The problem with public schools in America.

ok movie tickets don't cost over $20. it was only $10 last time i checked. prices have been pretty stable the last few years. still the highest in the nation, i believe.

$7 for a pack of cigarettes!

but you're right. the cost of living is ridiculous here. books probably cost the same since they probably come from national distributors. i'm sure the teachers get paid more. many of my teachers lived in new jersey and just crossed the river for the better pay. the construction of the school buildings costs a fortune.

0 Replies

Montana
Your first issue is personal to you and not the norm. I did however address the other two items. As to bullies we find them in all walks from our childhood through adulthood be they individuals, groups or even nations. That is I am afraid the nature of things.

0 Replies

ye110man
WE are also the most heavily taxed in the nation. That fact was reported several days ago.

0 Replies

au1929 wrote:

Montana
Your first issue is personal to you and not the norm. I did however address the other two items. As to bullies we find them in all walks from our childhood through adulthood be they individuals, groups or even nations. That is I am afraid the nature of things.

It is far more the norm than you think. Just because it hasn't happened to your family doesn't mean it doesn't happen a lot. Bullies are not the nature of things. Bullies not only do physical damage, but serious emotional damage to their victims and they should not be allowed to do so. Children don't have a choice to be in school or not, so as long as they are there against their will the schools should be forced to protect them. I suppose you would have to have been a victim to see things from my side of the fence.

0 Replies

Hello everyone,

I'm speaking as a teacher in Australia. However these problems appear to be universal.
I think there needs to be some radically changed thinking about the poorer performance of students in some public schools. There needs to be some thought into INCENTIVES to improve the education of students in the more underprivileged/under performing areas. Everyone knows where they are & many teachers avoid them at any cost - these schools are hard work! Often with very little to show for your efforts. Certain attitudes appear to be entrenched in some communities & change is very hard to achieve unless there's a concerted effort to bring it about. For starters, the authorities must acknowledge that teaching in one of these "hard" schools is not the same as teaching in communities where education is valued & encouraged. These students (& their teachers!) are at a disadvantage in achieving the desired ends of the education process.
Initally some proper research should be done to ascertain the problems, how to fix them & how to go about this. A long-term approach, that fully acknowledges the needs of the schools & leads to a concerted effort to address them. There is no point in pretending that the problems will just fix themselves. Yes, it will be expensive & will most likely involve changes to funding, teachers & administrations of these schools, as well as suitable programs. A big job, but I believe it meeds to be properly addressed if entrenched disadvantage is not simply to be passed on from one generation to another.

0 Replies

Montana

Quote:

IMO the major problem with public schools in America is our permissive society and allegedly protecting the rights of the few at the expense of the many

.

From my initial comment. What do you suppose I meant by it when I said protecting the rights of a few at the expense of many. I was talking about expelling the disruptors and the hell with there right to get an education. IMO they lose that right and societies obligation by their actions.

0 Replies

Well, there's one thing we agree on. Sorry, I missed that part.

0 Replies

D.C. Dispatch | November 18, 2003

Legal Affairs

How Courts and Congress Wrecked School Discipline

Liberal judicial decisions unique to the United States have made our schools uniquely disorderly.

by Stuart Taylor Jr.

....

Outside Anacostia Senior High School, three miles southeast of the Capitol, a football player was killed on October 30 by a stray bullet meant for someone else. Not far away, at Ballou Senior High, a gang fight involving 15 or 20 students broke out in the cafeteria on November 10. School officials "have no control," one Ballou mother complained to The Washington Post.

Indeed. That is the main reason why so little learning takes place at Anacostia, a part-time teacher there tells me. And nationwide, every year, some 30 students die of homicides committed on public school grounds; 10 percent of all teachers are physically threatened by students; and 4 percent are physically attacked. Student disruption of classes and defiance of teachers is routine at many schools. And such disorder is not confined to urban schools. Discipline is the biggest worry for suburban parents, too, surveys show. More than 40 percent of teachers nationwide agreed in one survey that "student behavior interferes with my teaching." Many complain that administrators don't back them up on discipline. Some leave the profession in frustration. Cheating is rampant almost everywhere, and serious punishment rare.

