We are giving up on public school. Tossing in the towel. Biting the bullet and taking one in the wallet. We are going to fork out the big bucks for private school. The final straw was last Friday.
My son had a book report due. He waited until 20 minutes before leaving for school to start it. He typed out 6 sentences, cut it up and pasted them to the insides of a shoe box. Yes, that was the assignment of a book report for a 7th grade English class. To me, it would appear that kind of assignment would be more fitting for a 3rd grade class. No actual paper, no discussions on the book, no analysis... none. My wife spots two egregious grammatical errors as they are walking out the door, and admonishes Spencer that due to his lack of preparation, he will deserve the grade that he gets. She and I both fully expect a fail on the assignment, as it was lazily prepared and - compared to the complexity of the assignment, riddled with errors.
He got a 100% on the assignment.
I was astounded. And deeply disturbed. Are they teaching ANYTHING in middle school? I thought it was a fluke when I got a handout at open house back in September that had - in one page - more than 20 grammatical and usage errors. Apparently, sadly, not. It appears middle school is merely a warehouse for raging hormone factories wearing uniforms. Keep them off the streets for a couple of years and turn them over to the high school to deal with.
After seeing that assignment result and coupled with the overall lameness of the rest of the curriculum, we gave up and visited the pre-eminent private school in the area the very next day.
I must admit, I was impressed. What really blew me away was this:
My son had a book report due. He waited until 20 minutes before leaving for school to start it. He typed out 6 sentences, cut it up and pasted them to the insides of a shoe box. Yes, that was the assignment of a book report for a 7th grade English class. To me, it would appear that kind of assignment would be more fitting for a 3rd grade class. No actual paper, no discussions on the book, no analysis... none. My wife spots two egregious grammatical errors as they are walking out the door, and admonishes Spencer that due to his lack of preparation, he will deserve the grade that he gets. She and I both fully expect a fail on the assignment, as it was lazily prepared and - compared to the complexity of the assignment, riddled with errors.
He got a 100% on the assignment.
I was astounded. And deeply disturbed. Are they teaching ANYTHING in middle school? I thought it was a fluke when I got a handout at open house back in September that had - in one page - more than 20 grammatical and usage errors. Apparently, sadly, not. It appears middle school is merely a warehouse for raging hormone factories wearing uniforms. Keep them off the streets for a couple of years and turn them over to the high school to deal with.
After seeing that assignment result and coupled with the overall lameness of the rest of the curriculum, we gave up and visited the pre-eminent private school in the area the very next day.
I must admit, I was impressed. What really blew me away was this:
"The Class of 2011, totaling 21 students, received over $2.7 million in scholarships from the colleges into which they were accepted."
Think about those numbers for a second. That one class had an accepted average scholarship award of more than $128,000. They may have had more, but from schools the kids chose not to attend. Right there, that would cover the cost easily of five full years of tuition (8-12), with a rate of return of over 38% on the investment over the 5 years. Oh, and my kid actually gets an education to boot. Granted, there is no guarantee that the money for scholarships will continue to be available, and there is no guarantee my kids will qualify for a scholarship (they'd better!), but what a carrot to dangle in front of me...
Yes, we need to come up with the money. Yes, we will have to drive (or carpool) the 25 minutes to and from the school. Yes, the extra-curricular activity availability is somewhat more limited. But the end result of an educated child is worth it.
See ya later public schools. You can warehouse someone else's children. We're outta there.
Yes, we need to come up with the money. Yes, we will have to drive (or carpool) the 25 minutes to and from the school. Yes, the extra-curricular activity availability is somewhat more limited. But the end result of an educated child is worth it.
See ya later public schools. You can warehouse someone else's children. We're outta there.
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