"The best gifted and talented program consists primarily of a caring, involved, and capable parent."
I agree and disagree. Yes a caring, involved and capable parent is one of the most important things a child could have. BUT - if a child is not challenged, the chld will be bored. A child who is bored is a child who is likely to get into trouble.
Example from experience - -
My kindergartener is capable of working at a grade level about his peers. In the first half of the school year I started getting complaints from the teacher that he wasn't completing his paperwork. I told her to send the work home with him and I would make sure he got it done, but I also told her that at 5 my concern was not so much that he could do paperwork as it was that he knew what he needed to and viewed school as a positive thing. Particularly because the work so so far below his ability and it wasn't challenging him. In his mind, he could see no purpose and feel no sense of accomplishment in completing it. I suggested that we find some ways to challenge him more, including allowing him to spend part of the week or day with the first graders. The teacher agreed to my suggestion but never followed through.
Instead she began to take away the few educational activities he enjoyed in an attempt to force him to complete the paperwork. The result wasn't what she expected. Instead of getting the paperwork done, he simply became more frustrated and began to act out.
Mid year - teacher leaves for maternity leave and a new teacher comes in. New teacher recognizes that Jacob is bright and bored and finds ways to challenge him. She also begins to reward him for completing his work by allowing him to have more time on the activities he enjoys - problems disappear.
Kids need to be challenged based on where they are at, whether they are lagging, average, or ahead. Failing to do so results in boredom, a negative attitued towards schoold, self-esteem problems, and ultimately behavioral problems.
Now I am not faulting teachers across the board, because teachers have one of the toughest jobs in the world. I cannot even begin to imagine how one teacher can teach 20 five year olds who are all operating at different levels of ability. Especially when that teacher does not get the support he/she needs from the administrators, parents, and community as a whole.
After speaking with some teachers in our area, they did confirm that test scores are very important and do directly affect how much money the school will get. The higher the scores the more money.
A friend of mine is a PHD is Texas...the more impressive the paper work & scores of the school in general, the more money they will receive in grants. He feels they are not just working on projects to find a cure for cancer or other important matters, but to push out important paper work & scores to get more money.
One of our local High-schools is very small and they only take 'problem' kids. Either low scoring [but not low enough to actually trigger 'Special needs' funding], or behavioral issues. The school is NOT college-prep, but focuses on the bare minimums needed to function as a contributing citizen. Their CT MASTERS scores have been so low that when included among the scores state-wide they are the lowest scoring school. After various 'specialists' have toured the school, and all recommendations have failed for getting the test scores up. The state has announced that the highschool will be closed, many of the kids have already been expelled from the other local high-school. So the kids who were attneding this one will either be on the streets, or they will be placed into classes which will assure their failure [since the other high-school does not have any programs for kids in this category].
The younger kids? Without recesses through out each day, I dont see how anyone can expect these kids to funciton sitting quitely in their chairs. When I was little we had recesses, now our elementary school has ONE recess each day, IF it is nice out. The kids sit and 'try to behave', or else they are prescribed drugs.
TV, movies, and video games do not help at all.
Public schooling costs just so much, it is crazy. Here we are paying a budgeted $8500 per year per child, K - 12. While a good Homeschool curriculum [where truly the textbooks do most of the teaching] can be had brand new for $150 per grade-level.
And yet our own local Community college told me, that they would "... seriously prefer children to avoid high-school entirely. If a child can actually master the 8th grade curriculum, the college would rather not waste any further years and possibly 'lose' the child. ... The college would prefer to enroll that child at that point, and start them on a degree program. ... The over-whelming majority of kids enrolling in colleges need to start with remedial courses anyway, ... so what was the purpose of high-school?"
Some of the students in high school in this area are taking college level courses (and receiving college credit).
It must be very difficult to set realistic challanges for children. If the challange is too low the child is bored and might not even try. If the challange is too high, the child might feel discouraged and feel defeated.
From what I am understanding (and maybe I am missing the point somewhere)...
1. Most schools are doing the best that they can.
2. There should be a better student to teacher ratio. (schools are under staffed)
3. Teachers are frustrated and tired.
4. Classrooms aren't staffed to give attention to a child that is having issuses, and still teach the remaining children in the class room. As a result, teachers may promote the use of medications.
We had the same thing happen to a school here. It was a K - 12 school. The elementary and junior high were Montessori and the highschool more traditional. The high school students were primarily those kids who were kicked out of or failing in the traditional public schools. One student ended up in jail and the school continued to work with this boy so that he still graduated on time. Amazing. But again, these were kids who scored low on the tests.
