Monday, September 3, 2012

Show of hands if you're surprised


As a family who has had our two young daughters in public schools, private schools and have [and currently] home schooled [the downside of military life and deployments/moves], I feel like I have a pretty good basis to assess the general state of primary education.  The results come as no surprise to me...but I likewise don't really see anything from our political officials to rectify the obvious problems.
Among all types of U.S. educational institutions, Americans believe that public schools offer the worst quality of education, according to a new Gallup poll released Wednesday. In addition to public education, the survey examined four types of U.S. schooling: charter schools, independent private schools, parochial or church-related schools, and homeschooling.
In the nationwide survey, administered August 9-12, interviewers told participants: "I’m going to read a list of ways in which children are educated in the U.S. today. As I read each one, please indicate — based on what you know or have read and heard — how good an education each provides children — excellent, good, only fair, or poor. How about: public schools, parochial or church-related schools, independent private schools, charter schools, or home-schooling?"
A mere 32 percent of respondents believe public schools provide a “good” education, while only five percent said they deliver an “excellent” education. This combined 37 percent, who gave public schools an “excellent” or “good” education rating, was by far the lowest among all the types of schooling cited in Gallup’s survey. “Public schools get a relatively poor rating,” the poll stated, “even though the vast majority of American children are educated in public schools.” 
Link 

2 comments:

  1. Our schools are failing our children; therefore, they're failing our country. But it's mostly the PARENTS. Throwing more money at most of them is not the key; getting kids to respect adults and be happy to learn again is the key.

    Schools were SO GOOD when I was a kid.....probably when you were, too. Today, I'm hearing teachers quitting because kids have absolutely no respect and their parents stand right behind them in agreement with the disrespect.
    And TV shows diss learning as if you're a nut if you want to do well.
    But, now that I think of it; our kids ARE nuts if they want to succeed...everything they'll make will go to their neighbor in the future. WHY BOTHER? :-)

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  2. Don't get me started. This poll had the wife and I talking for hours the other day...prompting me to post it. When we were kids, parents were engaged and involved. When little Billy effed up at school....it was sheer terror waiting for Mom or Dad to come pick him up. Homework got done and checked because parents weren't busy watching 'Dancing with the Stars' or on Facebook.

    I'm generalizing to be sure, but kids respected authority and their parents not so long ago. These days, you're right...it seems that parents take offense to the mere thought of their offspring behaving badly. Of course when we were in school, the entire mindset of kids seemed different. I played outside during the summer until my Mother had to call me 5 or 6 times, long after it was too dark to really play. We had one overweight kid in class - Delbert Zimmerman. That I can remember his name around 37 years later attests to the paradigm of outgoing and rather decent generation of kids....and we probably sucked compared to our parents generation!

    But I digress. These days we see bloated bureaucracies of administrators, while schools and districts complain of underfunding. We homeschool our kids, as do many families in these parts. So we still contribute to the tax base - and - lessen the class size, and they can't seem to make education work.

    It is surely a combination of fiscal malfeasance and poor parenting trends.

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