Pajiba

I can't even imagine having to depend on your number being called in order to get a good education. That's just fucking wrong.

Haha. I typed "educations system." Yes, I went to public school in North Carolina, why do you ask?

Sorry, what is the lottery for? I do not understand the lottery thing at all but I'm pretty sure it's going to make me cry

Can't wait to see this. I'll be seeing it as soon as it comes out. Also, the song at the end of the trailer is Matisyahu's One Day.

Seriously though, what is the lottery?

I literally cant understand what that is and if it's what I think I have a lot of raging to go and do so...anyone?

Yes, Patty, I am.

What the FUCK, you guys?

Nadine,

New York and D.C. have large amounts of charter schools. A charter school is like a private school or a Montessori school that is independently run but receives money from the state. Most students wear uniforms and the school revolves around a certain curriculum (ex. government, environment, a language, etc). If your neighborhood public school is not that good, you can apply to a charter school (or as many as you want--New York City has over 100 of them.) While a lot of them have interview processes, most rely on the lottery system, especially for kindergarten and pre-k.

Example: You have a child that lives in a poor, typically inner city area with a failing public school. You find a charter school nearby that you like, so you fill out all the paperwork, take junior to visit the school, and have an interview with potential teachers. Say junior is in first grade, and there are only 25 people that can be in that first grade, so there are 25 open spots. But in a lot of impoverished neighborhoods, you have 50-100 kids trying to get into those 25 spots. So all the potential students and families meet on a certain day at an auditorium or school location, the principal or headmaster pulls 25 names out of a box or 25 balls from the lotto machine, and those are the students that get to go to that school. Everyone else has to apply to another charter school or go to the public school. If there are no other private, Montessori or charter schools, your child is forced to go the public school.

Well now I'm good and fucking depressed.
I know kids can miss out on their ideal schools but fucking HELL.

scorzi - I can't tell you how many kids I've had to accept into my classroom after they've been expelled from another school for bringing a weapon to school or assaulting an adult. Fourth and fifth graders. Yeah, they got expelled, but because we can't deny them an education, they just get placed at the nearest school to the last one. That's the system's fault, but even worse is the schools that have completely worthless administration. The kids who mouth off, never show up or fail multiple classes don't see anything happen to them - for fear of a lawsuit.

My mom was a speech pathologist in the Baltimore Public School System a little over 20 years ago. One day, a student punched a teacher in the face (this was in an elementary school). The teacher, who was a good friend of my mother, went to the principal and showed the bruise and clear marks of assault. When the mother of the child was called in, she stormed into the principal's office and yelled at him for having the audacity to try and expel the child and insist upon disciplinary action. The principal conceded that he was in the wrong and the teacher who was assaulted left for the greener pastures of private school.

That was over 20 years ago and tragically, things just keep getting worse.

It's almost as if parents expect school to be little more than a free day care center for their kids. And that's a best case scenario. My college was located in a county where most of the schools were extremely underfunded (I think the county average was half of the kids were on free or reduced lunches, but in some schools the percentage was much higher). Kids would go to school to get breakfast or lunch and those would be their only meals. There were programs in place that would try and drum up parental involvement, but it was often futile.

It's not to say that there aren't people out there who are not cut out for education (I once had a teacher announce to the class that she was tenured and close to retirement so she didn't much care if anybody passed or failed any way and another teacher who verbally abused many students), but I feel like they are the minority. Most teachers are amazing, they just don't always have the resources necessary (time, money, parental involvement, basic classroom supplies, etc.).

It's really, really heartbreaking. And the lottery thing still makes me miserable.

The lottery thing is for a charter school! NOT just to get an education!

And around these parts (Texas), charter schools are not better than public. Those in favor of taking money away from the public schools WANT them to be, but so far, they are not. Charter schools are where we send our suckiest teachers and we pull the decent teachers FROM them, if that tells you anything.

I need to watch this trailer, but am running out the door. The only thing I wince at about stuff like this is the inevitable knee-jerk reaction of "OH THAT TEARS IT, THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS ARE 100% SUCK, GET RID OF THEM." There ARE problems, big ones, too. But they're all fixable. Just depends on how badly we, as a society, want to fix them.

Americans should be ashamed of the state of public education. Most of all, they should be ashamed that the teachers appear to be shouldering most of the blame, when it's really parents, politicians and school administrators who should be answering for shitty test scores.