In addition, when Michigan looks at test scores to grade a school they focus on the highest grade level in the school. The result is that the state decided that because the seniors didn't score sufficiently on the tests for several years in a row (and keep in mind these were mostly kids who transferred in while already sophmores, juniors, and seniors and NOT kids who had been educated by the school from kindergarten on)- the entire school was closed.
Such a shame they couldn't instead recognize that this school was managing to help educate kids who would otherwise have been on the streets.
Galen..in New Mexico we have 3 recesses a day...but on .5 year of music and ART on alternating years.
Having been in one of the states on the study...it has made the press. There are no public pre-schools here...
Next year will be the first pilot.
Given that fact, it apparently deals with private schools like Kindercare etc, and a lot of it has been from non-payment or if a kid repeatedly bites or something like that.
It is good to hear that some schools still allow the kids to run around a bit.
We were really amazed when dealing with the elementary schools here in Ct, with the foster children, and their lack of 'run around and blow-off the stink' time.
Also the amount of shear waste of money, is mind-boogling. Assuming that they did buy competley new textbooks every year [which I can not imagine happens anywhere], stills leaves the school board with an average of $8300 per child per school year. If you had 25 kids in one room, the average expendature for that one classroom would be $207,500!!! After the teacher's salary which averages $50k-65k, that still leaves $140,000 for the administration, building maintenance, bus company, janitor and utilities. If you have 12 classrooms in one elementary school that cruddy building that was built in the 1950's is flushing $1.6 - $1.7 Million per year, not including teacher salarys !!!
If we scrapped the whole system. Encouraged one parent per block to take in and teach 'grammar' school; with parents of children either spliting the cost, or assisting. We would save Billions, test scores would soar back to where they were one generation ago [up until the 1930s], and we would not be in this situation. If you dont want 'same-sex safe-sex' techniques taught at the 2nd grade, then dont do it.
Grammar School graduates could either: enter trade schools, or union halls, or start a career, or go on to Highschool.
Highschools could go back to focusing on being college-prep.
Colleges could go back to focusing on handling young adults who are already literate, and dont need remedial coursework.
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Abigail
"The best gifted and talented program consists primarily of a caring, involved, and capable parent."
I agree and disagree. Yes a caring, involved and capable parent is one of the most important things a child could have. BUT - if a child is not challenged, the chld will be bored. A child who is bored is a child who is likely to get into trouble.
Example from experience - -
My kindergartener is capable of working at a grade level about his peers. In the first half of the school year I started getting complaints from the teacher that he wasn't completing his paperwork. I told her to send the work home with him and I would make sure he got it done, but I also told her that at 5 my concern was not so much that he could do paperwork as it was that he knew what he needed to and viewed school as a positive thing. Particularly because the work so so far below his ability and it wasn't challenging him. In his mind, he could see no purpose and feel no sense of accomplishment in completing it. I suggested that we find some ways to challenge him more, including allowing him to spend part of the week or day with the first graders. The teacher agreed to my suggestion but never followed through.
Instead she began to take away the few educational activities he enjoyed in an attempt to force him to complete the paperwork. The result wasn't what she expected. Instead of getting the paperwork done, he simply became more frustrated and began to act out.
Mid year - teacher leaves for maternity leave and a new teacher comes in. New teacher recognizes that Jacob is bright and bored and finds ways to challenge him. She also begins to reward him for completing his work by allowing him to have more time on the activities he enjoys - problems disappear.
Kids need to be challenged based on where they are at, whether they are lagging, average, or ahead. Failing to do so results in boredom, a negative attitued towards schoold, self-esteem problems, and ultimately behavioral problems.
Now I am not faulting teachers across the board, because teachers have one of the toughest jobs in the world. I cannot even begin to imagine how one teacher can teach 20 five year olds who are all operating at different levels of ability. Especially when that teacher does not get the support he/she needs from the administrators, parents, and community as a whole.
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SafariVista
After speaking with some teachers in our area, they did confirm that test scores are very important and do directly affect how much money the school will get. The higher the scores the more money.
A friend of mine is a PHD is Texas...the more impressive the paper work & scores of the school in general, the more money they will receive in grants. He feels they are not just working on projects to find a cure for cancer or other important matters, but to push out important paper work & scores to get more money.
