[geeks] One of the things I love about America

[wa2egp at att.net]

> Here in PA, homeschoolers routinely outperform public school kids, and the
> amount of supervision that homeschoolers are required to have is a joke.

Of course.  Homeschooler's teachers can connect better (darn, they're family),
spend more time with them and generally have less distrations.
Over supervision is not a good thing.

> Charter schools are a fairly new phenom here.  The highest profile one (a
> cyber-charter school, oohhh, ahh.  Computers, must be good) is in the middle 
> of a major scandel now.  I don't care for cyber-charter schools.  Too many
> people think of it as homeschooling, but easier, which it isn't.  I haven't 
> heard anything about test results.

We all know that teaching wiht a computer is better. ;->

> True, it is the students that get hurt, assuming they really are being hurt.
> But, I think kids should be raised to be more resiliant than to be badly
> hurt by a few years of bad schooling.  But, being force to stay in a bad
> situation certainly doesn't help.

Agreed.
 
> But then, where I live, I know a lot of people w/o college degrees, and even
> a number of highschool drop outs that are doing quite well.  My mother knows
> people who never went to highschool at all who are also doing quite well.

Yep.  Depends on what the individual wants to do.
  

> I thought in most places membership was required.  Obviously I can't make 
> sweeping statements about the whole nation though.

Well, they (unions) want it that way.  Do I agree with it...no.


> I go to a university that specialises in its teaching program.  From the 
> people I meet, it is hard to respect most new teachers.  Quite a number of
> people here seem to have picked it because it looked like the easiest way to
> a degree, and hey, you get a 3 month vacation every year.

Here we go with the myth of teachers working less.  I don't know what you do
for sure but I don't think you bring home work every night for 10 months and
work 3 hours a night and more on the weekend.  I did some calculations once and
I basically worked the same hours as someone working 9 to 5 with only two weeks
off in the summer.  Of course that's just me.
 
> Of course, these are hopefully the people who quit after a year or two of 
> teaching.

Good ones do too.  They just get tired of the crap from "up above".

> But anyway, I've noticed that private schools seldom pay teachers as much as
> public schools, but in a lot of cases private schools are better (again, 
> nothing is universal, and there are sucky private schools).  This says to me
> that raising teacher pay isn't going to fix anything.  What probably will
> fix things is empowering teachers to do things like hand out real punishments.
> Further, moral seems to be one of the most pressing problems, and I don't think
> that more money ever goes far towards fixing moral.

Private schools can select their students.  They ain't choosing the worse.  Empowering
(geez do I hate that word) the teacher will solve a lot of problems.  REmember when those
chairs outside the principal's office was for the students who weren't
doing well (failing, discipline, etc.)?  Now it is for teachers who dare to
keep a standard and students don't want to reach it.

> > Remember this, the National Education Associating is the largest union in 
> > the US.  Be afraid......be very afraid.  ;->
> 
> Whatever.

It was a joke.  But imagine if all the teachers in the country called in
sick on the same day......