But parents refuse to accept responsibility, and the gutless administrators and politicians won't even try to make them. I guess they figure there are more parents than teachers, so it's OK to shit all over the teachers. I couldn't be a teacher (in public school, anyway) for even one day. The stories I've heard/read about how teachers are treated have scared me away from ever considering it. It's been very clear to me from the beginning that teachers are the scapegoats for incompetence and failure that they did nothing to create.

I also care less and less about those people who don't bother to educate themselves or their children. I feel kinda bad for their kids, but it doesn't matter if I feel bad about it, they obviously don't. I don't know what kind of person doesn't care if their kid ends up uneducated and unemployable. A worthless asshole, I guess.

I'm a public-school elementary teacher of inner-city kids. I am here to tell you: If your kids are not enrolled in a "special" program---meaning, magnet, charter or hybrid--then, they are not getting an acceptable "education."

There is tremendous pressure within school districts to "make" the lowest-performing students succeed---which means that teachers spend the majority of their time (like I have done for many years) with the "lowest" students. These low-performing students' parents are poor, ignorant, and, for the most part, lack basic parenting skills. Some---precious few---make me wanna cry because they are so amazing and resilient. But, that's 5 to 10 percent of them. The majority of them frighten me half to death, and have the attitude that their kid is my responsibility to educate and socialize.

I switched my own kids to private school as soon as I realized my district's mantra.

If your child is average or---God forbid, above-average--he/she is getting little-to-no-attention from his/her teacher. This is the way it is in public education, and until parents put a stop to it, nothing is going to happen.

If you didn't know, now you do.

Contact your County Superintendents of Education and tell them, "Enough is enough!" Give ALL children equal access to a quality education. And, hold parents (somewhat) responsible for the outcome.

I am interested in seeing this documentary, but it's going to be difficult for the Director to have a coherent narrative given just how many issues are in play in today's education system.

First, Charter schools are as much about breaking the teacher's unions as anything else, and unfortunately their business model doesn't truly scale - remember the scene in the trailer where the young guy with the beard is saying 'someone has taken an interest in you, someone loves you, and someone recognizes the importance of education'? That is at the core of the charter school scalability problem; there is a limited number of good teachers and good parents who recognize the value of education. At some point charter schools skim the cream off the top and no matter what you the next school will underperform.

Second is Parenting, several other posts talk about this, but for the most part the broken education system is most apparent in low income areas. Regardless of race, one thing low income areas have in common is a high incidence of single parenting. And it's just plain tougher to make sure you meet all the needs of your children with only one adult in the house. That doesn't mean being a single parent is bad, or that there aren't plenty of happy single parent households, it's just a 'hours in the day' problem that makes it harder for single parents. So what has happened is that the school system has become more and more of a parent, but at the same time, school administrators and school boards have taken away more of the tools teachers need to be a good surrogate parent - including the ability to punish, to channel misapplied energy to a music, arts or sports program.

Third; teacher wages and control continue to not keep pace. Right now in Arizona, a starting teacher will make quite a bit less than a store manager at a pizza hut. Nevermind that the store manager likely did not have to spend 4 years for a degree, nor will that store manager be required to get a Masters in the next 5 years in order to have a hope of keeping the job. Moreover, the store manager has far more control over his environment. He hires people, fires them, sets schedules, has input into marketing decisions. Meanwhile in the post "No Child" world, teachers have no control over curriculum, no control over class size, little or no ability to move disruptive students out of a class, nor input into the schools' extracurricular activities.

Fourth, Administrators vs. Teachers vs. Unions. Administrators complain that it is impossible to get rid of "bad teachers". But for the most part, school administrators are so risk-adverse that they don't even bother to do the steps needed to fire a "bad teacher" instead they try to shovel the bad apples off to other schools, or worse, stick them teaching remedial classes. Teachers hate "bad teachers" far more than Administrators, but they are even MORE powerless to do anything about it - and in part that is because, unlike any other union situation, the Union doesn't play ANY role in hiring the teacher. When you are hired by a school for the first time, you are not hired through the Union, instead you are hired by the school and then join the Union (should you choose). This means that, unlike the electricians Union, which plays a role in setting skill levels, and essentially vouchsafes for the quality of worker, the teacher's Union get's the end product and has to support it.

