The Land of Ozz

I have no plans to send my children to public school. I can come up with at least a half dozen reasons off the top of my head. Let’s see: safety, security, no discipline, lack of respect, theory of evolution, no prayer, sex education. Now if that were not enough, Michele Malkin points us to a story in the Boston Globe with her Indoctrination, Not Education posting today.

It seems that an English teacher in Bennington, VT is all but teaching disrespect towards the President of the United States. The real problem that parents have is that they never know when their child is going to get a teacher with this type of an teaching philosophy. By the time the parent figures it out the damage is already done.

My wife and I plan to home school. We have made a 180 degree turn from a few years ago. My wife is an elementary education major and taught public school before we had children. We both started our marriage thinking that public school was the only option. There are two primary reasons why we have changed our minds. One is that my wife saw first hand what our children would face and that there was often very little a parent could do to control it. The second and more important reason has to do with our growth in our faith in God. We believe that there is just to much immorality being shared in schools by other children and often school staff members. The best answer is to home school. There are other options out there, but they are few and far between.

The philosophy we are embracing is to teach our children to live in this world and not of this world.

My favorite radio station NewsRadio 94-3 WSC-FM runs a few of my favorite shows. The Casey Bartholomew Show is one that is scheduled to run from 3pm until 7pm weekdays. I normally pick up part of it on my way home everyday from work. The Casey Bartholomew is not my favorite show on WSCFM but I do try to give him a chance everyday. Yesterday Casey nailed a hot button issue with me. He brought up the subject of how teachers are pass kids who may not deserve is by giving the kids nothing lower than a 50 or 60 grades. Yes, this is happening. Most people in the general public never hear about these policies because it would not look good for one of our prize winning school districts to be exposed for padding the numbers. The underlying motivation is probably more likely geared towards the feelings of the children. Yes, one more example of how our society tries to keep our children happy at all cost.

What does this really cost? We end up with a society of people who think that everything should be handed to them because that is what they were taught in school. The Casey Bartholomew Show did a great job of pointing this fact out yesterday. I was so pleased with Casey’s subject that I actually called in to participate. Casey had a teacher call in who did not seem to realize that this kind of thing was going on in schools. I could not leave this notion unchallenged. My wife did teach third grade for a few years in public school. Her grade book was checked by the administration to be sure that she was not giving anything lower than a 50. My wife detested this notion in most cases, but was forced to go along with it by the administration of her school. She believes that there are special cases that might warrant giving a grade, but those a few and far between. For instance, maybe a truly special needs child has been put into a mainstream classroom. While I am of the opinion that most kids with special needs do not belong in mainstream classrooms, they are getting put into them. That is a subject for another day.

There were two points that I wanted to make by calling the Casey Bartholomew Show yesterday. The first was to give Casey some support against this teacher who called in who was either in denial or just living in a fantasy land. The second was to say that much of the blame should be put on the parents. The parents are mostly to blame for child who is riding the system and getting grades less than the knowledge and capabilities will permit. The system is pretty messed up, but an involved parent would know what their children is actually doing. Parents should be at every meet the teacher night and should be scheduling regular conferences to follow up on their child’s progress. A parent should want to know why their child is skimming by. If their child is consistently getting Cs and Ds then they should take a look at the teacher’s grade book. When the teach shows a long list of 50s and 60s then the parent should want to know what kind of work their child is passing in to get these grades. Most teachers who are in the situation of being forced to give minimum grades are more than happy to tell a parent when I child is turning in nothing and getting a 50. Most teachers what to help these kids. They are certainly not in it for the money.

I want to thank Casey for bring up this subject. The Casey Bartholomew has potential, but many times I will switch over to NPR or listen to a CD on the way home because Casey is off on a subject that just rubs me the wrong way. Sometimes I actually think his show’s catch phrase should be “Talking about the things Casey really cares about” rather than the actual show catch phrase “Talking about the things you really care about.” Casey actually hung u on me the day before yesterday when I called to suggest a change of subject. The subject was really not that bad, but it was rather that Casey was doing a ton of name calling. He was calling teen age girls who get breast implants as graduation presents from their parents some pretty nasty names. He also went off pretty good yesterday on the teacher who was obviously out of touch with reality. Casey called him stupid along with yelling at the guy for a minute or so. While Casey does have the right to defend himself, the practice of belittling callers with name calling is not appealing to me. The fact that Casey does expose some of our society’s ignorance and what I call over tolerance is often appealing to me.