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Galen
One of our local High-schools is very small and they only take 'problem' kids. Either low scoring [but not low enough to actually trigger 'Special needs' funding], or behavioral issues. The school is NOT college-prep, but focuses on the bare minimums needed to function as a contributing citizen. Their CT MASTERS scores have been so low that when included among the scores state-wide they are the lowest scoring school. After various 'specialists' have toured the school, and all recommendations have failed for getting the test scores up. The state has announced that the highschool will be closed, many of the kids have already been expelled from the other local high-school. So the kids who were attneding this one will either be on the streets, or they will be placed into classes which will assure their failure [since the other high-school does not have any programs for kids in this category].
The younger kids? Without recesses through out each day, I dont see how anyone can expect these kids to funciton sitting quitely in their chairs. When I was little we had recesses, now our elementary school has ONE recess each day, IF it is nice out. The kids sit and 'try to behave', or else they are prescribed drugs.
TV, movies, and video games do not help at all.
Public schooling costs just so much, it is crazy. Here we are paying a budgeted $8500 per year per child, K - 12. While a good Homeschool curriculum [where truly the textbooks do most of the teaching] can be had brand new for $150 per grade-level.
And yet our own local Community college told me, that they would "... seriously prefer children to avoid high-school entirely. If a child can actually master the 8th grade curriculum, the college would rather not waste any further years and possibly 'lose' the child. ... The college would prefer to enroll that child at that point, and start them on a degree program. ... The over-whelming majority of kids enrolling in colleges need to start with remedial courses anyway, ... so what was the purpose of high-school?"
:-)
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Zshot
Some of the students in high school in this area are taking college level courses (and receiving college credit).
It must be very difficult to set realistic challanges for children. If the challange is too low the child is bored and might not even try. If the challange is too high, the child might feel discouraged and feel defeated.
From what I am understanding (and maybe I am missing the point somewhere)...
1. Most schools are doing the best that they can.
2. There should be a better student to teacher ratio. (schools are under staffed)
3. Teachers are frustrated and tired.
4. Classrooms aren't staffed to give attention to a child that is having issuses, and still teach the remaining children in the class room. As a result, teachers may promote the use of medications.
Am I close?
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krys
Zshot:
Yes, from what I understand, that is the nutshell describtion of early education.
But I don't think that is the whole story regarding the whole educational experience of our children.
I've thought often that I would like to set up my own school system....but my views have changed about how to do that.
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Abigail
Galen,
We had the same thing happen to a school here. It was a K - 12 school. The elementary and junior high were Montessori and the highschool more traditional. The high school students were primarily those kids who were kicked out of or failing in the traditional public schools. One student ended up in jail and the school continued to work with this boy so that he still graduated on time. Amazing. But again, these were kids who scored low on the tests.
In addition, when Michigan looks at test scores to grade a school they focus on the highest grade level in the school. The result is that the state decided that because the seniors didn't score sufficiently on the tests for several years in a row (and keep in mind these were mostly kids who transferred in while already sophmores, juniors, and seniors and NOT kids who had been educated by the school from kindergarten on)- the entire school was closed.
Such a shame they couldn't instead recognize that this school was managing to help educate kids who would otherwise have been on the streets.
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DaddyHoundog
Galen..in New Mexico we have 3 recesses a day...but on .5 year of music and ART on alternating years.
Having been in one of the states on the study...it has made the press. There are no public pre-schools here...
Next year will be the first pilot.
Given that fact, it apparently deals with private schools like Kindercare etc, and a lot of it has been from non-payment or if a kid repeatedly bites or something like that.
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Galen
It is good to hear that some schools still allow the kids to run around a bit.
We were really amazed when dealing with the elementary schools here in Ct, with the foster children, and their lack of 'run around and blow-off the stink' time.
Also the amount of shear waste of money, is mind-boogling. Assuming that they did buy competley new textbooks every year [which I can not imagine happens anywhere], stills leaves the school board with an average of $8300 per child per school year. If you had 25 kids in one room, the average expendature for that one classroom would be $207,500!!! After the teacher's salary which averages $50k-65k, that still leaves $140,000 for the administration, building maintenance, bus company, janitor and utilities. If you have 12 classrooms in one elementary school that cruddy building that was built in the 1950's is flushing $1.6 - $1.7 Million per year, not including teacher salarys !!!
If we scrapped the whole system. Encouraged one parent per block to take in and teach 'grammar' school; with parents of children either spliting the cost, or assisting. We would save Billions, test scores would soar back to where they were one generation ago [up until the 1930s], and we would not be in this situation. If you dont want 'same-sex safe-sex' techniques taught at the 2nd grade, then dont do it.
Grammar School graduates could either: enter trade schools, or union halls, or start a career, or go on to Highschool.
Highschools could go back to focusing on being college-prep.
Colleges could go back to focusing on handling young adults who are already literate, and dont need remedial coursework.
:-)
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