And then there's the gender issue. Today people talk about teaching as an "Avocation" - a job you do because you love it, not because it's financially rewarding. Prior to the shift in women's rights, most women had very few choices for employment. Teaching, Nursing, Secretary. Yes, there were women doctors and lawyers, but they were rare. So during the 40's and 50's lots and lots of smart, motivated women ended up as teachers by default, now they end up at Earnst and Young. Unless we find a way to make teaching more attractive in general, we will never get the same volume of highly motivated individuals we had in previous decades. We need to put more money into salaries, and give teachers more control over their environment.

Of all the people involved, the worthless parents make me the angriest. A lot of public education problems could be mitigated by parents who give a shit. But when the teachers spend half their time trying to deal with the students whose parents don't give a shit, that fucks everything up for everybody.

I can't wait to see this film. The trailer alone has me sobbing. Even growing up semi-rurally, this hits home for me

In 2001, when I started high school in a small town southern Illinois, the freshman class boasted more than 300 students. Only 212 of us walked across the stage in our crumbling, un-air conditioned, water-damaged gym four years later.

In the case of SoIL schools, budget cuts have just driven them into the ground for more than a decade. Since the inception of no child left behind, almost every school in a tri-county area has been forced to send a letter out at the beginning of each school year telling parents that their child's school is failing and by law, the child is eligible to transfer to a better school in the district, but that there are no suitable schools in the region currently accepting new students. It's a slap in the face, really, tucked in there with the free lunch applications and immunization forms every fall.

It's sickening.

I didn't know this film existed. *excited* Can't wait to see it. (Though I do have issues with dome of the Gates Foundation's assumptions about education. sigh.)

Jonathan Kozol - look him up if education reform really interests you and read his books! - spoke at a conference I attended. He's from Boston, went to Harvard and Oxford, and has a a number of well-to-do friends with school-age children. He recounted a story when at a dinner party, some of the guests were arguing about education reform in a friendly debate (covering funding, teacher competence, etc.)

Finally, one said, "You know, money really isn't the issue; it won't solve anything."

To which Mr. Kozol replied, "If not, then why do you pay for private school for your kids?"

That summed up a lot for me.

It's amazing what a difference attitude makes. If dropout rates were similar to the US or the UK for that matter, where I'm from, there would be war.

I have the good fortune to come from a country where the education system (while not even close to perfect) is valued highly. And more importantly seen as accessible to all, up to and including university.

How a country, and how a parent values education makes a huge difference in a child's life.

A lottery for school places is unbelievably cruel.

There has been more than one conversation at my home about me going back to school and getting a so called "back-up plan" among them was going back to get a teaching degree. Hell to the No.

Several reasons come to mind, some because I've attended public schools and the problems have only magnified since I went and partially from the horror stories several of my family member who are teachers have brought home.

One reason that stands out in my memories was one in which two boys at my high school got in a fight in the cafeteria and proceeded to beat the bloody hell out of each other in a very short time. All the teachers and staff just stood by and allowed this slugfest to continue, and while a few kids did start cheering on the melee like some lunch-time bloodsport, many of us were just stunned it continued on for so long.

Finally someone did step in, Mr. Thomas, a 73 year-old grizzly bear of man and former gridiron warrior. Despite his age he had a large booming voice and ran study hall with everyone's love & respect. I don't know if he was always capable of this physical feat, but he flew in with the speed of a linebacker in his prime, grabbed both junior pugilists in mid-air and slammed them both to the floor. He barked out with the tenacity of a gunnery sergeant, "I said, STOP FIGHTING NOW, DAMMIT!" Both boys laid there blood covered and agape. I have no doubt bladder control was lost, and the lunchroom was so silent you could hear a mouse fart. Mr. Thomas got up and glared at some of the more vocal spectators and told them to get back to lunch. He then demanded to know what was wrong with the other teachers that they allowed these two idiots to pummel each other into hamburger and do nothing. One of them sheepishly said they didn't want to get sued for touching them.

Sure enough, Mr. Thomas was called into the administrator's office and given a dress down. One of the kids' parents claimed their little snowflake sustained a sprain from Mr. Thomas's attempt at breaking up the fight and better still both sets of parents' lawyers teamed up to sue the school.

