As an American I'm in trouble........

[bfam4t6]

I'll agree that not ALL public schools are worthless. In elementary school I was quite pleased with the Sioux Falls public schools in South Dakota. They let me learn at my own advanced pace. I was taking 7th grade advanced math (Pre-Algebra/Algrebra 1) in 6th grade. I had friends, as 6th graders, who were bused to the local highschool to take a freshmen algebra I class every day.

For 7th grade, I moved to the Blue Valley School district, which is in a very well to do area in the southern Kansas City area, and was promised that I would still be provided advanced classes that would challenge me.

What a load of Bullfunk! My math skills were so fcuked by the time I got to high school because I had spent 7th and 8th grade not learning a damn thing. (luckily high school kicked my ass back into gear) Their promised "advanced classes" did not exist. Nor did they make skipping a grade easy. I went from a straight A student to a straight C,D student because I was bored out of my mind. Hell, 8th grade I failed P.E. class because I thought the gym teacher was a D#CK and walked out of his class. Just to give the district a bit of a middle finger, in 8th grade I was allowed (after many long fights with the district because they were highly against me doing this) to be bused to the nearby high school and take a freshman honors geometry class. I still had to take the 8th grade math course though. Long story short I got an easy A in the high school honors class and a lovely gentlemans C- in the 8th grade math class class.

BTW, blue valley school district is supposed to be very top notch. It won all kinds of ridiculous state awards and what have you. It also wastes a ridiculous amount of taxpayer money on things like, and I shit you not, underwater speakers for the indoor swimming pool at at least one of the high schools.

I went to public school all of my elementary years, but after two years of the highly regarded blue valley, I begged my parents to send me to a private all guys high school. I even got a job at the end of 8th grade while I was still 14 and without a drivers license so that I could save $2000 a year to help my parents pay for private school tuition.

And just one more moan....it's very very easy for a district to score high on a state assessment when prior to the assessment the teachers literally drop everything they are doing to spoonfeed their students the knowledge needed to ace the assessment. There's a big difference between learning and being spoonfed, and one of them screws you up big time.

I can't speak for you or your school, but I know that before I ever have children, there will be tens of thousands of dollars in my bank account so that I can insure their private education.


**edit** For the sake of those of you reading all of this, I'll leave out the way I feel about my short experience at the University of Kansas. Suffice to say I'm working my butt off so that I can afford $35K!!! a year to go to a private college.

[lee4752]

I think it's a Kansas thing. I live in Wichita,where like the wind, even the private schools blow. We're home schooling our daughter.

[dansls1]

The problem is that most public schools don't have the curriculum catered towards making successful employees out of their students. I did a research paper in college and there were a few cities where big companies, Kodak was one I remember off the top of my head, elected plant management as community leaders and let them set the school curriculum based on educating for a modern workplace. Those students were well over 90% more successful in college and obtaining entry level jobs out of college than typical public school systems. Until big business takes a vested interest in education curriculum at an early level, late elementary school and up, the education system in the US will trail behind the world.