Remainder of article at:
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/nj/taylor2003-11-18.htm

0 Replies

au
Exactly. The law needs to start taking child violence as seriously as they do with adults. These little monsters need to be taken out of the public schools and locked up if need be. Why do kids get away with abuse just because they're kids? Doesn't make any sense.

There is also a high suicide rate of kids that are severely abused by bullies. Some of these poor kids can't take it anymore and suicide is their only way out. Very sad, to say the least.

0 Replies

I completely agree with you on the bullies issue. In middle school and the first year of high school before I transferred I can attest to the fact that bullies are a HUGE problem in our educational system. They made the lives of me and my friends miserable to the point that some of us faced serious depression. The teachers knew about it, they see it daily. And yet they did crap about it. When it comes to idiotic crap such as expelling a student for sharing his asthma medication with another student who uses the same medication and had an asthma attack, they had no problem enforcing the rules.

But when it comes to doing something about bullies and constant verbal and physical harrassment, they didn't give a crap. The only time I recall them doing something was when one of them brought a knife and threatened a student with it. They regularly started fights, made threats, and essentially conditioned me and my friends to absolutely hate and fear going to school. I know of people who committed suicide because of the harassment they regularly had to endure. Make no mistake about it, allowing bullies to attend school with everyone else is the single worst problem facing America's schools. Kids and early adolescents are some of most fragile of people emotionally. Regular harrassment even verbal harrassment can really f them up.

0 Replies

Here's one example of wasting taxes on education. The state is building a state college in Modesto, California. The school is not even close to being constructed, but the president of the school has hired it's teaching staff with a gross salary of over $44,000,000 that's being paid during construction. We have over 300 colleges and universities in California that's strapped for money. Tell me what's wrong with this picture?

0 Replies

i know some of you think the kids should just be taught to fight back. tell them to beat up anyone that messes with them. so that one of four things will happen.

a. they fight back with someone bigger than them and get the snot beat out of them and then get picked on even worse from then on.

b. they fight back and win and get suspended or more likely expelled for it.

c. they fight back and win and a bunch of the guy they fought get pissed off too and then get a real beating on a regular basis (keep in mind that many of the kids that get picked on have few friends that are even physically capable of backing them up in a fight) or worse yet, the bullies and his friends make up some story about how the kid threatened ot bring a gun to school and shoot everyone and the kid gets in a REAL mess.

d. all of the above.

every school has a different degree of problem with bullies. just because you went to a school where the worst thing a bully would do to you was call you names doesn't mean that's how it is for everyone. and even the just being called names and picked on can severely mess up a child and often leads to stuff like pushing the kid into the girls locker room with their pants down etc. but it gets a lot worse with poorer and poorer communities. and you wonder why so few people get educated there.

when it reaches a point where hundreds or thousands of kids commit suicide as a result of how badly they're teased and picked on every day, how scared they are to go to school, something has to be done.

0 Replies

Centroles wrote:

when it reaches a point where hundreds or thousands of kids commit suicide as a result of how badly they're teased and picked on every day, how scared they are to go to school, something has to be done.

eh... i was bullied and i also bullied in school. it wasn't fun being bullied but i don't think it affected me academically. doing the bullying definately affected me academically. that's usually the case.

george carlin would have a field day with this topic. "the pussification of america" as he calls it.

i would think that learning to stand up to bullies builds character. personally, standing up to bulliest gave me greater self-respect as well as the respect of others.

anyway i managed to do fairly poorly in school regardless of the bully factor. for me it was a combination of my rebelious personality, my parents who heavily emphasized academics but not responcibility, the relocation as a child, and the school's lax policy on attendence.

about parenting... pushing your child to learn isn't enough. i was pushed hard in that direction. parents also need to teach their child how to act as responcible adults.

0 Replies

Centroles wrote:

I completely agree with you on the bullies issue. In middle school and the first year of high school before I transferred I can attest to the fact that bullies are a HUGE problem in our educational system. They made the lives of me and my friends miserable to the point that some of us faced serious depression. The teachers knew about it, they see it daily. And yet they did crap about it. When it comes to idiotic crap such as expelling a student for sharing his asthma medication with another student who uses the same medication and had an asthma attack, they had no problem enforcing the rules.

