Waiting for Superman/ What Are Your Thoughts on Improving Our Schools

I am a public school teacher, and I completely agree with Diane S. Parents need to step up to the plate and parent! Just this week alone I am told I have to teach bike safety, bathroom etiquette, and table manners! Do you know how much time is taken away from academics because parents don't raise their children anymore?

I'm in my 19th year of secondary education, both public and private. During my career, I have discovered the following really work for individuals who want to help improve things.

First, start with your own family. Are your kids well rested, well fed and properly clothed for school? Do you make school and homework a priority? Do you show this by having dedicated homework/study time, by doing extra work with your children or even learning with them? Do you show your students good "study skills" by modeling good organization, continuing to be a lifelong reader and lifelong learner?

Parents are and ever will be the primary educator in their children's lives. Do you take that role seriously?

Second, feel free to volunteer at your child's school. You can work in the office, as a teacher's helper or even get a job at the school as a paraprofessional and help with the special needs students. There's always a need for substitutes, for yard duty aides, for bus drivers or just plain gopher. Being in a school can help you realize what the needs are and how you might be able to help. Each school is different.

I've done both of the above and my children have been good learners as a result. They've proven what a teacher once said to me...with the right attitude ANY school can be a good school for your child. Why? Because the parents and the kid are "in" to education, not matter where they get it.

On the flip side, as a teacher, I've had to come to grips with many things. I've had to come to terms with the fact that the "back in my day" attitude solves nothing. I must deal with what walks through my door and make those children career and college ready. The time for blaming a society that's "broken," a family that's "broken," or even a child that is "broken" is over. I can't control that. What I can control are my methods, my attitude and how I help kids reach their potential. That's it. More money doesn't make that better; it must come from within my heart.

That said, it is my personal resolution that the day I cannot be the kind of teacher I want for my children, that's the day I leave teaching. Twelve years ago, I had reached that point. I took a two year break from teaching and discovered that the worst day teaching was better than my best day doing ANYTHING else. I've been back in the classroom for 10 years now and NOTHING will make me leave my classroom again. Teaching is my calling; it's what feeds my soul and, if I'm really lucky, my the occasional student's soul.

The fixes can seem so big and so overwhelming. I've found the best solutions are the ones you implement child by child, class by class, school by school. And, as with most things, the best place to start is at home.

Our whole family is a product of public schools. Our daughter applied to 9 top tier colleges and was accepted to all 9. She attended our neighborhood schools. We have very good schools here in Austin, with a few exceptions (I will speak on that in a moment). We are also a College town with 4 major colleges within the city limits and we benefit greatly from that.

I was also a PTA president and extremely active in the city and state PTA's..
These are the things I learned.

Bad teachers are hard to get rid of. The Teacher Union is extremely powerful.
They are good, but it makes it very cumbersome to get the teachers that are burned out, or just plain ineffective. This has to be changed. NO STUDENT should have to suffer being taught by these people. Principals spend so much time dealing with these ineffective teachers that they do not have enough time to do much else.

Asst. Principals deal with the failing and misbehaving students on campus every day.. I was shocked to learn that generally it is only 5% to 8 % of the student body that causes most of the problems every day in schools.. The same 5% to 8%! At the middle school in our neighborhood, there were 8 to 12 kids, that took up all of this attention. They needed help with their behaviors, the mental state and home life. Many times their parents had given up. They just could not control these kids for whatever reason.. I do not know how this can be solved.

Also new teachers cannot just be thrown into classrooms and be expected to succeed, just because they have a degree. They should be mentored and assisted at least one full school year, it would be better for 2 or 3.

Master teachers need to be able to do their jobs. If you are an excellent teacher, why do you have to attend workshops over and over again each year? If anything is updated, a Master teacher should be allowed to just attend update training, not the entire training over and over every year.

Also parents need to understand there is not enough time in the day to teach every student everything every day. Parents are partners in their children's educations. Parents do not just drop off and pick up from school. They must also reinforce what is being taught. Yes, there is homework. Help your children with it.

No, schools do not have time to teach perfect cursive like they used to so you help them with it. No they do not have time to teach multiplication tables to your kids, so you do it. Your children now need to know how to work with technology, they need to know how to solve problems, they need to be able to learn "how to learn"

Parents need to respect the teachers, and be a team. Speak respectfully of all of your childrens teachers even if YOU do not respect them..

