Anne in CA Posted March 2, 2015 Share Posted March 2, 2015 The other discussion has been bothering me since it started. It is sad that the educational neglect in that case is a home school family, but there are so many kids in this exact sort of position for other reasons. I began home schooling when my oldest had managed to complete four years of grade school and learn pathetically little. Her mother had lost custody of her because of some very egregious behavior and that behavior hurt dd's school performance. At the end of fourth grade our pastor's wife who was a home school mom gave her an Alpha Omega diagnostic test and the test showed she should start at the beginning of third grade. We could not afford private school and we were not sure it would help anyway so our home schooling journey began. It was hard to catch up two years of school, but we did it. I wish so much that there were good resources for people who find themselves in this situation. A child can attend school and learn nothing, it happened to my child. We tried to do homework with her, but so much was nonsensical, teacher's did not follow through with their part, administrator's really do not care AT ALL sometimes. The school my dd attended was very overcrowded and we just got no help. I am certain this happens to other people also. We sacrificed a lot of time and money to get our oldest back on track and she entered high school and immediately became an honor student. She did not have learning disabilities and she was highly intelligent. But should it have to be that hard? Once you are developmentally ready to learn things it should be easier to learn them, right? There should be a curriculum to help catch up kids who are behind, and there should be educational specialists who can help these kids, right? I just don't get why there are not solutions given the state our educational system is in. 8 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted March 2, 2015 Share Posted March 2, 2015 Are there no solutions? I might be spoiled by having a very good public school system in my state, but there has never been any indication to me that no help is available. I have known a few children who were hsed for some period of time, but for one reason or another (parent was ill, parent needed to earn, parent had his or her head in the clouds), the decision was made to send the kids to PS. These kids were sometimes not at grade level ability in one or more subjects because the parent's problems had continued for some period before deciding that it amounted to neglect and school was the solution. Despite the rocky beginning, there was remediation available and the kids did (at minimum) better than they were at home with the incapable parent. Again - it may be credit to where I live, though. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kiana Posted March 2, 2015 Share Posted March 2, 2015 There are definitely curricular options for students to catch up, but how well they are implemented is going to depend on the local school district. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FaithManor Posted March 2, 2015 Share Posted March 2, 2015 We have a lot of kids on IEP's in our district getting quite a bit of individualized tutoring along with using specialized curriculum. Some are doing well, others not. But definitely options are available. Even on the curriculum, K-8, and high school board here there have been many threads on ways to remediate skills in deficit. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joanne Posted March 2, 2015 Share Posted March 2, 2015 Separate and distinct topics: 1. Educational neglect in "homeschooling families" 2. Educational neglect in other settings They are completely separate and distinct entities and mechanisms. The answers can not be adequately processed as if "educational neglect" is the same in each. In *homeschools*, I think it begins with the homeschooling population being more accurately introspective, open to criticism, aware of the content behind professionals who offer feedback - without the guardedness and defense mechanisms that typically come with the homeschooling population. It is legend; our desire to protect our own comes at great cost. We trot out old numbers and statistics, we offer platitudes, but we are failing a significant number of our own. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arcadia Posted March 2, 2015 Share Posted March 2, 2015 My district follow the unofficial two grades behind before rendering any testing or help. That means that a kid that is not reading and is not ESL will only get help in 2nd grade. There is a separate funding for the ESL specialist and for reading specialist. I have also heard of parents being told kids will catch up by 3rd grade. My district is overcrowded too. The district is good with following up with the kids from Early Intervention and has IEPs from kindergarten. People would afterschool either by sending kids to afterschool class and/or teaching their kids. For compacting in K-5, MEP would work for math, Exercise in English and Sadlier Oxford workbooks would work for language arts. ETA: Parents can put in a request for evaluation to the district office anytime though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lucy the Valiant Posted March 2, 2015 Share Posted March 2, 2015 Separate and distinct topics: 1. Educational neglect in "homeschooling families" 2. Educational neglect in other settings They are completely separate and distinct entities and mechanisms. The answers can not be adequately processed as if "educational neglect" is the same in each. In *homeschools*, I think it begins with the homeschooling population being more accurately introspective, open to criticism, aware of the content behind professionals who offer feedback - without the guardedness and defense mechanisms that typically come with the homeschooling population. It is legend; our desire to protect our own comes at great cost. We trot out old numbers and statistics, we offer platitudes, but we are failing a significant number of our own. It's a tricky thing when the ones doing the measuring have a raggedy measuring tape of their own, huh? (My state for years had the requirement that home schoolers had to pass a standardized test *above the 40th percentile* or be put on academic probation; clearly, 40% of EVERY traditional classroom scored at or below that metric, and yet they were not in danger of being put on probation, you know? (Home schoolers could also opt for a portfolio review, which was supposed to be measured by a certified teacher; the requirements are now non-public, so the effects are certainly not measurable by the state.) ) 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ravin Posted March 2, 2015 Share Posted March 2, 2015 In my state the school generally won't do anything formal to help unless/until a child is the grade levels behind On an area. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
