Frankly, it sounds like this system needs truant officers. I bet those parents would sit up and think if they were all sent to jail for a night every time their kids were absent without excuse.
I’m completely floored by this. I attended the same school my daughter does, and when I was there, I had “attendance problems”. I also maintained a B average and aced all my finals, but they kept me back anyway.
Now, I’m not saying that was a *good * idea, because I *did * drop out. Like I said before, keeping competent kids back is at least as bad as promoting incompetent ones.
The school is even stricter now. No absence is “excused” unless it’s excused by a doctor. My note is not sufficient. In my opinon (which I’ve voiced, loudly and repeatedly), that’s ridiculous, since I don’t think I should have to take my daughter to the doctor when she gets a cold. It costs me a co-payment, and time out of my work day, and there’s nothing he can do for her. And I at least have insurance. The policy strikes me as extremely discriminatory against kids who don’t.
It seems like there ought to be a happy medium between attendance policies that are punitive, and those that are completely toothless.
Wow - that’s rather unfair! I was like the girl in the OP (but not pregnant). I started having “headaches” in first grade. I hated every single day of school. I was bored sick and had to be forced to learn to spell my own name. I skipped more school than I attended. I quit completely once in high school, but later went to a boarding school to ultimately graduate with 16 whole credits (the average was 20 - the smart kids had 26).
And there was nothing my poor parents could have done to change it. Believe me, they tried everything - even the threats that they would have to go to jail if I didn’t go to school. (I didn’t believe them. Maybe if someone had put them in jail, I would have felt bad enough to go to school, but who would have taken care of me and my six siblings? I wasn’t buying it.) Then I had a daughter JUST LIKE ME! And there was nothing I could do - I thought I knew all the ploys and sneaky tricks, but I was wrong.
The OP child will have to grow up on her own - and she will. My daughter eventually got a GED. What she does after that - is her choice. And I turned out okay (IAAL.)
Good teachers get a bad rap; and there are FAR too few out there. I admire teachers - its a hard job ( I wouldn’t want to do it - I know what I was like!) - and just made a lot more difficult when parents blame them for their children’s own bad decisions and behavior. Don’t be fooled - the OP kid knows what she’s doing - she just doesn’t know that she’ll be the one who pays for it later - unless her mom keeps on bailing her out.
Well, No Child Left Behind wasn’t even thought of back when you were a student. (I’m not defending the Ted Kennedy-sponsored NCLB).
Look at how far public education has come since you were a student and now. Multiple Administrations, Dem and GOP Congresses, and the one constant is the teacher’s union. I’m not blaming the NEA, but they don’t seem to be helping. The teachers themselves that want to educate children are to be lauded. It’s the shit their union leaders keep piling on DC in demands that fucks it all up, IMO.
When did teaching a person basic math become so fucking bureucratic? In the ancient age of year 1200 a person could apprentice a blacksmith for a few years and learn a skill that would earn a lifetime income. Basic math was learned inherently in measuring the mix of metals needed. Worked then, but somehow 800 years later it’s a major debate.
And those blacksmiths never spent a day in a classroom.
Maybe it’s not the educational system. Maybe it’s something in pocket-cultures. This isn’t new-found knowledge being pushed. It’s been around awhile. We’ve all heard of it.
But somehow these days we’re told that imparting “2+2=4” is so foreign a concept that we need even more more money to convey it.
Maybe it’s time to turn the focus from the teacher to the student?
So… when competent kids are kept back, it’s the union’s fault. And when incompetent kids are promoted… it’s the union’s fault? And NCLB was all Kennedy’s doing, huh? That bastard. Too bad he didn’t listen to the considered opinions of educational administrators who opposed it. Oh wait, that would be… the teacher’s unions!
Thanks for your thoughtful, enlightening, and not at all knee-jerk response!
Damn shame about that whole industrial revolution thing. If only there were still some decent blacksmith positions, kids could forego all this fancy book-learnin!
I wonder if blacksmiths had a union? And if so, would you still be so enamored of them?
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Ghettos, including ghettoization of the schools are probably among the biggest reasons. My school is 90% free lunch and the rest are reduced. There is no economic diversity at all. The only representations they see of anything other than poverty are the T.V., teachers, and the policemen that visit our school, all too often. The only whites are teachers. While there are a few non-white teachers, the kids don’t see them as someone who made it. It is the old roll model cliche, but if you are blind, how do you imagine green?
