion?

6 hour school days X 180 = 1080 hours


185 non-school days X 24 hours in a day= 4440 hours

Even if we remove the time spent sleeping, we still end up with over 2500 hours spent at home versus 1080 hours spent at school.

Click to expand...

Its funny when you show Cracker how wrong he is time after time again he ignores it an continues to sprew out false info.. After seeing all his BS here it would be real hard to take any advice about growing from him.... His post kinda reminds me of watching Fox...Lies and non-facts

londonfog said:

Its funny when you show Cracker how wrong he is time after time again he ignores it an continues to sprew out false info.. After seeing all his BS here it would be real hard to take any advice about growing from him.... His post kinda reminds me of watching Fox...Lies and non-facts

Click to expand...

I don't expect him to reply to my post, because I'm fairly certain he has actually put me on his ignore list (I guess he's tired of me pointing out obvious flaws and outright lies he spews all over the place), so now I've taken to responding to him simply in case anyone passing by mistakes him as a credible source of information.

Kind of like a public service.

Um, my only point was that you must own your own situation. Obviously reform is needed in many areas of this country. I choose, however, not to sit back and be a victim, rather an advocate for what i know my child needs. Isn't that what parenting is all about? I do not have the power at this point and time to reform the whole educational system, but I can help my child's. As far as not understanding reality, I moved out of the barrio to the burbs where my child and I don't understand this suburban life at all yet made the sacrifice for what we thought would be a better educational opportunity. So I can very clearly state that I have a true understanding of what the rough insides look like. I do not believe that finger pointing, especially in this forum, will do anything but instigate or infer that someone is more knowledgeable than another. This started as an open discussion about entitlement. If you are unwilling to hear what others have to say, whether you agree or not, you are also undeserving of having an opinion as vocal as this forum. Perhaps some of the responders need to think about their own parents lack of teaching them to listen with an open heart, not judge for a difference in stupid political opinion, and for God's sake, if you don't have anything kind to say, don't say anything at all. There is nothing more unattractive than adult finger pointing and name calling. Honestly. We're all in this together.

whoops.. wrong thread.

rick if i took your post the wrong way my fault. usually when one makes a post as such they are defending said stance. it is not always reading comp. it also has to do with the way it is read. hollander i agree name calling and acting childish only discredits your argument. how can we exspct uor children not to do it when we do. that is what is great about this great country we can have different opinions and openly share them weather any one else agrees or not.

londonfog said:

Its funny when you show Cracker how wrong he is time after time again he ignores it an continues to sprew out false info.. After seeing all his BS here it would be real hard to take any advice about growing from him.... His post kinda reminds me of watching Fox...Lies and non-facts

Click to expand...

If you think it through carefully, it will come to you. My post was correct. kids are exposed to school for a longer period each week than with their parents.

Think it through.

My daughter goes to school 6 hours a day, 5 days a week.

That's 30 hours a week.

if you "think it through", it doesn't add up. She's home with me when she isn't at school.

How many hours are there in a week? 168.

168 hours in a week, and 30 of those are spent at school.

30>138?

I don't think so.

Let's say she spends 9 hours a night sleeping... so that's 63 hours sleeping.

138-63 = 75

30> 75?

Nope, still not adding up.

Now let's say she spends an average of an hour in the bathroom every day.

75- 7 = 68

30>68?

WRONG again.

face time not you watching tv,or here on line

Think ... it .... through.

robert 14617 said:

face time not you watching tv,or here on line

Click to expand...

We don't watch tv on weekdays (the kids get 2 hours on weekends to either watch tv or play a video game - usually they pick a video game), and when I'm online, my kids are still right here in front of me. In fact, just now we were looking for cookie recipes and before that we were looking at pictures of the solar decathlon houses on the national mall in DC that we plan to visit this weekend.

