I want to make something VERY clear here — I am NOT referring to children of any one race. I’m discussing MY situation, and nobody else’s. Shame on you for assuming that everyone here is so race-motivated. The issues that I (and parents like me) face at my son’s school are socio-economic, and apply across the board. I resent your implication that somehow I would be speaking solely about black children, when I am most definitely NOT. For crying out loud, my SON is half me, half his father. Now go try to figure that one out.

As for meth, it’s not really a problem in the kindergarten set.

What I have observed is that the behavior problem children are the ones that don’t have good parental guidance at home. The school where I student taught is predominantly black/Hispanic. There wasn’t a single white child in the 3rd grade classroom I was assigned to. Yes, there were black kids that are behavior problems, but there were just as many of the Hispanic kids that were, too. I was in a class with 12-13 boys and 5-6 girls (some turnover in the 3 months I was there). The real problem students were all boys. I think these kids misbehave because they don’t have good role models at home.

I know that whites and meth is a growing problem. When I lived in Arkansas, seemed like authorities where busting meth labs at least once a month, mostly in rural areas (outside of the big towns), which means mostly white. I think the discussion we are having here is focused on a more urban school environment (we are talking about bussing, after all), so the problems will be a bit different than small/rural schools have.

Public school administrators I have worked for and with are quick to saddle the “cooperative” parents with punitive actions for the indiscretions of their children and loathe to take on the hardened jerks who will come through the door yelling “discrimination” and “racism.”

More and more parents are wise to this double standard and are home schooling their kids or breaking their budget to send them to honest private schools.

Raise the lowest to meet the highest — don’t drag the highest through the gutter to hang out with the lowest. Cripes — is it really that darn hard for the school system to figure out?

I had seen a report on this bussing story and thought about how having your child’s school across town would make it difficult to get to parent/teacher conferences, especially for low-income parents that might not have transportation.

Rush took it a step further – this is ON PURPOSE to try to keep parents out of the school’s hair, so the school can do what THEY want without any pesky interference from parents…

Food for thought…

I guess it was Spunky who was making comments about forced benevolence re: the government and the educational system.

I, for one, would love to have problem students removed from the general education classroom. However, it is very difficult to do so. That gets back to getting involved by attending PTA/PTO meetings, school board meetings and contacting your elected representatives. When voters make noise, that’s when politicians listen. Separating these students means districts have to pay more money for separate facilities and more teachers, and they don’t want to have to do that, so they try to avoid it as much as possible. Make it difficult for them to avoid it.

Within the district I live in, I’ve been in classrooms at two schools. One was in my neighborhood when I did 35 hours of observation in a 2nd grade class about a year ago. Only one student was a real discipline problem, and he was an ADHD child (yes, I think they use this label too liberally, but I think it was accurately applied in this case). Only one child out of about 20. This semester, I was in a 3rd grade this semester. In contrast, about two-thirds of the class were behavior problems to one extent or another. I’m sure a lot fewer kids at the middle-class school are candidates for removal from the general education classroom than the lower-class school I’ve been in over the last 3 months…

1. There is no jurisdiction in the progressive/socialist USA that would or could “lock up” recalcitrant parents or students. It has been 20 years or more since that was conceivable. (We can’t even profile Muslims on air flights!)

2. Vouchers would be a commodity subject to the value fluctuation of supply and demand. At first, they would be an “escape from public schools” ticket. But, if the market works efficiently, the public schools would soon wake up to the necessity of serving the public again, and more people would choose to spend their vouchers with the public schools.

As it is now, the public schools are a virtual monopoly and they have no need to listen to the public; so, they fiddle the education system. When the Bush Administration jammed testing down their throats, they went ballistic. They hate to be measured and compared. If vouchers were available, many parents would seek alternatives on the assumption that things have to be better where a disciplined, structured learning environment is in place.

Over the years, I have mentored over 100 high school students who were not achieving. Most of them finally figured out that the tooth fairy crapped out in the second grade and that success is related to personal commitment.

Some people are predisposed to look at things that are “free” as always available to them when they choose to use them. The problem is that putting off the mastery of reading only makes most of these folks forever backward. Education often requires tough love. Private schools and home schoolers know this. Tough love in a public school is a ticket for getting a teacher or principal fired.

Your prescription for discipline worked forty years ago. Now we are worried about the way terrorists are being treated at Gitmo.

I am afraid that you see a world without the ACLU or the NAACP. The reality is that Jessie Jackson and his rent-a-mob and a bunch of lawyers from Boston would bankrupt your efforts in a New York minute.

The laws against child labor and mandating that children under sixteen must be engaged in fulltime educational activities don’t mandate public schools.

They’re two different issues Ladybug.

Making “education” mandatory and maintaining laws against child labor DO NOT mandate public schools, otherwise parents wouldn’t be free to send their kids to private schools and/or home school their kids.