But when it comes to doing something about bullies and constant verbal and physical harrassment, they didn't give a crap. The only time I recall them doing something was when one of them brought a knife and threatened a student with it. They regularly started fights, made threats, and essentially conditioned me and my friends to absolutely hate and fear going to school. I know of people who committed suicide because of the harassment they regularly had to endure. Make no mistake about it, allowing bullies to attend school with everyone else is the single worst problem facing America's schools. Kids and early adolescents are some of most fragile of people emotionally. Regular harrassment even verbal harrassment can really f them up.

Amen Centroles!!! I am so glad to see someone stand up and see it as I've seen it.

0 Replies

Centroles wrote:

i know some of you think the kids should just be taught to fight back. tell them to beat up anyone that messes with them. so that one of four things will happen.

a. they fight back with someone bigger than them and get the snot beat out of them and then get picked on even worse from then on.

b. they fight back and win and get suspended or more likely expelled for it.

c. they fight back and win and a bunch of the guy they fought get pissed off too and then get a real beating on a regular basis (keep in mind that many of the kids that get picked on have few friends that are even physically capable of backing them up in a fight) or worse yet, the bullies and his friends make up some story about how the kid threatened ot bring a gun to school and shoot everyone and the kid gets in a REAL mess.

d. all of the above.

every school has a different degree of problem with bullies. just because you went to a school where the worst thing a bully would do to you was call you names doesn't mean that's how it is for everyone. and even the just being called names and picked on can severely mess up a child and often leads to stuff like pushing the kid into the girls locker room with their pants down etc. but it gets a lot worse with poorer and poorer communities. and you wonder why so few people get educated there.

when it reaches a point where hundreds or thousands of kids commit suicide as a result of how badly they're teased and picked on every day, how scared they are to go to school, something has to be done.

Centroles
I can't completely agree with you on this one and I'll tell you why. When I was being abused in school I was afraid to stand up for myself, so I said or did nothing, but then when I quit school I started lifting weights and I became secure and stong as an ox. Anyway, one day I was walking down the street with my best friend when I was 16 and this one girl who was the biggest bully of them all to me yelled something across the street at me. We'll I finally got the guts to ask her what the hell she said and she yelled back calling me a slut. Needless to say, she had her gang of about 10 people with her, but at this point I didn't care. I walked across the street and told her to come over and say that to my face and she did. I then tore off my jacket, handed it to my friend and told her I'd be done in a second. Then the bitch looked at the size of my arms and her face dropped. She looked back at her gang who told her it was her fight and she ran like hell. I never had any problems from anyone again after that, so even if I did get my ass kicked, I would have earned the twisted respect from whoever kicked my ass. I won my battle and if I would have known long before that all I had to do was lift some weights and stand my ground, I would have done it much sooner.
I've always taught my son to defend himself and he never had the problems I did.

0 Replies

Boston considers ending forced busing

Wednesday, November 26, 2003 Posted: 1:11 PM EST (1811 GMT)

After three decades, Boston is on the verge of abandoning its controversial school busing program in favor of neighborhood schools where children can walk to school.
BOSTON, Massachusetts (AP) -- Boston's school system seems forever tied to images of black school children being pelted with rocks and bottles as they were bused into the city's white neighborhoods in the 1970s.
But the school system's demographics have changed dramatically since then, with blacks, Latinos and Asians comprising about 86 percent of the city's 62,000 public school students, up from 48 percent in the mid-1970s.
Now city officials are looking at a plan to end widespread busing, estimating it could save up to $25 million in transportation costs at a time when state school funding is down 15 percent. They also hope to encourage parental involvement by putting students in schools closer to where they live.

The money wasted on busing it would seem would be better spent on education.
It also seems to be overkill since the school system is 86% minority.

http://www.cnn.com/2003/EDUCATION/11/26/boston.busing.ap/index.html

0 Replies

au, It never ceasess to amaze me that the administrators of these schools do not know how to use common sense. With their PhD's and Masters degrees, they need to study "common sense." :0

0 Replies

C.I.
I have always found that academics live in their own world. Education does not in itself bring common sense. In fact in many instances it negates it.

0 Replies

The problem with public schools in America.

Related Topics

Quick Links

My Account

able2know