In short, Mr. Thomas ended up invited to finally retire, neither one of the boys were suspended, and the teachers were just as scared shitless as before not to intervene, fighting, bullying, drugs or any other foul behavior. And we lost one of the few teachers who was brave enough to outwardly give a damn.

I don't think I could go to a job where my hands were tied and the lunatics ran the asylum. Some of these little shitpokes need to be given stricter discipline- either that or get kicked out altogether because by allowing them free reign, they make everyone suffer for it.

song -- "One Day" by Matisyahu: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OgULq1yCz70

(it was also featured prominently in NBC's coverage of the 2010 Winter Olympics)

I work for a school system at the county level, and can tell you it doesn't get much better there. County admins are just as powerless as teachers to do much of anything and just as understaffed and underpaid.
Really, the focus of your attention/letter writing campaigns or anything like else needs to be at the state level as that's the lowest level where any decisions of consequence are made, generally speaking.

What's both interesting and disheartening to see is that the same issues you all are discussing (re: American public school system)are also occurring in public secondary (you would call them high schools) in Trinidad.

I've been teaching in that system for almost 6 years and all the violence, lack of parental support, lack of administrative support are all happening in the Caribbean as well.

In the school I teach and many others like it, parents DO treat the system as a chance for free babysitting. Many of the students come from homes where there is a lack of appreciation for the value of eduaction by their parents. When they come to school, it's because they were forced to, or in some cases, it's the only safe haven they have.

However, recent governments have made the situation even worse. In an attempt to secure votes they created a feeling of entitlement among both students and parents. The original intent may have been partly honest, but in the end, the students as a whole lose out.

Students are entitled to free breakfast, lunch, transportation and books. The only thing parent's have to buy are the uniforms. I have no problem with that because the cost of those items can seriously tax a parent's budget. They accept the free food and transport, however many students destroy the text books they receive. Sometimes within the first week of receiving them. And their parents DO NOT CARE. If they had to pay for the books I'm sure it would have been a different story.

Parents don't want you speaking too harshly to students and some have even entered schools to physically assault the teachers who may have berated their children. Never mind that back in the day EVERYBODY used to get a serious "cut-ass" if they step out of line.

Depending on which school you go to, the level of discipline depends on how well the staff holds together. Yes, we have teachers who are simply killing time before they get their law degree, but there are many hard-working teachers who try to help their students, at their own expense as well.

However, many of the problems do lie at home, with parents who have no respect for education and just wanting to keep their children out of their way for the day and able to "get a wuk" when they reach Form 5 (16 years of age).

I'm stopping now. It's just too frustrating to think about. And I don't want to be banned for blathering on too much. I can relate to your trials, but when you care, you march on and dive back into the trenches. Despite the manipulative governments and narrow-minded parents.

I'm 22, soon to be 23, I'm going to be a college grad in December.

I was raised four about oh.....10 years in a public school, and frankly I hated it, and my parents hated it as well, I was, as a child, specified as "Special Needs," because I had bad spatial coordination, bad math skills, and a couple other things, that for the life of me I don't remember, nor do I care about now. I went to a private elementary/middle/high school thereafter until I graduated. during the most of 5th grade (which was when I started at the new school) I was mainly in the special needs class, which its intent was to make sure the kids learned at their own pace. Once again, I'm only in there because my math sucks and I have cognitive something or other.

It's about then that I became interested in the idea of teaching, and it's why I pursued a literary degree in college, in part because I believe that communication skills are an important thing for the future, but also because I'm a writer.

Looking back on the private school, which was a religious school, I think I coulda done better at public school, they were more about the bible and saving people's souls then they were about teaching, I kid you not, the load of hogwash they taught there, I could have taught; blindfolded, on drugs and drunk. That being said, the school has gone downhill, (well when I showed up it was already on a downhill slope) and its gotten worse.

College was better for me, I went to a Quaker University (George Fox University, Newberg Oregon) and am currently majoring in Writing/Literature, and then getting my masters in communications after that. My plan is to teach at some point in my life, if I get the chance. Ideally, I want to go to Korea and teach after I graduate, but if my job with Costco comes through, then I won't be doing that, I might do some local volunteer teaching and whatnot.

