Here’s an anecdote illustrating what’s wrong with public school education. My old high school is Canton High in Canton, Mass. When I graduated the senior class was probably about 300-some kids, about 1,200 for the whole school. Today, the average class and total population is about half that. Yet, even with that many students back in the day, Canton High was highly rated in academics. We consistently had state, regional, and national champions for math and science teams. It’s not like our education was suffering for lack of space.
A pretty new building with internet access and new computers makes parents happy, I saw it firsthand when a couple of years ago they built a new middle school in my town. God forbid they actually look at the curriculum, listen to some of the teachers and evaluate what the kids are being taught. Take a look at the MCAS scores (not that I like the MCAS which effectively eliminates comparision to the educational standards/grades between states and is kind of a dodgy test anyway – you can download it at the DOE website) of the communities who aren’t in the top of the scale and ask why they don’t clean up their act instead of building a nice new building – kind of like “you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear”. My son’s elementary school has abysmal science scores but they just announced a program to promote “anger management” and a psycologist will be holding classes for the k – 4 children for 8 weeks. AAAAAHHHHHHGGGG!!!
I think part of it is that if the money isn’t used it won’t be allotted or written into the budget and the feds will pay for the bulk of the cost but you have to ‘take advantage’ of it or lose it.
Will they offer anger management to parents after they learn how their tax money and children’s education are being wasted?
Dom, I don’t think the most parents care… it’s touchy feely, feel good stuff. I haven’t heard one complaint (except mine).