NoahAg said:

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I Like Mike said:

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If I had my way, education would split after 8th grade. A trade heavy work based path for high school and a college track for students that want to go that way. The work based path would be out of school with apprenticeships etc. The college track would be what high school looks like currently.

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Yes. By 8th grade you can clearly tell which kids are college bound. It's a ridiculous notion to think every HS student needs to learn geometry and chemistry. Let students start learning a trade.

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I knew I was going to college in first grade.

IndividualFreedom said:

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no. God does not need to be in school.

That is what Sundays are for.

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IndividualFreedom said:
I will put our Christian School kids up against any public school and show you why what you said is wrong.

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What about kids that aren't Christian? Forced religion?

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My point is that the our kids are not the ones on the 5 o'clock news with boys dressing up like girls playing basketball on the wrong team. Our kids are not the ones bringing guns to school. There is a school discount if you are a member of the church and that financially asks non-church goers to start going.

If your point is that you can not force religion through a govt. institution then take the govt. out of the institution and put God in it because as I mentioned earlier, I'd put our kids up against govt school kids any day of the week...... Especially on Weds. at chapel.

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So, ANY God?

A predominantly Jewish area making their public schools all teach Judaeism would be fine for you, even for the non-Jewish kids?

Or how about a predominantly muslim area? Make their schools teach Islam to all the kids?

Or are you wanting to be just YOUR God in the schools?

NoahAg said:

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TAMU1990 said:

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Apache said:

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If I had my way, education would split after 8th grade. A trade heavy work based path for high school and a college track for students that want to go that way. The work based path would be out of school with apprenticeships etc. The college track would be what high school looks like currently.

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I would love this, but liberal heads explode if you tell them not all kids are fit to go to college. For free.

It would never happen anyway.... none of our elected leaders are willing to stick their neck out on anything controversial. Bad for re-election.

Our politicians will continue kicking the g**d*mn can down the road on every issue of consequence (SS, National Debt, Immigration, Education, etc) until we run this country totally into the ditch.

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It happens by 7th grade in liberal Massachusetts. I was talking to an incoming 7th grader and she had to decide the spring of her 6th grade year if she was going the trades route (non college) or the college route. Different schools. I was floored. I don't see democrats complaining about that state. It is 80% white though. They love to torment red states with higher minority populations.

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Yep, my wife is from Mass. For HS they had two options: the regular HS or the trade HS. She went the trade route where she alternated work/school each week.

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This is like many of the Euro countries.

I think it's a great idea. Get the kids tracked to where they'll be more successful AND school will probably be a lot more engaging for them. This would probably eliminate a number of issues just by itself.

Jeeper79 said:

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aTmAg said:

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Or, we can totally privatize. And let the free market find the best way.

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Not without a state constitutional amendment.

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Then do that. We already have 517 of them. What's 518?

aTmAg said:

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Jeeper79 said:

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aTmAg said:

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Or, we can totally privatize. And let the free market find the best way.

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Not without a state constitutional amendment.

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Then do that. We already have 517 of them. What's 518?

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It needs it's own thread, but we REALLY should address the TX Constitutional process so that we don't have 517 amendments...

Ag with kids said:

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IndividualFreedom said:

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no. God does not need to be in school.

That is what Sundays are for.

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I will put our Christian School kids up against any public school and show you why what you said is wrong.

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What about kids that aren't Christian? Forced religion?

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My daughter went to Catholic School in Uvalde through the 4th grade*. There were multiple non-Catholic kids (a co-worker's Presbyterian kids among them) in the school, and they did not attend the religion classes or Mass if they did not choose to.

*the really good nun in charge left after my daughter finished 3rd, and a more liberal nun took over. It sucked. The public school was better after that, and the Catholic school had a mass exodus.

B-1 83 said:

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Ag with kids said:

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IndividualFreedom said:

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no. God does not need to be in school.

That is what Sundays are for.

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I will put our Christian School kids up against any public school and show you why what you said is wrong.

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What about kids that aren't Christian? Forced religion?

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My daughter went to Catholic School in Uvalde through the 4th grade*. There were multiple non-Catholic kids (a co-worker's Presbyterian kids among them) in the school, and they did not attend the religion classes or Mass if they did not choose to.

*the really good nun in charge left after my daughter finished 3rd, and a more liberal nun took over. It sucked. The public school was better after that, and the Catholic school had a mass exodus.

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That's not what he's proposing from the way he's stated it.

BTW, I don't have a problem with religion in private schools. I don't even have a problem with a lot of the secular tenets of religion in public school (many of the 10 commandments could translate non-religiously, for instance).

MasonB said:

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There is lots of good discussion in this thread, including the larger fundamental issues at play.

We ask way too much of our schools and teachers. They have become defacto social workers and many cheerlead and encourage this direction, either oblivious or uncaring about how it undermines education. The mission has shifted from educating kids to raising kids.

As to this point in the OP:

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4. I'll catch Hell for this one, but limit the "inclusion" kids in regular classes to those who really can learn and participate. They should be neither a drag on the learning of the other kids, nor a disruption issue. There should be adequate special ed help for those kids at their level(s).

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I am a parent of a level 2 autistic child and I could not agree more. Not only was my son not benefiting from a traditional classroom, it placed a burden on teachers, staff, and most importantly his classmates.

I switched to homeschooling him. In the beginning it was very challenging and exhausting. Slowly we made progress, with plenty of backsliding along the way.

It has been a very costly endeavor - both in financial and personal terms.

But four years in and he is an eager learner. Plenty of days he gets up and goes straight to his schoolwork before anything else. His math and his reading scores are well above grade level. This year he has even been able to add a couple of coop classes that resemble a traditional classroom and he is doing well in them.

My life is forever altered - both for the wonderful and the bad. But I am the dad and it's my responsibility to raise my child and that is the price that goes along with it.

Trying to farm out those responsibilities to a bureaucratic system will never work on a large scale. Even the saints and angels that try to serve these kids by working in the system get crushed under the system.

So kudos to the OP for saying the hard things. Our fear of being the "bad guy" has turned us into being bad guys. The harm we are doing is just veneered over with things that sound good when you don't look too deep.

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God bless you and yours, man. Kudos to you as well.