Public School and Taxes

I am not really a fan of public school teachers.  I am also not a fan of the $900 in taxes I pay the school system every year, and it's supposed to be going up another 14.9%.

Do you know what my tax dollars went towards last year?  Well, they raised the taxes by a good 50% (no kidding!) and then demolished the ONLY high school left standing.  There WAS three high schools.  Two were "decommissioned" and the final one was demolished.  It will be turned into a school for the mentally disabled.  They have already started construction on it.  Now, the high schoolers have to attend high school at a middle school.  Only a total of 200 can fit into this "high school".  There are no plans to replace any of these high schools.

It is a special needs ONLY school.  Now all of the high schoolers are being sent into one school, and the class sizes are close to 40 students per.  Little insane if you ask me.  No, we didn't get to vote on it either.  They held a conference on their "decision", and that's when things hit the fan.  We were supposed to have a vote, but when the time came...the "council" decided amongst themselves and basically made it a law.

Why am I paying even more money for this worthlessness?  Yes, there are a lot of handicapped children here.  However, to almost completely eliminate high school?  Wow...AND they are raising it AGAIN.  Time to move!

This is part of why I teach the girls something new every 2 weeks - a month.  They pick a topic to learn and I teach them.  Morals and personal responsibility are things I AIM for in my kids...it is VERY obvious that OTHER parents don't.  You can just stop by the kids' school just to see what these kids get away with nowadays.  MINE are always praised on how well behaved they are for even simple things...gotta be kidding!

This month we are learning about APRs and loans (K saw a commerical for it and asked...).  Last month we learned about the Holocaust (some assistant teacher at school once again said it never happened just like they did about 9/11, evolution, etc....however, in class, we learned all about where babies came from at the age of 5!).   K asked a lot of questions, because she sees the commercials on TV.  She has seen our bills and we've gone over which ones are a better rate, etc.  It's MY job to make sure they will be responsible adults, and I don't necessarily expect their school to help teach them that.  Things that we NEED to know in real life, are the things that I teach the kids during summer.

Did you know that the school here (even though it's not supposed to be religious) taught them that evolution is "made up"...there have been MANY things I have had to correct them on.  I even taught them about money, how to do bills, how to budget...  We also watched all the old cosmos episodes and are working our way through the new ones.

I'd also really like to stop getting their "reading" stuff printed out from a copier.  I haven't seen a REAL book come home with either kid YET.  It's all photo-copied.  The only REAL books that come home are from the library.  They say it's lack of funding, but it's really not.  Teachers are just copying pages from REAL school books and sending home chapters...WOW!  Apparently, schools books are from the old days and we just print stuff out now!

If it's not being taught in class, SOMEONE should be teaching them.  Sadly, the girls learn MORE at home with me (my kids straight up told me that the teachers just play with them all day and come home to with their classwork as homework).  I've stated multiple times that my girls learn almost nothing in school, and I should consider either home school or private school...however, the social learning is the ONLY reason I keep them in public school.  I've said it time and time again - schools are fairly worthless.  My printouts for their homework teaches them MORE then they are learning in class.  (K is already on multiplication, cursive, and many other subjects...the other students can barely count to 100)

Teachers are almost as worthless here.  I've met a total of TWO teachers out of 15 (?) that actually ATTEMPT to teach.   However, the school and other teachers get on them if they are teaching TOO much...and they have to stop/cut back.  The teachers here actually don't teach my kids anything.  We wind up having to teach my kids a LOT.

My sister sends her kids to a private Catholic school (they aren't Catholic) and their schooling is 100x better then what my girls receive.  Granted, there is more bullying and my sister has to pay tuition.  However, her girls have classes for gifted children (super smart) and mine doesn't...because it would be "unfair".

The school system my girls are in won't reward my children for being outstanding because other parents complained.  The other parents don't believe in competition.  I disagree.  My daughters worked hard on their recent science projects last year.  Only one was rewarded because parents complained.  I find this appalling.  It's a competition.  Your kid didn't win, so stop trying to change the results.  If you don't want to be IN a competition then don't sign up for it!

