This Week in Education March 12, 2012

Spring Break

This is Spring Break.  We only get one week.  So it goes fast and we'll be back and then we have State testing.  When they passed the No Child Left Behind, they said that it was to bring accountability to education.  The Congress that passed this really did it to make public schools look bad.  This was an effort to move people toward charter schools and further privatization of education.

We teachers work hard to teach.  If a student for any reason chooses not to learn, there is not much that can be done.  There isn't a culture of learning.  Fewer and fewer people just sit and read for pleasure.  The children do not have role models touting the need to learn their multiplication facts or learning Algebra.  Teachers try to build the triangle of support: parent, student, and teacher.  But not all parents have completed their education or see the need for a higher education.  If Congress really wanted to motivate parents, they would realize that they need to structure the Tax Code to encourage parents to drive their children harder.  They give taxpayers a dependent tax deduction.  If they made it a tax credit and increased it, then made the ability to collect the credit on their child's receiving proficient on the Tests on the Content Standards, parents would become more involved.  They would make sure their children did their homework and learned those facts.  Parents would be at public schools like they are at charter schools.  They would make sure both their children and the teachers were accountable.

Paul Newman said in the movie Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, "I have vision and the rest of the World wears bifocals."  I feel that way sometimes.  But I keep plugging away focusing on those core of students that are motivated to learn and are able to ignore the three ring circus happening around them.  Since the last post we learned about the animal cell and the plant cell.  Again my sudents who are set on learning have done a great job.  Their focus on learning is remarkable.  They are what gives me satisfaction in teaching. Well Spring Break will be over and so will testing which means that end of the year is around the corner.  Let us hope next years group will be better. But I doubt it.  The fourth graders are not always the most compliant when out on the yard.  So we'll see what happens next year.