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There seems to be a belief among some minority children that to excell is to be acting “white”. While there certainly are African American Dr.s and Lawyers and judges and Seceratarys of State, my kids don’t see them. Micheal Jorden is their lottery, and the drug dealer is the viable business model they see.
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Because of the school choice, my school is 30% special ed. The schools that can choose their students, don’t choose special ed. The schools that can kick students out because they are not attending or dont have parents who will support the schools, do. That leaves the kids who are special needs, unmottivated and unskilled behind in schools whose funding were designed to mittigate those students across the spectrum. The funding is also increasingly under threat to the NCLB.
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This generation is the children of crack.
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Welfare reform.
The mother of a knocked-up high school whore who hasn’t attended class since January comes in and bitches at you? I’d escort mother of the year out the door and not worry about this. Get on with teaching real students. Why hasn’t the chick been expelled? You can actually not attend for months without getting thrown out?
I’m failing to understand why dropping out is a bad thing. The kids are not learning, they’re holding back the kids that ARE learning, they’re taking up resources that could be used for kids who want to learn. Someone has to pay for all the textbooks that don’t get read, and the seats that are functionally empty.
The only thing they’re getting out of years in school is older (and maybe a worthless HS degree), may as well get a job and earn some money. Who knows, maybe a HS degree would eventually say something more about a person than “I can sit on a chair for 4 years”.
Seems to me that attitude says the most important thing is for kids to stay in school and graduate, instead of just learning.
I think the desire to keep the kids enrolled, even if they’re not actually attending, comes from the administration’s need to keep their official drop-out rate as low as possible to keep particular kinds of funding and/or keep state/city/etc “intervention” to a minimum.
The tecahers’ unions are made up of teachers. The “shit leaders” are elected by teachers in a process more transparent than many general elections.
Children, and by extention teaching, are acts of optimism against the lessons of experience.
A high school drop out, on average makes about 16,000$ a year. A high school graduate makes 25,000$ a year. That difference is the difference in perpetuating poverty. I think, in trying to keep these kids in school, we are hoping against hope that maybe they will get some sense and finish. We do not get much money for the kids who are never here.
But it could be (I have no idea whether it is) that it’s the factors that are making them drop out that are also making them earn $16,000 rather than $25,000, and that even if you could keep them in school, those factors would still be present and they’d still earn $16,000.
From what I can tell, that policy is pretty standard these days. In order for a student to not get an “unexcused” absence in our district takes the signature of a doctor or a college admission officer for a pre-approved college visit.
I also agree that it is draconian and foolish. I do not understand the reasoning behind it; nor do I understand why there isn’t a middle ground.
The young lady is likely to be thrown out, pregnant and all, the day she turns 18. She then will continue the pattern to the next generation. She has been brought up to believe school is optional. She will bring her child up the same way.
Ever head of an apprenticeship? That’s the equivalent of years in the classroom, I would say. Thus, I think your argument is specious, on this level. HOWEVER, I will agree that there should be a lot more vocational training for kids who can’t or don’t want to deal with the standard curriculum. There are lots of kids who I think would be great auto mechanics, plumbers, electricians, etc., who could be trained in high school voc/tech programs. I don’t know why programs like this aren’t more prevalent and respected. It’s a mystery to me.
How any of this can be laid at the feet of teachers’ unions, I don’t know. They aren’t as powerful as you think they are either. If I could show you how our contract has been eroded over time, you’d probably rethink your stance a little. Maybe not.
There used to be more tech programs. There used to be more tech choices within the school. My school has beautiful unused woodshop and printing shops in the basement. Those programs have been cut over the years along with the music program and many of the phys ed and art programs in order to try to push academics. It does take money to run those things, and it has been decided to cut them.
I think it is very short sighted. Those are the programs that bring kids to school. The building industry is one of the few places people can get family supporting jobs with a high school diploma. Shop classes can help show the real world applications of math; especialy geometry and mathematics. I am often appalled at how few of my students can effectively use a ruler.
Blaming the teachers union has its place. I think sort of the same place as “but Clinton got a blow job…”
My biggest concern about this is how it affects the good students. It’s great to give these lousy students as many opportunities as possible to turn it around, but only if the students who are putting in the effort don’t get saddled with overly slow classes and a bad environment.
I think it also tells the good kids this is acceptable behavior. It leads to a general slide within the classroom.