A Rant About Public Education (not exactly what you think)
29 July 2003-2:39 p.m.
Lately I have heard a lot of complaining about public schools. We have a large home schooling population here and several private schools. I see a lot of the home school kids, they're great kids. But I see a lot of public school kids and they are pretty great too. Someone sent me a link to an AJC article about home schooling. They had quotes about why people home school and so many of them bashed public schools and public school teachers.
The sentiment seems to be that teachers in public schools don't care about children. They can't teach. Apparently they only do this for the money. I know many, many teachers and not one of them "doesn't care" about the kids. They have overcrowded classrooms. They have no funding. They have low parental involvement. But by Go they do care about their kids, and they do the best they can with what they've got. I can't help but wonder if all those parents who pull their kids out of public schools left them in and got involved with the school what would the public school system be like then?
Parents have told me, "oh I put little Susie in private school because the school in our district is almost all Hispanic and black, there aren't really any white children. Not that this is a bad thing, but Susie wouldn't have a peer group." WHAT? Maybe if all the white people didn't flee the school district Susie might have a "peer group" By not having a peer group do you mean little Susie won't be surrounded by people who look exactly like her? What is little Susie going to do when she grows up?
Not to say that all of our parents are like that. Many of them send their kids to public school. They go to PTA meetings. They get involved. And, surprise, they have smart, well-adjusted kids.
This whole rant was going to go somewhere but then it got rather busy here and I was pulled away and my train of thought has been derailed. So I'll stop now.