You have got to be kidding. Do you know what reeducation camps are??? You are SERIOUSLY diminishing the role of the parent here. My kids asked questions, maybe yours did not. When the information seemed out of line it was corrected. The kids were allowed to watch the Clown News Network if they wanted and corrections were made. Properly raised kids have the values of their parents not the teachers in the school.
BTW how many kids do you have?

A) The fundamental role of any government expenditure, if rational, is to maximize the ROI per tax dollar used.

Public schools do not work, because they do not recognize the different types of students.

Bright kids become wealth generators, and need to be pushed.

Vo-tech kids will keep civilization going, and will probably end up net tax payers as well.

The damaged kids need to be socially corrected to minimize their cost to society as much as possible.

Sports are an excellent form of education, if they are taught that way.

“Accomplished high school athlete” is a oxymoron, outside of learning discipline, etc.

Frankly, even a D1 athlete isn’t much of an achievement, and the costs to the student probably aren’t worth it.

quote:

The greatest deficiency is in the lack of critical thinking skills. It simply isn't being taught.

^^^^^^^^^^^^
OK thanks for your post. Critical thinking was taught daily in our home and my kids attended public high school and private Universities that made that part of their curriculum.

quote:

The damaged kids need to be socially corrected to minimize their cost to society as much as possible.

^^^^^^^^^^^^
That is the role of private boarding schools and clinical psychologists.

quote:

Originally posted by ZSMICHAEL:

quote:

The greatest deficiency is in the lack of critical thinking skills. It simply isn't being taught.

^^^^^^^^^^^^
OK thanks for your post. Critical thinking was taught daily in our home and my kids attended public high school and private Universities that made that part of their curriculum.

Public school kids can be taught this skill by devoted and attentive parents even if it is omitted by educators. Sadly there are many parents who are either willingly disinterested and uninvolved in their kids' education, or simply unable to be so as many families have both parents working just to make ends meet.

It is tough on teachers who value this as well as it is difficult to teach these skills with such a huge class size as is common these days.

I was fortunate to have both parents and educators who valued critical thinking skills in my education.

quote:

Originally posted by ZSMICHAEL:

quote:

The greatest deficiency is in the lack of critical thinking skills. It simply isn't being taught.

^^^^^^^^^^^^
OK thanks for your post. Critical thinking was taught daily in our home and my kids attended public high school and private Universities that made that part of their curriculum.

So you homeschooled your kids in addition to their public schooling.
That's good parenting.
I think many people, and I am not excepting myself, see parenting and educating as separate things. They are not and should not be, but it's hard to keep that awareness, especially in a society where the standard education is not in the home or by the parents.

If they take after my wife and I, my kids will not fit neatly into the standardized school. I was smart, therefore bored and also able to be lazy and still get by. Other kids pick up other bad habits in that situation.
My 7 year old already shows that tendency. We just did an assessment and jumped him up 2 levels in math because he was being difficult because he was bored. In government school he would be getting detentions, or whatever punishments they use now, or they'd be pushing us to put him on ADHD medicine. That's not wild conjecture. I went through it with my oldest boy in public school. (Ex-wife has custody)

Homeschooling lets us customize the schooling for the child.

Kids with special needs {from behavioral issues to learning disabilites do not do well in public schools.} The local Catholic schools here used to do a great job with these kids but the Archbishop was into cost cutting and that disappeared. Home schooling is not the best either for these children unless the parents have had training in that area. I do not know the answer to that. They used to have special schools for these kids that were of high quality, but not anymore.

Even though we were paying for private school for my youngest she was struggling to read. We had her evaluated and it was quickly determined that learning to read using WHOLE Language was not working. We called around and found a semi retired elementary school teacher. She taught her phonics over the summer and there were no further problems. Many parents would not have bothered.

Interesting development from my wife who has our kids in a homeschool co-op and now helps manage and teach classes there. It has gotten so popular and big they ended up having to split into TWO co-ops as the facility could not handle the influx. My children go there each Wednesday during the school year and get to socialize with, play with other kids, have classes and lunch together. They LOVE it and look forward to it every week.

But my wife just told me they asked a family not to return this year, effectively kicking them out because they could not or would not control their 12 year old child who had significant behavior problems and it was starting to affect the other kids. I’m glad to hear they run a tight ship there and are not letting one bad apple ruin it for everyone else.