Roaring Silence
By Jeanne Nugent


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The bottom line is this:
these are my children and it is my money that is supporting this behemoth called public schooling. 
Let me be clear about this.  I do not want my children educated under the current "philosophy du jour". 
If parents were given a choice there would be no need for this post, there would be no need for this loop!  Everyone would be happy. 
Unfortunately, what we are all STUCK with is a "OUR (school system way) WAY IS THE ONLY WAY, IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS". 
As a result, my husband and I will be spending an inordinate amount of additional money, over and above our taxes, to send our two children to private school. 
The schools we have chosen are rigorous and adhere to attention to individual achievement, two components missing from public schools in my affluent district with state-of-the-art facilities. 
The fluff here is overwhelming and the management style of the district is oppressive.

My husband and I both have MBA's (earned 11 years ago when the degree wasn't given from the back of a matchbook cover).  My husband has been in the high tech industry for 16 years and works in an atmosphere that can be described as "high performance".  The life cycles of the products are short and the competition is fierce.  My experience "before kids" was in middle management for a Fortune 5 company.  I find it laughable that you or any other educator could tell the two of us what is needed for the 21st century.  My husband and I are painfully aware of the need for change, the need to manage change, and the absolute necessity for adaptability to new situations.  We are comfortable with the information age, this is what provides the roof over our heads and the food on our table.  Luddites would be an inaccurate description for us.  What I have witnessed in the classroom and didn't see in my children's progress alerted me to delve into the murky world of "education reform".  My instinct told me that these "reforms" would not lead my children to where they would need to be for the 21st century.  That bridge has some holes in it.  By the way, my husband's brother will become a doctor in two weeks. I have news for you.  There is an extraordinary amount of knowledge and facts that must be memorized and spewed back, both in oral and in written form before one has earned the right to be called "Doctor".  Some of this memorized information will never be used again by these newly minted doctors, but nevertheless, it must be learned. 
CAREER GUIDANCE
My father-in-law earned his medical degree 51 years ago, during the low-tech age.  Somehow, he managed to carry forth this basic education to become one of the top 3 gastrointerologists in the world .  He was able to adapt to new technologies very easily.  As an aside, he was also counseled not to go into medicine, seems his college counselor didn't think he was well suited for the rigors of medicine.  Ah, when one does not take into consideration self-determination and the spirit of the individual, who will be overlooked?  As a group,  American doctors are the best trained in the world, bar none.  But give Marc and Hillary and the merry band of elites enough time and they'll "improve" medical education so that it can compete with, say, Sri Lanka.

NEW STANDARDS
As for The New Standards Project, I have The Aquarium Project.  This "rigorous" performance assessment has teachers "assessing" kids for their ability to furnish an aquarium with fish, given the constraints of time and money.  How many guppies to buy, how many red-tailed sharks for a set amount of money.  I'm not going to debate the merits of this type of assessment. 
I look at the time required on something like this and weep, that is my prerogative.  I don't care if my children are able to successfully complete this project.  I simply don't want this for my children.  If other parents want this type of education and assessment, fine, just don't foist this on me.  So, if any parent on this loop expresses an opinion or a desire or a hope or a dream or anything else don't sigh with a sanctimonious air.  I'm bone weary of parents being treated as mere breeders.  Don't respond to me with the merits of any of these programs.  I am sure you are very dedicated and diligent in your teaching career and as long as the parents of your charges are happy, so be it.  I have spent too many hours attending meetings, researching the whys of reform, and talking to educators in this district.  The bottom line is that I want my money and my freedom.  I don't care if all you do all day is weave baskets.  I don't care if research says that weaving baskets is the wave of the future.  I don't care if CEO's say basket weaving is a necessity. 

And I really don't care if Madonna or Tom Cruise or any other dysfunctional Hollywood tripe say we should all be weaving baskets, just leave my family out of the plans. 

My husband and I are amazingly confident that we understand the needs for the 21st century for our kids and what we see in our blue ribbon, award winning public schools just doesn't measure up. :-)

PS Ted, I also noticed there was a roaring silence from you any time Redyarrow posted her tales from the classroom.  Hmmmmmmmm

Why is it that you teachers (and administrators) are always so holier than thou when it comes to plain speaking. I think I know bullsh-t when I see, smell or step in it and for once I decided not to tippy toe around the nice administrator for fear of hurting his self-esteem. 