The common core standards are ridiculous.  Don't get me started on them, they mostly just enable what I call "lazy teaching".  Here the common core is used as an excuse as to WHY they are once AGAIN spending three months on just adding/subtracting or counting 100 - AGAIN.  The testing for it is also sad, at best.  Other PARENTS test your child.  NOT the teacher.  They sit your child in front of a computer screen, or with a stack of papers to fill out...and the other PARENT tests them.  Wow!

They *DO* use ipads in my kids' school, but ONLY in the speech class and for GAMES.  JUST games like Angry Birds...it's not used in the educational sense.  They also gave parents a link to many websites for kids to practice reading, math, etc, AT HOME...but are NOT used in the classroom.

This no tolerance is complete garbage.  Either people are using it to enforce the shooting motions and taking it extreme, or like in the girls' schools...they are using it as an excuse to victim blame.  The principals absolutely refuse to be "that school" on the news here, so they go out of their way to sweep things under the rug instead of actually TRULY punishing bullies. I've seen MANY bullies get away with their actions due to the school not wanting to make a "big deal" out of something.  Zero tolerance does mean zero tolerance...right?  So, use it or don't use it as an excuse to let a bully run free!

If anything: the two different schools teach neither morals, life lessons (except the negative ones forced on them), nor responsibility.  They are barely learning anything - if at all - at their school.  I don't put up a fuss about it though.  I deal with it and make sure my kids are learning what they need to learn.  I probably might even have them take online college courses or online high school later.  Why is a GED not as good as a High School Diploma?  It shouldn't be.  It should be equal.

Good PTA moms are VERY hard to find (our own PTA contains 4 women who do nothing for the school and only like to stand around to gossip about other parents).    Parents teaching their kids personal responsibility - when they themselves don't have it?  HA!  It's a problem with America these days...selfish, entitled jerks are raising children to be...selfish, entitled jerks.  It won't get better.  It's been getting worse every year.... You can always see these types from a mile away.  I make sure my kids learn from their terrible examples, and use it to HELP my kids become better people (then even I am).

I have done so much for my girls' school that everyone knows me by my first name.  I am well known for helping out with anything needed.  I don't mind.  Usually, it will help my kids out in the long  run.  I am fine with that.  But, I am not a member of the PTA.  I am a PTA self-outcast.  Those women do little to nothing.  Parents like ME are hard to find, and I believe I am one of two in the entire school.  The teachers even know my family and my kids aren't even in their classrooms.  I am happy we have a good reputation.  I am unhappy that we do more then the entire PTA combined.  Over the past two years alone, I have done more for this school then the PTA has done in over a decade.  That's pathetic.

Don't even DARE approach these parents either...they are right, and you are wrong - no matter if their kid broke your solar light or broke your child's nose!  I've seen so many instances where these parents just excuse their kids behavior.  These parents need a reality check.  If your child is a snot, it's your fault.  Time to teach them how to behave.

PTAs are worthless at my kids' school.  It's just a bunch of women showing up to gossip about other parents.  They ONLY hold one event per year (it's the carnival), and it's usually a truely terrible experience.  In essence, us "non-PTA" moms do a LOT more for the school then the actual PTA does.

Good teachers are VERY hard to find (2 out of 15? so far).  The good teachers were fantastic, though one of them had a major health problem during the year and missed half of the school year.  I'm not sure when teaching became SO lazy.  Teaching is teaching.  You are supposed to TEACH, not just fool around all day.

While I learned these types of things from my own parents and not in school, I make SURE my kids learn everything that they are missing out on.  I see it as part of being a good parent.  I see it as not adding fuel to the fire.  It is part of what I call being a "red pill".  Sadly, other parents don't see it that way.  They whine about how things are broken and LET their kids get a terrible education.  That's not my way.  If I see something isn't working, I take extra steps to MAKE it work.  Bad education at school?  Fine, teach them at home.  Bad PTA?  Fine, I'll make some extra pencils or something for Halloween.

I could go on and on about the lack of schooling and how broken our schools are for HOURS.  So, I'll just end it on this note:  If your kids aren't learning it at school (and you notice)...then teach them yourself.  While public school is completely broken...I make sure that my children learn what they need to know.  If it's something they ask about, I triple make sure that we learn it.

On a side note: I am considering either home schooling (ehh little bit leery of this), or private schooling when we move.  I figure nothing could be worse then what we have been going through with the schools here.