America’s prosperity hijacked...by public education!
There are five plus, soundly flunking students in 99% of my classes—K-12th grades...thousands of mainstreamed students, in hundreds of public school classrooms, multiple schools, different districts, most subjects...in upper-income communities! The rest? They cling to fractured knowledge, or excel with relentless parental support. Scholarship requires back-up!
Do parents wonder if their public school children will get a fair shot learning the academic necessities of the day? Future wunderkinds? College scholarships?
Why not? Schools school. Appropriate education is a moral birthright for all our children.
This I believed. Then I bore children, entered classrooms, taught, tested, corrected, and collected work well-below grade-specific knowledge. Some children will be schooled; some will be under-schooled; some will be un-schooled. Sadly, parents (including this educator) have no clue.
“Yeah, we don’t get no tests, no quizzes, no papers, no nada! We don’t know where our teacher gets our grade from. It’s soooo boring!” Collective head nod. Under-schooled, not under-achieving.
Classroom teachers, the only trained professional in the room, control students’ success and failure, period: not students (5, 6, 7 year olds inclusive), not parents, not poverty, not language difficulties, not testing, not NCLB, not RTT, not vanishing $$$--red herrings all. Blame shame. Students fail because teachers fail...and have been since the mid 70s.
Biography
MM Madison, Educator Mom, is a parent, a decade-long substitute teacher (K-12), a writer. She is a retired Probation Counselor, Special Education Coordinator, and business owner.
Please go to, www.educatingthechild.com for more detail, and for classroom notes on, CHEATING OUR CHILDREN—Public education’s WINNERS, CLINGERS, and FLUNKERS.
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