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger was the guest speaker at Santa Monica Community College yesterday where the audience included some very rude protestors. The college is reported to primarily enroll lower income students and has recently raised tuition due to budget cuts under Gov. Schwarzenegger’s short time in office. The governor is also pushing for a special election for a ballot that would give some unions the short end of the stick if it passes.

The speech yesterday was not well received by some in the audience including some of the faculty. There were some very rude gestures from some members of the audience holding up signs and booing as the governor spoke.

This type of activity from those who disagree with Gov. Schwarzenegger was done in poor taste in the wrong forum. This was a time to celebrate the accomplishments of the graduates. This was not a time to grind an ax over political disagreements.

These bully tactics from those opposing Gov. Schwarzenegger will not gain respect from conservatives. If they can’t come up with a better answer to complex problems they resort to bashing those who do have a plan. Governor Schwarzenegger is doing what he thinks is best for the state of California. Those who believe his ideas are wrong should gather their friends and visit the polls on November 8th. These tactics of booing and protesting will not gain the respect of people who are looking for answers. What will gain their respect is another good idea.

I am once again amazed at how much press is given to the concept of fixing public schools with money. I happen to listen to The Casey Bartholomew Show on the way home from work every day. Yesterday Casey was taking calls to get comments on whether the listening audience thinks South Carolina should raise cigarette taxes. One of Casey’s main arguments in favor of the increase was to help public schools. “Do it for the children,” Casey said. I have a reality check for you Casey. You can pile money from the floor to the ceiling in most of these classrooms and it will not fix their problems. There are several big problems in schools that money will not correct.

I agree that adding money into the public school system could help. It could allow for teachers’ salaries to be increased to help keep the ones we have and to possibly attract more talent into such an important career field. The money could help buy more materials to prevent the truly dedicated teachers from digging into their own pockets to buy supplies for their classrooms. Many teachers spend one third of her net income or more for the first year to buy supplies for their classrooms. Money could help those situations, but unless the real problems are fixed, you can not expect the teachers to stick around for long.

One problem goes back to the home. Children are not being sent to school prepared or disciplined. By disciplined, I mean there are too many kids that have not been taught to respect authority at a young age. Many of these kids become massive disruptions to the classrooms. The parents then get called and many times the parents want to blame the teacher for the child’s behavior problems. Therefore the teacher gets fed up and moves on to a career that pays more with less stress. Many kids have parents who are not involved in their kid’s daily work and do not ensure that homework and projects get done on time. This is not completely the parents’ fault because they may have to work two jobs to make ends meet. The kids may be left alone or with someone who has less of a vested interest in making sure the kids are on track. Many kids end up raising themselves for the most part due to the circumstances of their home.

Another big problem is mainstreaming. When it comes to academics, we were not all created equal. Advanced children do not need to be in mainstream classrooms. Special needs children do not need to be in mainstream classrooms. Money will not fix this problem. There is little to benefit from creating a third grade classroom out of kids where they range in academic ability from pre-school through seventh grade. They ones who may already be struggling with learning, emotional, or physical disabilities are going to have even more stress introduced from having to try to keep up with kids who work at a faster pace. The advanced kids will get bored waiting on the teacher to challenge them.

You can argue that with funding we could have smaller classrooms and more advanced and special education programs. That is true. You could also start dividing kids among existing teachers based on abilities and test scores. This could be done at the beginning of the next school year with no additional funding required.

Oh, I can hear the arguments already. It will hurt their little feelings. Well you know what, that is life and they need to learn it sooner or later. Not everyone has been blessed with the ability to perform at the same academic level at the same age in their lives. Some will never perform at the same level as others. Some will perform at a level that the rest of the population can not even comprehend.

The bottom line is that money could help the public education system, but it is NOT the cure all for the public education system. I wish people like Casey who have a voice to the masses would stop leading people into thinking that money is going to solve this country’s education problems.