Sunday, December 18, 2011

Yule Cry



According a Huffington Post from today:  Nearly half of America's public schools didn't meet federal achievement standards this year, marking the largest failure rate since the much-criticized No Child Left Behind Law took effect a decade ago, according to a national report released Thursday.

No Child Left Behind cost the nation in the billions of dollars.  The train wreck that is No Child Left Behind is doing exactly what it is intended to avoid.  It is leaving children behind.  Entire school districts worth of children behind.  It is not capable of providing the opportunities that it was hoping to provide.

I don't claim to be an authority of the education system, and we are all aware that many factors effect the efficacy of this type of policy making, but it is still so painfully obvious that failures in the school districts of our country, in my very own city, are, in part, impacted by the No Child Left Behind Fiasco.  At face value it was marketed at a way to preserve and bolster poorly-performing schools.  In reality, schools closed, leaving families in educational failure situations.

In the meantime, I was at a holiday party this weekend for my husband's employer.  While speaking to a very nice woman who works as a teacher in a Montessori school, when she discovered that we homeschool, she leaped to the "socialization" argument, straight to the "you can't teach high school" argument, followed that up with the, "children being isolated" argument, and hit  her homer with the "taking good kids out of the school systems" argument.
Seriously?

And I sat right there, in holiday splendor, as she quietly and with certainty made her statements.
I should not have to deal with that every time I go out.
I stood there wishing that Rayven was there.
And I drank my soft drink and let her quietly rant.

According to The Atlantic this week, Study of the Day: Home-Schooled Children Score Higher on Tests 

I fear for the children in this generation.  Global Warming, underfunded schools, poor access to health care for all families.  But I also have a certainty in my heart that these are the very kids who are going to grow up wiser, more capable, and able to make decisions with a world view.

I DO have faith...In the children!





6 comments:

  1. Great points! I have to agree with you on dealing with people. It gets tiring defending ourselves! I would love to share your post on my FB page if it is ok.

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  2. Hugs! I wish I could have been there too!

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  3. Ugg! Sometimes all you can do is nod and walk away.

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  4. And...hopefully, if you sit silently, all the "offender" can do is hear themselves speak. The longer I homeschool, the more sane it(homeschooling) seems when I look around and watch the indoctrination of the children of America. Why do people think they have ANY right to tell ANYONE what they need to do or what is "right"? Live by example I say... hence, this is WHY your "good kids" are not in the school system, dare I say, the "good" might be beaten out of them. You live it sister. And all at a holiday party.... that is just silly:)

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  5. Thank you! You are welcome to share my post; I am honored and thrilled that it means something to you and your readers.

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  6. And yet I just read a really interesting interview by a NYC Curriculum Adviser and Educator, that Public School Children do not get enough solitude.

    hmmmmmmm--

    The woman sounds like a cow. Ignore her. Many people resist change simply due to the fear of change and for no other reason.

    You are socializing your children, but they are not being indoctrinated into the herd mentality.

    You can teach highschool, after all it is 2 students per one teacher? What would a private tutor charge for that?

    And of course you took good kids out of the PS system. You did it, because you wanted them to remain in that state of "goodness."

    DUH!
    :) And no you shouldn't have to deal with that crap every time you go somewhere.

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