This ever annoy anyone else?

Question

First, they come and automatically take our kids away from us. We aren't qualified to teach. We can't possibly do it. Anything outside the institution is unrealistic and impossible.

Then, when they screw up...

Well, you know, it all starts at home. It's the parents' fault that kids can't read, the parents should be more active! You can't expect us to do it, even though our laws make it criminal to do otherwise and you're forced to pay our employees' salaries!

Seems like you should pick a side and stick to it, no?

(Thanks glurpy, but I'm 15 and won't be having any kids to homeschool for a long while yet. :) )

Answer 1

I would just like to add how sad it is that a supposedly public school teacher (Trinity), saying she had a degree, would openly call her student an "idiot."

Thank God we have the freedom in this country to Home school!

Answer 2

Wow...I wish I had a PHD and 31 years of experience so i could call kids with dysfunctional parents "idiots". How comforting to know that only the best are out there with our youth, helping them along the way.

reality: school administrators (and Trinity sounds like she is one) have no time for kids that are really struggling; they bring down performance data and hurt how the school looks and can impact funding (no dollar left behind). When parents are working two jobs to make ends meet, it means that the kids are idiots and the parents are irresponsible.

Sure, I expect that parents are less likely to be really invovled in their child's education today thatn maybe 20 years ago. They want to leave it all to the school (that way they don't have to be distracted from the imprtant things in life...like who's left ont he Island, or still dancin, or perhaps Idol somewhere). The reason for this, however, is just as your question states...the school system has spent years telling parents that they know what's best, and that they can not only do it better, but they really have more right to do it (because of the MBAs and PhDs).

Want to check it? Try going to a meeting where there are several administrators and see what they all do when they introduce themselves...each one will tell you about their degree, and how long they have been ineducation...they will rarely tell you about themseoves by saying something helpful like "I worked in an inner city school and was part of a plan that raised student performance". Nope, it's all about the sheep skin. In fact, it's like a conditionsed reponse...meet someone, show them your degree...how very odd.

When schools complain about student performance, they have to look in the mirror. if parents are disengaged, I firmly believe it is because the system has convinced them they aren't really needed. When they complain to me, I ask them why they got into education in the first place.

Answer 3

The ones I feel for in all of this is the teachers. They are trapped between what they are required to do and what they often know needs to be done. They deal with parents who run the gamut...from wanting to be consulted over every correction, every mistake, every activity to parents who are angry when the teacher sends home extra homework to make up for missed days. Teachers face parents who expect them to give thier child all the individual attention they need, provide them with education in morals, health, make sure they don't eat what they shouldn't, adpat to every child's independent learning style and be sure the entire class is working at or above grade level...all while the budget shrinks, testing becomes the Holy Grail and parents, as a community, consisitently tell the schools that they aren't important enough for us to invest in by constantly voting down tax increases/programs that would go directly to the schools or voting for programs that let them take money from systems already in financial crisis (voucher programs). Public education is expected to be everything for every student while society as a whole refuses to pay for it.

I do homeschool one of my children. It has been an amazing time and I would never have missed out on it. But we now live in a district with better schools, better programs and a very, very active parent community (vital in the success of any school). My daughter is considering returning to school..and I will support whatever choice she makes. The same system recognized very quickly that it did not have the program my son needed and has paid to place him in a private, year round school specializing in autism. I know how lucky we are to have these options...and how few families do. The entire public school system needs to change...but change takes time, money and effort. I think too often that Americans as a whole expect the government to do the work for us, without our being willing to sacrifice to get what we need.

Answer 4

In my state GA they don't come and take the kids away from homeschool when they don't pass homeschool. Public schools don't really have anything to do with homeschool in my state THANK GOD!

I have heard of some states that the parents have to report their childs grades to public schools and if they fail they have to return to public school.

But then, it is OK if the child fails in public school and with my experience with public schools, they do NOT help the children and they go on and let them fail. PLUS, they say that the child is 'lazy' don't care, not trying etc.

Some of the kids who fail actually have learning problems and schools do NOT want to acknowledge that because they do NOT want to help the children.

I have been thru 8 yrs of this crap with public schools, so I KNOW.

Go to www.hslda.com or .org This is a legal homeschool defence agency that helps all homeschoolers in the US.

They can tell you the homeschool laws for your state and can tell you if schools have the legal right to make your child go back to public school.

Sometimes this is illegal and the school wants the child to come back to school anyway because the more kids they have in school the more MONEY they get.
It's all about the money.

I would 'get back' at them so to speak by telling them
''OK, if my child has to come back to public school becuase he's failing, he could have learning problems so I want you to do testing to see if he qualifies for special ed'.

I bet you a million dollars they will drop the whole thing and let him stay at home, becuase they will NOT help kids who need help.