The garbage this principal was handing out is the same kind of garbage we've heard in this district for the past 6 years. I have personally been polite and well mannered to these folks for to long and still they continue to lie, evade and do anything except tell the truth. Well I am not going to be nice and polite and take it anymore. I don't have to because teachers, principals and administrators work for ME, I don't work for them. If I damaged his "self-esteem" by using the expression bullsh-t, so what? Do I care if he was "turned off,"? No, I don't care. In fact it felt rather good to express myself in terms "he" would understand for a change. As for the validity of my opinion.  The opinion of a parent or patron is never "worthless" regardless of how it is expressed or in what language! Aren't we suppose to "respect" diversity? Well this was my trial run at being diverse and you know what? It felt damm good. Gosh, I might get good at this if I try, although I have to admit I am a little rusty.

Me thinks that school teachers and principals should remember WHO pays the bills around those havens and dens of OBE/STW/Voc-Tech facilities they like to refer to as a place where our children can have a real world "experience." I notice very few people calling them schools of academic learning anymore.

Here are some examples of what this (joke) saint of a principal, in collaboration with many others, has done over the past few years that has royally ticked me off, but through it all I have acted with grace and southern charm, beguiling the educrats with my wit, humor and ability to take most anything on the chin without throwing a punch. Well, those days are gone forever.

PRINCIPALS' LIES
This is the principal who said all these lies:

You are the only one complaining.
We arent doing that.
We arent using the SCANS report in our classrooms.
We arent doing Spady's Transformational OBE.
We arent participating in the PASS program.
Told me my sons COPES/COPS/CAPS test had been destroyed.

SEX IN SCHOOL BEHIND PARENTS BACKS
This is the principal who allowed:

A dildo named Herman to be brought into a co-ed classroom without parental knowledge or consent
A local OB/GYN Dr. to embarrass and humiliate a group of kids by wiggling Herman in the face of minor girls and throwing it in the lap of a minor boy.

Photos of nude women to be shown in a co-ed classroom without parental knowledge or consent.

A trip to the local mortuary by a 10th grade class for the purpose of seeing how a dead body is processed, without parental knowledge or consent and THEN lied to parents about the trip.

Values surveys to be distributed and graded, collecting very private and personal information about the student and his/her parents without parental knowledge and consent.

A job shadowing field trip to another city without parental permission.

Out of state representatives from a technical school to address a 10th grade class, survey the class in writing and take the survey out of state with them, without parental knowledge or permission.

Voc-Tech Representatives to address a 10th grade class and tell the kids they didnt need a four year college education, all they needed was a skills certificate from the local community college and they could get a job making $40,000 a year at the local Hyundai or Sony computer chip company. I would like to see that job offer in writing!)

This is the same one who also allowed:
A teacher to instruct a parent on how the parent should raise her child.

31 kids to attend a CIM ceremony, in front of national television cameras, without telling the kids or their parents that the 31 kids were not in fact receiving a CIM. The kids were devastated, but the principal, the school and the OBE program was proclaimed a great success.

Marc Tucker of the National Center on Education and the Economy (NCEE) to stand on the steps of OUR high school and proclaim the reform movement a great success without telling the public that 124 kids had dropped out of high school and the program in just two years.

The public to believe that the program was a success when only 74 kids out of the remaining 175 kids actually passed the 10th grade and 101 had failed.
The second year CIM students to pass through the program without telling the public that another 102 kids had "failed" the 10th grade.   

The second of 6 superintendents in two years to be vilified by the local press, teachers union and school board without coming to her defense.

Allowed/encouraged teachers to intimidate advertisers in a local newspaper (My Little Handbook) which was carrying our anti-reform articles (In Our Opinion!)

Favoritism for CIM/CAM students and turns his back on blatant discrimination against those students who "chose" not to participate. 

And the list goes on and on. Now all of these things may seem okay to you but they are not okay to me. So if I decide after 6 years to use one little bullsh-t, I think I have earned that right.

When you have walked in the shoes of the parents in this district for just one trimester of this garbage that is being forced fed down our children's throats, then you may take me to task for how I chose to defend my child.

Just to clarify something for you. The principal was not offended by  my "plain speaking" and if it was good enough for old Harry Truman, it is certainly good enough for me.

My Best,
Barbara

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