Administrators as Professionals. Most teachers now have a masters degree and continue their education and training EVERY Year.. How many of YOU do this?

Also if you do not like what is going on in your childrens school. Do not just sit back and Biitc# and Moan. Get in there and ask questions. See how you can be a part of the process, but also learn to stay out of the way. Ask how you can help, but do not tell them how to do thier jobs.

I did not like the condition of one of our schools, so I was asked to join a City Public School Bond Committee to talk about the needs of the schools. Guess what? I sat and worked on that committee for 3 years. We went over EVERY school in the district. It has not ended and now it has been 8 years and I still answer questions and oversee that the bonds that were approved are being spent correctly (this was all volunteering on my part).

When I was concerned about a new curriculum, I worked with the City wide PTA to study this curriculum and make sure it fit our community.

If you do not like the public schools. I beg you to send your children to private school or to homeschool. Do not take up the public schools time with your private needs and wants. The majority of students and their families do not need special attention, but they do need to be able to have access to the Principals and teachers, not always pulled into meeting with disgruntled parents wanting only things for their children.

I am stepping off of my soap box.

We can keep putting millions of dollars into the school systems and if parents do not start parenting and staying on top of their kids nothing will change. Teachers and money can only do so much. If parents are not going to do their job then nothing will work. I don't understand how parents get off the hook and everything becomes the responsibility of the educators. I can see how teachers get discouraged, frustrated, and can feel how their hands are tied. Children not showing up prepared, not motivated, etc. We can't just keep waiting for change we have to make the change happen. In my opinion PARENTS need to STEP up and stay on top of their kids.

What has happened to our society? is it politics? It frightens me.
Is it this generation of parenting?

how about stop firing teachers . Lower congress paycheck and give it to the teachers. If they stop firing teachers you get smaller class sizes , smaller class sizes mean there's a higher likely hood that more kids will pick up the information.
Stop teaching to test.
Teachers spend all year on pushing the material for the standardized tests They can't do anything more.
Teach to strengths. If one kid learns better visually then teach that child visually. same with the other forms of learning , have them divided into how they learn best.
Have an individual homework plan for each kid. Homework that focuses on what they need to work on not just generic , everyone does the same thing. So kids spend less time on the things they already know and more time on the things they need to practice.

Education starts at home. Many people do not understand that simple fact.

Schools cannot do much with the army of unprepaired and undisciplined kids. Education has to start early at 1.5 y/o structured play groups that way by the age of 3-4 child can attent independently half day preschool and will not be a stranger to learning full day at the age of 5. The longer you keep kids out of school the harder the transition will be.
I am not a teacher, I just had a chance to see and try some educational systems other than US and am fully aware that US had a huge problem on their hands with education and other countries have better ways to school kids that work!
Discipline, early start and parental involvement/accountability are must for success at school. Too many parents think the school or somebody else will fix their kids. People have to understand that nobody but themselves can fix their kids and to do that they have to fix themselves and their families first.
Unfortunately, public schools (and private school as well, do not get me wrong!) get a lot of kids from families that cannot be classified as model. That makes the job so much harder for teachers and other parents who are responsible and trying to provide good education for their children.

Just want to add about what can be done in my opinion to educate/help parents. Schools can invite educators/experts on the subject of discipline, child rearing to have interractive sessions with parents. School can hold parental meetings where parents can discuss/share/look for answers on self improvement/brainstorm. In lower grades parents shoul be called to school questioned when their child has HW missing. Every school has to have a councellor or two that do that actively work with parents. Identify people who are in need of education/coaching or sometimes an intervention from the law. In HS together with sex ed schools can have parenting classes for the tenagers so they can discuss, role play, step into parents' shoes so to speak. If they are old enough to learn how to make a baby they are old enough to learn how to properly care for it (and not just burp and feed).
Society as a whole has to recognise parenting as a responsibility and coach/educate people on the subject and hold them accountable for bad parenting. Parenting should be taken out from under wraps of mistery and personal preference and made into something people should be encourage to learn about and practice and to work on constantly.