“I know the public school system is not perfect, far from it, but we need to try to fix it, not eliminate it.” (Ladybug)

Actually, I’ve never espoused “eliminating the public school system.”

In fact, I DID indeed give my own views on what the public schools need to do in order to improve. From one of my earlier posts in this thread; “Well, there are any number of things schools COULD do. One would be to set up boot-camp like alternatives for chronic problem students and miscreants.

“The law says public schools have to educate everyone. It does not stipulate that all be educated together. Those miscreants who ruin the educational experience for everyone else should be removed and placed in alternative learning environs.

“As I said, 1 little, fiesty old Nun didn’t have any problem keepng 60 kids in line when corporeal punishment was allowed.”

There are actually a number of things the public schools could do to improve education.

“To fix the problem of the kinds of students left in public school classrooms, you have to fix the conditions in the home. What are we going to do?” (Ladybug)

Again, there is NO LAW that mandates that all public school students be educated TOGETHER. Problem students CAN and SHOULD be removed from regular classes and placed in alternative learning environs, like boot-camp styled programs.

Heliotrope, same thing….nowhere in this thread did I espouse eliminating public education.

It can easily be “radically reformed” via an infusion of discipline. Parents and students who objected strenuously (physically) would be locked up….you’d only have to lock up a few to eradicate any lingering opposition, of that, I’m certain.

Vouchers are a half measure, in this regard, without that infusion of discipline, the public schools will not improve.

The current system is enormously unfair to people like Kim who are forced to pay for a private school education for their kids, while also paying for underperforming public schools.

Vouchers WOULD give folks like Kim some relief, and that would be good, but it wouldn’t in and of itself improve the public schools, which would have to actually reform in order to improve.

Many of the ideas you have expressed have been around for many (100) years. However, the society we live in has turned to the government for more and more service at tax payer expense, not less. Hillary is bound and determined to have nationalized health care under the control of the federal government.

It is unimaginable that with all the forms of welfare that have come into being since the 1960′s that this society would abandon the public schools. After all, they were the first great social program of government.

I favor the voucher system because it gives the parents the freedom of choice. Many parents would like to abandon the public schools, but they can not because of the costs involved.

There are some children who are nearly feral and I suspect that few private schools would take them on. There are rural areas where the sparse population would not attract voucher schools. There mean neighborhoods where voucher students would have a rough time coming and going to a private school. Hence, there will always be public schools for those who are trapped by the neglect of their upbringing, their relative isolation or their absence of motivation and the desire to succeed.

You are entirely correct about the cost of public schools. Washington DC has an enormous per pupil expenditure accompanied by one of the worst records of student achievement in the country.

My first public school teaching assignment (mid-60′s) was in a segregated black high school that had used text books and no supplies. But, we turned out top notch students, nonetheless. We also did not tolerate foolishness in the classroom or in the attendance procedure. The grading scale was A=94-100; B=87-93; C=80-86; D=73-79. A student could not participate in any extra curricular activity with less than an 80 average in any course. No credit could be earned if the student had three or more unexcused absences during the semester. Two unexcused tardies equaled an unexcused absence.

That was then.

I appreciate your tough stance, but in this day of welfare progressivism, you are spitting into the wind. (That is not meant as an insult.)

If the government doesn’t have some mechanism for public education, there will be those parents who forego having their children attend school in order to have them earn money to go towards the family finances. Not every person that has children is capable of either a) paying to send their child to private school or b) educating their child at home. The parents that ARE capable of doing one of those two things are the ones that are already involved in making sure their children become educated. The kids that are the problems are the ones whose parents aren’t capable for whatever reason (like the child I mentioned that is being raised by his non-English-speaking grandparents) of doing it on their own. As long as there are children like this, we have to have a public school system.

I know the public school system is not perfect, far from it, but we need to try to fix it, not eliminate it. If you think schools are controled by the teachers’ unions (which are illegal in Texas – teachers are forbidden by state law to strike, but there are ‘professional organizations’, one of which is affliliated with the NEA – I refuse to sign up with that one, but instead have signed up with independent professional organizations. I did that so I can get the professional liability insurance, so if someone decides they want to sue me over the way I have performed my job, I’m at least protected financially), get involved in the ways I mentioned before.

As for Catholic schools performing better (and I say this with parents that are products of Catholic school educations in the 50s and 60s), Catholic schools and other private schools are able to pick and choose their students. If a student does not follow the codes of conduct the school has, that student can be thrown out. Public schools are not so lucky – you work with what shows up in your classroom…

To fix the problem of the kinds of students left in public school classrooms, you have to fix the conditions in the home. What are we going to do? Start deciding who is and is not allowed to become a parent?? I really don’t think this nation wants to go there….