The Other McCain

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Are You Certain You Don’t Want to Consider Homeschooling Your Kids?

Posted on | December 27, 2014 | 26 Comments

If you think it’s a good idea to send your children to public schools, you probably aren’t really paying attention to what’s happening in public schools and who is in charge of public schools. Saturday, I searched Google News for the words “teacher + arrest” and — in addition to the usual stories about teachers raping and molesting their students — found an interesting variety of criminal mayhem:

Just a small sample of what you’re getting for your public education tax dollars — and what excellent role models for your kids!

 

Category: Education

Comments

26 Responses to “Are You Certain You Don’t Want to Consider Homeschooling Your Kids?”

  1. Evi L. Bloggerlady
    December 27th, 2014 @ 2:36 pm

    I am starting to connect the dots…

  2. jakee308
    December 27th, 2014 @ 2:48 pm

    This is what happens when you increase the pay for teachers but don’t increase the standards for teachers.

    Teacher’s Ed courses are among the easiest (or so I’ve heard) and most state’s requirements for teachers are low enough for some real idiots to qualify. Top that off with a teacher’s union contract that makes it almost impossible to discipline or fire poor performing or even criminal teachers and look what we get.

    End result is people who don’t have the emotional and mental maturity/discipline to be educating a hamster.

    And we see the results everyday in our interactions with those recently or even not so recently graduated from these places of mediocre learning.

    Don’t the Teacher’s Unions always claim that raising teacher’s salaries will increase learning?

    But then the only people to buy that bunk are politicians.

  3. jakee308
    December 27th, 2014 @ 2:49 pm

    ._._._._.

  4. RS
    December 27th, 2014 @ 3:31 pm

    Teacher’s Ed courses are among the easiest (or so I’ve heard) and most state’s requirements for teachers are low enough for some real idiots to qualify.

    The first clause of your sentence is absolutely true, as I can attest from personal experience and observation. My undergraduate B.A. degrees in a foreign language required more hours and higher graduating GPA than those hours and GPA required to teach the language in my state. Without exception, those in our upper level language courses were substantially less qualified than those of us getting pure bachelors degrees.

    As to the second clause, state requirements are specifically designed by education “professionals” to keep qualified people out of the teaching profession. It is most definitely not about quality of knowledge but about taking and passing the necessary “indoctrination” courses to be allowed into the guild.

    My own spouse discovered this when she attempted to obtain certification in our state. She has a Ph.D. from our state’s flagship public university. She’s taught upper-level and graduate level courses in linguistics, History of English and Second Language Acquisition at top 25 universities which courses are required for certification in language arts in our state. Yet, she could not be certified to teach, even with those credentials, because she did not have a bachelor’s degree from a U.S. institution. (Her undergraduate degrees were from a top 10 university in Europe.)

  5. charles w
    December 27th, 2014 @ 4:02 pm

    To be fair, the official drug of Kentucky is meth. It just might have been a history assignment.

  6. yoyo
    December 27th, 2014 @ 4:38 pm

    Here is one for you

    “Iowa principal on leave after forgetting about student in detention” http://www.omaha.com/news/iowa/iowa-principal-on-leave-after-forgetting-about-student-in-detention/article_26922e68-7ffa-11e4-98a6-53cd2b2a651f.html
    and by forgetting literallly going home and just leaving the kid at school

  7. Adobe_Walls
    December 27th, 2014 @ 4:48 pm

    The requirement for teaching degrees is probably to insure that prospective teachers are up for indoctrination. It must be tough to maintain ones enthusiasm as a teacher. Most of the kids in any given class could care less about the particular subject being taught. For those teachers who understand the true mission of federally run education, preparing minions for cause it’s much easier.

  8. RS
    December 27th, 2014 @ 4:59 pm

    One needs to understand–and most people don’t, BTW–that the origins of the modern public school system stem from the schools created in authoritarian Prussia in the last half of the 19th Century. The purpose was to create military and economic cogs for the machine of state. The sooner children were brought into the system, the better. It’s no surprise that modern American public school kindergarten–an obviously borrowed German word–began in cities with large German immigrant populations.

    The whole enterprise began to be subverted by Progressives during Wilson’s administration, of course. The anti-German sentiment allowed the origins of the American public school system to be (almost) obliterated from our national consciousness.

  9. theBuckWheat
    December 27th, 2014 @ 5:04 pm

    The only trouble we had with our child in her teen years was during the brief time she spent in our local government-run school.

  10. theBuckWheat
    December 27th, 2014 @ 5:10 pm

    Personnel is Policy- a good axiom in life. And what ideology predominate amongst the employees at government run schools? People who are left of center.

    Moreover (and not to get nasty but facts are facts) which side of the college bell curve do teachers and educrats come from? These folks are mostly from far less than the top 1%.

    As proof of their competency, in some urban districts it costs in excess of ONE MILLION DOLLARS to graduate a single student who is competent at grade level in all core subjects.

    As a society and as taxpayers, we no longer can afford the CLUSTER-FAIL of allowing government to run K-12 schools. The only answer is to give parents a voucher and the freedom to choose where to send their own children to be educated.

  11. Buffalobob
    December 27th, 2014 @ 6:42 pm

    But, but, but it’s for the chieldrens.

  12. TotallyPeeved
    December 27th, 2014 @ 6:57 pm

    Those that can, do. Those that can’t, teach.

