The Sunny Country of Common Sense
Elfland, Here I Come!
Sunday, September 03, 2006
Schools Don't Educate
"I have never let my schooling interfer with my education." --Mark Twain
I spent about 20 hours in meetings last week learning about a new program my district is instituting to attempt to reach our lowest performing kids. It's actually a promising program, one that appears to be fairly research-based and full of promise. One huge piece of this program is that students meet one-on-one with a mentor several times a week--the more contact these kids have with an adult who cares about them, the better they do. That seems self-evident to me, but now hundreds of thousands of dollars have provided the research needed to confirm it.
As I was sitting in these meetings, one of the women who holds a very high position in the district came to deliver data about our students' performance. First, she made the point that our students with low socioeconomic histories were performing the lowest--this group including most minorities. She then told us our white and asian students were performing better--at less than a 50% pass rate on all standardized tests!
Then she said something really interesting.
"The longer students stay in our school system, the worse they do."
How true and how sad!
I spent about 20 hours in meetings last week learning about a new program my district is instituting to attempt to reach our lowest performing kids. It's actually a promising program, one that appears to be fairly research-based and full of promise. One huge piece of this program is that students meet one-on-one with a mentor several times a week--the more contact these kids have with an adult who cares about them, the better they do. That seems self-evident to me, but now hundreds of thousands of dollars have provided the research needed to confirm it.
As I was sitting in these meetings, one of the women who holds a very high position in the district came to deliver data about our students' performance. First, she made the point that our students with low socioeconomic histories were performing the lowest--this group including most minorities. She then told us our white and asian students were performing better--at less than a 50% pass rate on all standardized tests!
Then she said something really interesting.
"The longer students stay in our school system, the worse they do."
How true and how sad!
2 Comments:
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love you,
mom
"The longer kids stay in American schools, the worse they do..."
John Stossel, or someone on his show called STUPID IN AMERICA explained this. This is one of the reasons we were first swayed into homeschooling -- we thought if we wait until at least 3rd grade to put them in, the damage won't be as bad! Now we don't really see any reason to put them in...but time will tell.
You can watch the whole Stupid in America report on You Tube. Click to my post on this program for links :)
It is funny that people are realizing how important one-on-one mentoring is. I plan to soon blog about A Thomas Jefferson Education. This is pretty much his basic thesis. Throughout the ages, education for the rich and upper class was on a one-on-one basis. Public schools were made for those who were falling through the cracks. The problem is, when something is offered to most of us for free, we take it. Those of us who don't need public schools are using them, and now we have more kids falling through the cracks...The neat thing about America is that you don't have to be rich or even middle class to provide your child with one-on-one attention. Whether it's homeschooling or afterschooling, this is where a child will really learn, and learn to love learning. Other people can do this, but no one can do it with love the way a parent can. Who said families weren't important? They are the bedrock of our country's success! We need to cultivate healthy families, and then we will have better educational report cards.
Just my "humble" opinion :)
By the way, did you know you only accept comments from BLOGGER users?