Public schools are really factories or warehouses, they do ok with the average students with average ambitions; the students on either side of average are not well served.
That's an excellent way to put it. My husband and I were both pushed into what in Maryland is called the Gifted & Talented Program at its inception, when we were about nine years old. As I mentioned earlier, we were very fortunate that when it came time for us to go to high school, the magnet high schools were in their second year and had yet to be watered down to the point of being useless. (That happened our junior year when the parents of kids who weren't interested in a magnet program for math, science, and computers during freshman and sophomore years when we had to take the difficult and somewhat boring program prerequisites--like chemistry and Pascal programming and statistics & functions--suddenly caught wind that junior and senior years we got to take "fun" electives like forensic science and marine biology and web programming and wanted to take them too. The problem was that these classes were built on the assumption of having passed the prerequisites, so the classes were dumbed down to accomodate the unprepared students. But meanwhile, the PTA president--whose daughter was one of the students disinterested until the "Yay, dolphins! Yay, CSI!" set in--was happy, and we all know that's what really matters. /sarcasm) My sister ended up going to my high school--but not the magnet school--because it was easier than having two students going to separate high schools, and she got put into "standard-level" classes by mistake, and I remember my mother having to fight to have her moved back up to G&T, where she had also been since age nine. They didn't want to go to the trouble of changing her schedule.
Bureaucracy and politics and political correctness ruined many a good program when I was still in the public school system. And when I reached the level where I was taking high school classes for college credit, I couldn't keep all of my classes at that level and also keep my sanity, so I moved down to what was called the "Honors" level for subjects in which I was not interested--like history and civics--which was between G&T and "standard." Even there, it was boring; everything was dumbed down to the point of inanity; it was no wonder that students couldn't get interested in school.
Then, senior year, I wanted to take Calculus 3 but could not...because I had to take phys ed and both would not fit into my schedule. Though, to be fair, knowing the correct dimensions of a lacrosse field will be very helpful in working towards my biology degree! :^P
Sorry, I seem to have done a bit of ranting/rambling myself....
See what happens when you invite strangers to wander by your LJ?
Ah, but I love when conversations like this start up! And it makes me feel more justified in writing the Elf pr0n, to know that I get to have conversations like this. ;)
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rosecarmine
(no subject)
Date: 2006-08-08 09:23 pm (UTC)That's an excellent way to put it. My husband and I were both pushed into what in Maryland is called the Gifted & Talented Program at its inception, when we were about nine years old. As I mentioned earlier, we were very fortunate that when it came time for us to go to high school, the magnet high schools were in their second year and had yet to be watered down to the point of being useless. (That happened our junior year when the parents of kids who weren't interested in a magnet program for math, science, and computers during freshman and sophomore years when we had to take the difficult and somewhat boring program prerequisites--like chemistry and Pascal programming and statistics & functions--suddenly caught wind that junior and senior years we got to take "fun" electives like forensic science and marine biology and web programming and wanted to take them too. The problem was that these classes were built on the assumption of having passed the prerequisites, so the classes were dumbed down to accomodate the unprepared students. But meanwhile, the PTA president--whose daughter was one of the students disinterested until the "Yay, dolphins! Yay, CSI!" set in--was happy, and we all know that's what really matters. /sarcasm) My sister ended up going to my high school--but not the magnet school--because it was easier than having two students going to separate high schools, and she got put into "standard-level" classes by mistake, and I remember my mother having to fight to have her moved back up to G&T, where she had also been since age nine. They didn't want to go to the trouble of changing her schedule.
Bureaucracy and politics and political correctness ruined many a good program when I was still in the public school system. And when I reached the level where I was taking high school classes for college credit, I couldn't keep all of my classes at that level and also keep my sanity, so I moved down to what was called the "Honors" level for subjects in which I was not interested--like history and civics--which was between G&T and "standard." Even there, it was boring; everything was dumbed down to the point of inanity; it was no wonder that students couldn't get interested in school.
Then, senior year, I wanted to take Calculus 3 but could not...because I had to take phys ed and both would not fit into my schedule. Though, to be fair, knowing the correct dimensions of a lacrosse field will be very helpful in working towards my biology degree! :^P
Sorry, I seem to have done a bit of ranting/rambling myself....
See what happens when you invite strangers to wander by your LJ?
Ah, but I love when conversations like this start up! And it makes me feel more justified in writing the Elf pr0n, to know that I get to have conversations like this. ;)