We live in an 800 sq. ft house so all day is "face time" because there's nowhere else to go

When I was in elementary school I qualified for the "Gifted and Talented" program at my grade school. This means the subjects of math and english/reading/whatever were taught by a different teacher outside of the normal classroom. Since my elementary school had the same schedule of subjects for every grade level we would go, along with other students in our grade, straight to a separate classroom with a different teacher (she only taught these GT students throughout the day, and different grade levels would obviously be taught at different times by her). This way we could move at a faster pace than our normal classroom. We were not held back by the "slower" students and were able to move at a pace more appropriate for us. With fewer students in the "regular" class room, the teachers could then give more attention to these students in order to cater to their own styles of learning/pace. Obviously a teacher will spend more time with 14-15 students than with 20.

This program has since been removed because people complained that it gives children in the "Gifted and Talented" program an advantage, when it fact it was done in order to help the (for lack of a better word) slower students have more interaction with their teacher in the two most important subjects for children younger than High School, while also not hindering the more gifted students.

How is it fair to slow intelligent children down because others are not as capable as them? Why can't we encourage intelligence instead of mediocrity? Which this program does.

Private school is definitely the way to go nowadays for students who excel in school (assuming cost/location is not an issue), specifically High School. Instead of having 600+ students in a class and having the bottom half of a class slow the top half down, you would instead have a class of 200ish with students, who for the most part have similar intelligence capacities. There are still a good number of dumb people at a private school, don't get me wrong, but instead of wasting other's time with their issues in class they are encouraged to go in on their own time to catch up with the teacher. Thus, time is not wasted catching up these students and intelligence/command of their education is not dictated by an outside school board/local government as it would be at a public institution. Intelligence is encouraged over mediocrity.

doobnVA said:

We don't watch tv on weekdays (the kids get 2 hours on weekends to either watch tv or play a video game - usually they pick a video game), and when I'm online, my kids are still right here in front of me. In fact, just now we were looking for cookie recipes and before that we were looking at pictures of the solar decathlon houses on the national mall in DC that we plan to visit this weekend.

We live in an 800 sq. ft house so all day is "face time" because there's nowhere else to go

Click to expand...

While that is awesome that you spend that much time with your children, the sad fact is that you are probably an exception. When most children get home they either go straight to the TV/Video Game or run up to a friends house. While these are fine in moderation, for most children their parents just let em go. This coupled with the philosophy of creating average students who can pass a standardized state exam that the schools can use to pat themselves on the back with has obviously hurt more than it has helped.

Iron Lion Zion said:

While that is awesome that you spend that much time with your children, the sad fact is that you are probably an exception. When most children get home they either go straight to the TV/Video Game or run up to a friends house. While these are fine in moderation, for most children their parents just let em go. This coupled with the philosophy of creating average students who can pass a standardized state exam that the schools can use to pat themselves on the back with has obviously hurt more than it has helped.

Click to expand...

I agree, and I also realize I am not the norm (at least for where I live and the school my daughter goes to) when it comes to spending time with my kids. I guess it depends a lot on different factors, including how I was raised. Even though my parents weren't always around as much as I would have liked - I realize they did the best they could and I've committed myself to doing BETTER than that. I take most of my classes online, I make sure my work/school schedule doesn't require me to send the kids to babysitters/daycare or whatever.

I live in a city that is predominantly black, the median income is around $30,000 per year, and 85% of people are high school graduates while only 30% are college graduates. As much as people don't want to hear it or believe it, things like income and education DO play a part in how people raise their children. it goes without saying that someone with a low income who has to work long hours to make ends meet is going to be unable to spend as much time with their child as someone who works less. A person's level of education also plays a large role in how they are involved in the education of their child. Someone without a high school diploma is probably going to be less involved in their child's education than someone with a college degree.

I've been complimented on numerous occasions by my daughter's teacher for being so involved in her schooling, making sure she gets her homework done (and done correctly), and generally being willing to work with the school instead of against it as many parents do.

It also bears mentioning that teachers who seek employment in schools with large populations of at-risk children usually do so not because they truly want to make an impact, but because teaching at-risk children affords them student loan forgiveness - while teaching in a suburban school typically does not. I mention this because, while the parent has a huge responsibility when it comes to the education of their child, the teachers need to step up and do what's right rather than what's affordable.