There have been MANY studies that shows just 'regular' parents are MORE qualified than teachers to teach their own children. It has been PROVEN that homeschoolers do MUCH better than public school kids.

Answer 5

A group of public school parents were talking about this with me last night. Their kids are being threatened to be 'held back' due to the EOG grades. The parents went in to talk to the 'experts' and felt they, the parents, were being blamed. We had a good laugh about it, because it is usually at the end of school year that the experts realize that there may be a problem. I explained the 'appeal' process in case the student was actually held back.
I took my son out in the 8th grade when they kept passing him along without him getting an education. I did not want him to be held back but I did want him to learn. An education is more important to our family than good grades or an accredited high school diploma. We know of too many public school graduates who do not have an education nor know how to learn.

Note to Trinity: I tried to help my son during his public school education process. I tried to help other students as a volunteer mentor with the CIS program. It is not because I'm a better teacher that he learned more in 8 months of schooling at home than he did in 8 years of schooling at school. It is the beauty of home school where we could be flexible to his interests and present things in his learning styles. It is because I could take the time to make him re-do his work rather than go on to the next item on the schedule. It was very hard for me to spend 4-5 hours every night to work with him after he had spent 8 hours in school while he was in public school.

Added: Oh yea, I told the parent in conversation, that it would be so funny to stand up from parent /teacher conference and just walk into the wall or have problem finding the door. I guess I watch too much TV.

Answer 6

yep. Hypocritical. Annoying.

A Story

Yesterday, a teacher called up and yelled at my sister that my brother did not have his permission slip to go on a field trip. The teacher proceeded to tell my sister (who is pregnant with her first child and due any day). That she(my sister) only has two children to prepare for school and she(the teacher) has thirty-two. She was yelling because my brother had forgotten his permission slip twice and made up his own permission slip requesting to go on a field trip 'wherever' and my dad didn't sign it. She then proceeded to ask for his health insurance number etc... Never stopping to ask who she was talking to or whether or not my brother even had permission to go on the said field trip. When my sister proceeded to say that she did not possess the health insurance number the teacher said, "Oh you don't mean I'm going to have to go through his files to find it."

We still don't know the outcome of this conversation, other than a very stressed young pregnant lady. Teachers should not be allowed to have bad hair days.

They are not underpaid, they get benefits and summer vacations. What may be wrong is that they are not given the freedom to use any course that suits them, to teach the children. They are given very large classes and mean spirited children to teach, with little room to discipline.

My dad sends his kids to school not because he doesn't want to teach them, but because he can't. He can't spend evenings and weekends working out problems with them, because he's in too much pain. My brothers and sisters are fed and loved, there is no issue of neglect here except on the teacher's part. Yes my dad is one of those who doesn't make it to parent teacher interviews but it's not because he doesn't care about his kids education. It's because he doesn't have the physical and mental ability to withstand the crap and discomfort that comes with going over there.

The two of my siblings I homeschooled for one year were a year behind and caught up and are at the top of their classes in Math. In reading the one I taught for K and gr. 1 is behind again because they proceeded to try and teach her a different way of reading, instead of the one she was already started with. My brother fortunately got phonics at school because that's what he was started with at home and the teacher was pro-phonics and used it as an excuse to teach him phonics. He is at the top in everything.

Yes. 'They' are annoying. I am tired of 'them'. I have taken a side. I say if you can and are willing to do it, whatever it takes, homeschool!

Answer 7

Wow! It sounds like someone is ready to retire....Or should be at least. Imagine a TEACHER calling a STUDENT an "idiot". How delightful! It sounds like that teacher is ready to be put out to pasture. Tell me again why my kids are homeschooled??? Great question, BTW, I just have nothing else to add to my rant. :)

Answer 8

I just hate that there has to be sides... these are our kids, and it takes a village and all that. No one can seem to agree on what is best, even if we all have good intentions. If something is working for a student, be it public, private or home school, we should support and help each other in that success. Too bad there are too many who don't.

MSB

Answer 9

profoundly.

and this: if you answer criticism that you can't possibly be giving your child a decent education, and you respond by describing how advanced they are, then you're raising some kind of hothouse nerd who never sees the light of day and is doomed to be maladjusted.
Suddenly you've gone from inadequate and incompetent to overzealous and overbearing.

EDIT:
Trinity: "Idiots"

oh, that's nice. is that what they teach you to call kids when you earn your venerated teaching degree? have you never heard of "Pygmalion in the Classroom"?

Answer 10

lol. It's so true, isn't it?

ADDED: Trinity, she IS a homeschooler. She DOES participate fully in her children's education. She's NOT one of the parents you had to deal with. Interesting flip, btw: one minute you're bashing homeschooling, then next telling someone to do it.