You are not venting at all. Sounds like the teachers are the bullies in your situation! I can just imagine your child's teacher, up late at night, meticulously calculating your son's grade to equal 89%. How pathetic! Shame on LISD!! (Thanks bp, after reading your last reply I added that to my post just in time! The above-mentioned "teacher" -and she knows who she is-should be doing her math on a McDonalds cash register!! Then your family could order everything on the menu that costs 89 cents-she's so good at that number >:-)
School systems are one of the last monopolies in the US. Maybe the _real_ solution lies in dismantling the monopoly of the local public school system altogether, and implement a school tuition voucher program.
You should check out the new issue of Time and look for this article:
Adam Cohen/Cleveland With reporting by Ken Myers/Cleveland, Nation: A First Report Card On Vouchers Cleveland's program gets mixed grades. Parents are happier, but students may not be learning more. And vouchers may be dividing the city., Time, 04-26-1999, pp 36+.
Here is an excerpt for discussion purposes (shouldn't/can't reprint entire article here due to copyright violation) that makes this issue especially timely for you:
"Vouchers may be the next big thing in American education. Thousands of students in Cleveland and Milwaukee, Wis., are using tax dollars to attend private schools, and Florida is poised to adopt the nation's first statewide program. Texas, New Mexico and Pennsylvania may follow."
I hope this possibility provides some relief for your situation. BTW, I got this article via E-Library (www.elibrary.com). There is a 30 day free trial and IMO worth paying for thereafter.
Further info re this Time article: predictably, Al Gore is quoted at the end as opposing vouchers for private schools (that public school monopoly thing again...they are kind of cozy with the Democrats ;-). I too once agreed, thinking public $ to private schools an abomination...well that was then this is now. Now I view it as a "straw man" arguement on the part of the teacher unions who want the status quo.
Lastly (I'm the one rambling, sorry) here is one more quote from the article again for specific discussion point: read this (my emphasis):
"However, the most troubling aspect of the Cleveland voucher experiment has nothing to do with test scores and everything to
do with the danger that vouchers could undermine the role that
public schools have played in American life. Public schools have
long held the promise of being America's great equalizer, mixing
students of different races, classes and religions in a single
student body. At their best, public schools have united diverse
groups of students, many of them immigrants, by passing on the
nation's shared civic heritage, from George Washington to George
Washington Carver. Public schools have the ability to teach
democracy simply by being open to all children, and regarding
them--and their backgrounds and religions--as equally worthy."
Taken in the context of Littleton, CO and other hazing-based tragedies this paragraph IMO rings just a little hollow. :-( |
