Boiling frogs

I have been busy with work and kids and life. My house is marginally under control. Last night I attended a meeting for the school superintendent. Three years ago he came on board as the economy began to sink. He had the schools start over and make a 10% cut in every building, rebuilding their schools from the ground up. 60 district employees were laid off. At this new meeting he was warning us that another cut with as much severity was on its way. He described the state of education in America. It was scary.





Where we used to be number one in the world we have fallen to 12th in College graduation for those that start College and finish. He told us that overall in comparing students in America to the rest of the world, we are now closer to 38th in knowledge. Fourth and eighth graders take a test world wide and this is where we line up with the results.





When you pin down Oregon, it gets worse. Most states have a mandated 180 days of school. Oregon does not. Our children go to school each year for 161 to 164 days on average, with more days cut expected. Over the course of kindergarten through high school that totals up to a whole year less of school than the 46 other states. The teachers are still told to teach the curriculum but with less contact with the students. We rank 36 out of 50. Not last, but on the down hill side.





He compared the problem to the frog in hot water. You put a frog in hot water and he realizes its hot and jumps out. If you put the frog in cold water then heat the water slowly to boiling point, the frog does not realize the water is getting too hot and boils to death. The situation is a slow boil and no one is paying attention. Oregon being one of the worst states in America.





Education used to get 44% of the state pie. The pie is shrinking and this year the cut for education is 38% not 44%. That is millions of dollars for our school district vanishing. Thus the reason for the town hall meetings. The superintendent is desperate for ideas and help and to make the public aware of the strained future of our children's education.





It makes me want to put my child in private school. Not that I haven't always wanted to have my children in private school. I have been good at taking advantage to the programs offered by the district. The boys did band along with the rest of the regular curriculum.





What got my attention was talking about preparing our children to compete globally. The problem with that argument is foreign language is not offered until high school and only after freshman year. We are expected to compete globally without learning a language. Studies show the best time to teach children a language is when they are young. They just need one other language then all the others come easily. With this budget crisis I can see this is another area that will be lost. I also see band on the chopping block. Perhaps we can do higher fees for participation. Tom talks about how he had to pay much more for participating in sports than our children do now.





I know we have to keep up with technology, but sometimes I feel we are moving away from the basics to get the technology. Not teaching the roots. Doing math with calculators before learning to add the numbers. They have that much more history to tackle than we had. Writing is on computers, which I love. I wish the teacher had the children e-mail assignments in. My Dad did that for college classes. I have been having Trevor do that for his English class. It guaranteed the assignment was delivered on time. I wish we could do that for math.





The basics are reading writing and arithmetic. That is the core. Add social studies and history and of course science, then the new wellness class. It is a lot to teach and for students to absorb.

They are so much more visual learners now with the advent of TV.



We watch the discovery channel and cant catch enough of it all. Tom with his engineering background will put holes in the theory on a program to show the boys not to take everything at face value. Theory is not fact.



I battle the violent games of Halo. The boys should be doing their homework, not sitting playing video games. Those poor teachers are trying to educate students in worse households than ours. We are supposed to be the middle class and I can't even get my children motivated when I care. What about those families that don't care and are still sending their children to school. No wonder teachers are burned out and frusterated. We are demanding the world and offering nothing to assist in how to achieve it.



No wonder the superintendant is begging for help and inovative ideas. He is being sucked dry and tossed about like a crumpled note. I don't have the answers. I am just glad that I don't have to teach my children. I will try to do as much to help and encourage the teachers as possible, and thank goodness it is not me in the classroom.