My point that I'm trying to make here, is that too many kids today aren't given what they need, they have everything, except the ideal education. I believe that homeschooling is okay and should be done if you can't find a decent school, but it should only be done through high school, at which point they need to find a school, and have social interactions and development and stuff like that, because they need to be prepared for college. I know a lot of home schooled kids at my college......they turned out okay, they could've and should've gone to regular school for at least 3-4 years 'fore college. Hell, even the public school students from schools that sucked, do okay here.

Morganew - well stated! Thank you for speaking out.
I have been an elementary school teacher for 16 years in California's public school system. Please know I TRULY AM a teacher - heart and soul. Four weeks ago, I resigned. I am relocating to the L.A. area but am in no way actively seeking out a teaching position. I have very little desire to return to the classroom at this point especially not in California. The desire to really teach/reach the students who desperately need it is no longer enough to overcome the obstacles in order to do so.
Everyday and all day, we are faced with challenges caused by the lack of accountability, the lack of respect, and the lack of financial, administrative, union, and parental support - from the students, their families, the principals and other administrators, the school board, and the county office of education, and, of course, the state and federal government.
Our destruction of the public school system is tragic and seemingly insurmountable. I can only hope that this film opens the eyes and reaches the minds of at least a few that will be willing and capable of bring about some essential changes.

The biggest problem, which a lot of people have pointed out, is not so much the schools or the teachers or the policies- it's the people. That's not to excuse bad schools, bad teachers, or bad policy but there is only so much you can do with parents and children that have no interest in learning. You can't pry their eyes open Clockwork Orange-style and force the education into them. If they have no discipline, no parental support, or if basic human needs for food and safety aren't being met then there is only so much the school can do.

So we can complain about the schools all day long but the real issues are before that. The real reason charter schools, lottery schools, and private schools perform better is because of the self-selection of the kids that go into them. If your parents care enough about your education to put you on the list for charter school or pay for you to go to private school then they are more likely to be more involved. The kids in those schools are more likely to be able to behave and the teachers can stop being babysitters and start teaching. The perception is that the school is "better" but really it's that the students are better before they even walk in the door. In an environment where the good students overwhelm the bad ones you can elevate the achievement of some bad students (unfortunately, when the bad outweigh the good the kids with potential get pulled down. That's why loosing the lottery is so devastating, these are the kids who could go either way...)

Is there an answer? Probably not an easy one. Season 4 of The Wire suggested separating the worst kids- the ones who were not capable of functioning in the normal classroom environment- and developing an alternate curriculum for them. It's a process called 'tracking' and it is pretty controversial. Essentially you are segregating the school, only based on ability instead of race (and sometimes, sadly, there it's hard to avoid the perception of the latter). Most schools do this to an extent with honors classes and special ed classes. Some districts do this with magnet schools and charter schools. It's hard to avoid the perception that you are abandoning whole groups of kids to a lesser education, and it's easy to see how kids with potential could make a few mistakes and be condemned to the lower track. It's tough to rationalize, even for supporters, but most damning of all is that anything that accepts reality is accused of accepting failure and we can't have any children left behind, can we?

Fuck, I don't know. When I think about it there is more despair then hope. The one thing I do know is that my daughter will get a great education and have the brightest future I can provide. And it has little to do with what school we send her to and lots to do with being raised by us surrounded with books and encouraged and challenged every step of the way. (not that I think she would survive in a terrible inner-city school, but your average Midwestern public school or Catholic school will do just fine.

I run a website that rhymes with the female anatomy.
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Don't start that again. It DOES NOT RHYME.

I went to a public school that was above average, but certainly not great. The school was good at everything but the actual educating bit. We had several community outreach programs, successful sports teams (go team!), and more clubs than you could imagine (anime debate club, not a joke). The district spent a ton of money getting the newest computers and smartboards for every classroom. The teachers were a mixed bag; some were excellent, some were...clearly not qualified to teach in their subject (I had a calculus teacher who did not understand basic math, or english). But the worst was the silly bureaucracy of the school. The class registration system made it nearly impossible to get all the classes you needed to graduate, most people had to resort to summer school to graduate on time. While teachers were allowed a good bit of freedom to teach the curriculum, the final exams were standardized and designed by the district, not the teachers, under the misguided notion of being fair.
What I'm trying to say is, even a good chunk of money and fairly intelligent students does not make a good school.

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As a result of France's extensive colonial ambitions between the 17th and 20th centuries, French was introduced to America, Africa, Polynesia, South-East Asia, and the Caribbean.