Re:Parents Who Pay to Be Watched
by Balgair on Friday September 15, 2017 @03:40PM
(#15260132)
My SO is a HS teacher and has been in very good (publicly funded) charter schools (100% admit rate to 4 years Unis) and the bottom of the barrel public schools (50%+ non HS degree completion), so there is a breadth of experience.
We've seen the super-moms and the slacker-moms and at the end of the day, it really just comes down to the kid. Most of the time, whatever drive or interests they have are going to run haywire over the parent's best/worst laid plans. Valedictorians at the best schools still get abortions and go on to meth-out, and slackers in the worst school still go on to be fighter pilots. It's the kid's life, mostly. And, like most people, their life will be average. That's not a bad thing.
Problem is, admin is nuts, typically. Not the unions (at least in this state), just the regular state admin. They are under a LOT of pressure to make sure that they 'improve' and send kids to college (nothing else counts in the metrics). As such, you sometimes see 'non-traditional' grading systems where a 25% is a D and you can only give out 4 question multiple choice tests. Yes, by random guessing, the average student should pass, and they do, if you can get the 14 years olds to knock off the vodka and pot long enough to take a test. The lawyer-based teaching approach is obviously crazy, but here we are.
Strong caveats apply for instability/abuse in the home-life and drug use during pregnancy, of course. Unfortunately, you see that a lot more in the 'poorer' schools. At the last public HS, 90% of the teachers 'dropped out' after 1 year, my SO included. Sometimes it can get that bad, yes.
We've seen the super-moms and the slacker-moms and at the end of the day, it really just comes down to the kid. Most of the time, whatever drive or interests they have are going to run haywire over the parent's best/worst laid plans. Valedictorians at the best schools still get abortions and go on to meth-out, and slackers in the worst school still go on to be fighter pilots. It's the kid's life, mostly. And, like most people, their life will be average. That's not a bad thing.
Problem is, admin is nuts, typically. Not the unions (at least in this state), just the regular state admin. They are under a LOT of pressure to make sure that they 'improve' and send kids to college (nothing else counts in the metrics). As such, you sometimes see 'non-traditional' grading systems where a 25% is a D and you can only give out 4 question multiple choice tests. Yes, by random guessing, the average student should pass, and they do, if you can get the 14 years olds to knock off the vodka and pot long enough to take a test. The lawyer-based teaching approach is obviously crazy, but here we are.
Strong caveats apply for instability/abuse in the home-life and drug use during pregnancy, of course. Unfortunately, you see that a lot more in the 'poorer' schools. At the last public HS, 90% of the teachers 'dropped out' after 1 year, my SO included. Sometimes it can get that bad, yes.