  13. TotallyPeeved
    December 27th, 2014 @ 6:59 pm

    http://www.wnem.com/story/27696814/bridgeport-principal-charged-with-stealing-gambling

  14. Adobe_Walls
    December 27th, 2014 @ 7:08 pm

    Actually I am aware of the origins of our current school systems.

    “Our schools are, in a sense, factories in which the raw products (children) are to be shaped and fashioned into products to meet the various demands of life.” (Cubberley, 1917)

    In a sense this isn’t entirely incorrect. The Nation (not necessarily the State) does have a compelling interest in producing an educated public. The correct purpose of education is to encourage educated and therefore good citizens. Our republic depends on it. Public education shouldn’t be purposed to training workers, that is industry’s job, except to the extent that public education provides enough literacy for it’s graduates to be trainable. One should know enough R/R/R to be able to absorb further training. Unfortunately due to political correctness, mainly affirmative action, government has interfered with company training to the point where they simply can’t or perhaps won’t do it. Due to discrimination lawsuits the only safe way to promote is to rely solely on government approved academic credentials.

  15. RS
    December 27th, 2014 @ 7:30 pm

    I understand the importance of education to our Republic and its continued vitality. The purpose was to mold classically liberal people who were accustomed to and desired to preserve their personal autonomy with the loose political confines of our nation. It is only when the focus became primarily economic, that personal liberty became secondary to “skill-sets.” It is the shift to an economic purpose which allowed the Progressives an ever larger toehold in advancing their State-centric philosophy.

    Actually I am aware of the origins of our current school systems.

    I didn’t mean to imply you were unaware. Alas, most of our compatriots are not aware of the modern public school system’s origins and maintain a very fuzzy, approval of same. I am regularly confronted with public school teachers in my own, very conservative, evangelical Christian denomination, who daily spout the latest Progressive propaganda, but are nonetheless insulted that I refused and continue to refuse to submit my own children to their schools.

    “But I’m a Christian and conduct my class accordingly,” they protest.

    No. No you do not, because if you taught, as my children are taught in a parochial school, you would be fired.

  16. Grumley
    December 27th, 2014 @ 8:24 pm

    Stacy, I have to correct one of your tweets. The story that about the two teachers being arrested for possession of child pornography actually took place in Greenville, SOUTH Carolina, not North Carolina. Close though; just a few miles from the state line.

    Interestingly, while I do not wish to derail the thread but in relation to some other threads, Greenville is also home to a college that is being hammered for NOT reporting certain sexual assaults–exactly the opposite of what the feministas desire from the likes of UVA.

  17. Adobe_Walls
    December 27th, 2014 @ 8:32 pm

    ”It is the shift to an economic purpose which allowed the Progressives an ever larger toehold in advancing their State-centric philosophy.”

    And yet the shift to an economic purpose is failing horribly. Decade by decade high school graduates are less and less prepared for even the least intellectually challenging work. While buying something at any store you choose. Purchase something that costs say $5.23, produce a $10 bill, then after they input that in the register say wait I think I’ve got 23 cents. Observe their facial expression as they ponder what to do.

  18. RS
    December 27th, 2014 @ 9:26 pm

    Quite true. (I’ve had the change issue, before. Try your example, but substitute payment of $6.03.)

    There are any number of reasons for the problem: 1) A desire to produce dependents instead of productive citizens; and 2) A bureaucracy of teachers (facilitated by johnny-come-lately unions) which is more dedicated to self-preservation and aggrandizement than actual education, to name two.

    There is no immediate big picture solution. Rather, it is up to individuals to remove their children from the public system by all means and immediately to seek alternatives in parochial and homeschooling.

  19. M. Thompson
    December 27th, 2014 @ 11:32 pm

    …—…

  20. NeoWayland
    December 28th, 2014 @ 9:13 am

    Maybe the question isn’t about who the public schools hire. Maybe the question isn’t even about what the public schools teach. Maybe the real question is why we have public schools in the first place.

    Competition keeps us honest.

  21. Trazymarch
    December 28th, 2014 @ 9:44 am

    “Purchase something that costs say $5.23, produce a $10 bill, then after
    they input that in the register say wait I think I’ve got 23 cents.
    Observe their facial expression as they ponder what to do.”

    Real anecdote?

  22. M. Thompson
    December 28th, 2014 @ 11:38 am

    My fiancée is a music teacher with a degree in Music Education. She found the education professors to be worst of all, while the music professors at least understood how to play and instruct.

    Now she teaches bands at private schools through a chain of music stores.

  23. K-Bob
    December 28th, 2014 @ 12:22 pm

    Appalachia, in general, you mean. Actually meth and oxy.

  24. Adobe_Walls
    December 28th, 2014 @ 4:53 pm

    Numerous times, obviously the numbers vary.

  25. Trazymarch
    December 28th, 2014 @ 6:55 pm

    Never had such problems and I never use any kinds of cards just cash lol.

  26. News of the Week (December 28th, 2014) | The Political Hat
    December 28th, 2014 @ 8:58 pm

    […] Are You Certain You Don’t Want to Consider Homeschooling Your Kids? If you think it’s a good idea to send your children to public schools, you probably aren’t really paying attention to what’s happening in public schools and who is in charge of public schools. Saturday, I searched Google News for the words “teacher + arrest” and — in addition to the usual stories about teachers raping and molesting their students — found an interesting variety of criminal mayhem […]