Those are my thoughts based on my experiences. I am anxious to see the documentary.

Parents cannot expect some faceless entity to educate without being involved themselves!

I saw the special regarding the documentary over the weekend on Fox News, I can't wait to see it too. Here are my thoughts regarding your post: Get rid of the Unions & bad teachers. Stop giving teachers tenure so early in their career & they must "prove" themselves to be a good teacher before getting tenure. Parents need to step up & be involved not only academically but with teaching their kids to be respectful. Teachers shouldn't have to deal with rude kids & kids shouldn't have to deal with rude teachers. Let parents be more involved in the classroom, I have been asking to be involved in helping in my sons 1st grade classroom & have yet to be invited.

Supposedly that's how Sarah Palin got into politics was when her children were young she joined the PTA then she realized how disappointing the school system was & ran President of the PTA then ran for Mayor & went up from there. That's a way to make a difference,whether you like her or agree with her politically, she is like all us moms wanting to make a difference for our kids.

Thanks for posting this question, it's nice to see other moms who want to make a difference, although it's a big one. There is a website that I go to sometimes called captain watchdog. It's a Father in Texas that has been fighting the school system after finding out his kids are being taught "wrong" stuff like the Constitution. Check it out, maybe you can join him in the fight.

Funding and student preparedness/parental involvement (Stacy and Diane - right on!) would go a long way.

Funding - in many states the lottery helps to fund the schools. But what most people do not know is that lottery funding does not supplement what is gained through tax revenues but supplants it. In other words, state governments say "Oh cool, we get X amount of dollars from the lottery. Now we can put that money to schooling and remove the same amount of money to put into other projects."

One of the unique aspect of American schooling is also something that can be a drawback. For the most part, communities in a school district have local control over curricula and how funding can be disbursed. Parents, through their elected school board members, get a say-so in how kids are educated. The problem? A lot of state and federal monies in the forms of categorical and block grants require the school to do certain things, jump through hoops, and document like crazy in order to get them (NCLB, tons of special ed stuff, abstinence-only education, etc.) Sometimes what the monies dictate do not serve the best interest of a school at the local level, so the school does not get the money.

In most states, legislators will decide what amount per pupil will be spent to deliver an 'adequate education'. In Illinois, they believe that around $6000 is sufficient. Good luck operating a school, paying your teachers, providing extracurriculars, and educating your students on that amount.

Basically, saying the government is responsible for footing the bill for education isn't as simple as it seems...and we all know that legislators in DC typically have no clue as to what might be best in SmallTown, USA yet from afar and with the help of special-interest lobbyists, they make rules and regulations that aren't necessarily suitable for all districts. Besides, with the next president (and next and next) half the stuff gets thrown out, changed, etc. and a district would have to start from scratch.

Finally, and this is just my personal opinion, asking wealthier neighborhoods to foot the bill for poorer schools is completely inappropriate. Why? In most wealthy districts the overwhelming majority of funding comes from property taxes. For example, in my district we receive a 'flat grant' from the state (which amounts to about $250 per pupil - or about 1%). About 8% of our funding comes from federal sources. That leaves a whopping 91% of our per pupil amount coming straight from property taxes. As a result, property taxes are very high in our district but parents are willing to pay them. By contrast, some of the poorest districts in the state receive nearly all of their funding from the state and federal governments and through poverty grants.

Sometimes funding isn't enough to have successful outcomes. This came to light two years ago when a Reverend from Chicago's south side organized protests and boycotts of CPS to draw attention to the inequality in funding. Now, I can't remember the numbers but the per-pupil spending in CPS is around $12,000 BUT there are several highly successful neighborhood schools that spend less per pupil and are award-winning and top-notch (Naperville is a great example). Makes you wonder what the heck CPS is spending their money on...or is it that education isn't a priority for most families who send their kids through CPS? All I can tell you is that as a teacher, there would not be enough money in the world to work at CPS. Why? I don't want to get assaulted by a kid, have only about 40% of my kids show up because the parents don't care about them attending, and deal with the awful bureaucracy that comes along with a CEO of schools who has NEVER worked a day as a teacher.

Great question - so complex, with several layers to this onion! Gaining a basic understanding of school funding is totally eye-opening and may really piss you off :)