swellmomma Posted March 2, 2015 Share Posted March 2, 2015 Where I live, students in elementary can get remediation after being screened if they are still struggling in November of a school year, after that screening they can get remediation and services. I looked into school for my 11 year old because he had LDs and due to my work schedule and ds16s issues I thought maybe school would be a better situation, despite the fact he has Dx and the professionals working with him would put in writing the supports he needed to attend school and perhaps even catch up, the school told us the soonest he would get services would be after xmas break, because they would do screening in November and then come up with a plan but by then they would only be weeks away from xmas break so it would not start until after. And that is with a child with known issues. The junior high and high school does not offer services at all unless the student has a severe developmental disability. So my kids keep homeschooling even if they are behind, progress is being made but slower than I would like. DS11 has remained consistently 2-3 years behind. SO progressing but for example, this year he is registered in grade 5 but solidly grade 2 academically. My teens are all over the place, grade level in some subjects behind in others, generally due to the upheaval caused by oldest and their refusal to try and improve. I think there is many aspects of the situation that can come into play for a family and the answer is not always to call it educational neglect and demand the kid be placed in public school. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anne in CA Posted March 2, 2015 Author Share Posted March 2, 2015 Separate and distinct topics: 1. Educational neglect in "homeschooling families" 2. Educational neglect in other settings They are completely separate and distinct entities and mechanisms. The answers can not be adequately processed as if "educational neglect" is the same in each. In *homeschools*, I think it begins with the homeschooling population being more accurately introspective, open to criticism, aware of the content behind professionals who offer feedback - without the guardedness and defense mechanisms that typically come with the homeschooling population. It is legend; our desire to protect our own comes at great cost. We trot out old numbers and statistics, we offer platitudes, but we are failing a significant number of our own. See, I don't see this, but I'm not trying to argue, I just do think educational neglect is the same in each as far as an end result with some kids, especially low income/ minority kids knowingly not being educated. I may be jaded because what happened to my step dd was awful, and many years later her younger sister (not related to me) was spending the night at my house and she told me she couldn't read. She was 7. Her second grade teacher had told her that "Your mom should be teaching you to read, that's not my job." Really? She was SEVEN. For a paid ps teacher to refuse to teach her to read WAS educational neglect. PS is supposed to be serving kids whose parents won't help them. I did teach her to read, and maybe she would have figured it out on her own, maybe in third grade a teacher would have helped her, but I call BS. My question is, why is there not more clear cut help for kids who end up behind? Lots of people in this thread said that their school district had remedial help for kids who were behind. Mine back in OR did not. Or at least would not reveal it to me when I was seeking help. For those people who said their district had help, I would be very curious to know if it is available to EVERYONE. I'm pretty sure that upper middle class moms back in Washington County would say there was help available back in my school district, but the reality was that I don't think there was. I tried and tried to get help and got none. I am surprised that private industry has not had a better solution too. You would think there would be some money in getting kids back on grade level somewhere. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kiana Posted March 2, 2015 Share Posted March 2, 2015 I am surprised that private industry has not had a better solution too. You would think there would be some money in getting kids back on grade level somewhere. Sylvan doesn't count? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jean in Newcastle Posted March 2, 2015 Share Posted March 2, 2015 I had a whole tutoring business where I supported my husband and myself when we were first married - based totally on helping kids who had fallen through the cracks at public school. All of them had the bottom fall out for them in 5th grade (even if some of them didn't pursue tutoring then) when the assurances that teachers had been giving for years that they would catch up didn't come to fruition. The specter of going to middle school with severe deficits (I taught one 15 year old who read at a 1st grade level) was a huge wake-up call for parents. Obviously this was not every child in the public school but it is a problem. None of these particular kids needed special curriculum to be able to learn. The major problem was that most of these parents had big money problems and didn't have the finances to seek private help as soon as parents with financial security. Even then I had a big sliding scale for some of them. 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anne in CA Posted March 2, 2015 Author Share Posted March 2, 2015 Sylvan doesn't count? Sylvan has not been a good solution for anyone I have known who really needed significant help, also there was not one near where I lived back in OR, and there is not one anywhere near here. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carol in Cal. Posted March 2, 2015 Share Posted March 2, 2015 Around here, kids can get help to get them into a certain percentile, and then it stops and they fall behind again because they weren't really at grade level so the new material goes whizzing by them and they aren't prepared to learn it. Lather, rinse, repeat. It's really awful. Regarding remediation, assuming no LD's, doing a solid math program at the grade level into which the student tests, 6 days per week, 48 weeks per year, with appropriate skipping of review lessons (since the end of summer review is unnecessary if they are schooled year round), will cover at least 3 years of material in 2. Additional and separate work with a facts review program on a computer or at Kumon is VERY helpful.For reading, building comprehension by reading to the student well ahead of their ability to read to themselves, and discussing the reading while defining difficult vocabulary words in context is one of the strongest things to do. Then for self-reading, at early levels having the student read to you using levelled readers accelerates fluency acquisition, and once the student is really fluent they progress through several grade levels very quickly, particularly if they are reading difficult books that they are already familiar with from having been read to. Copywork is extremely useful in covering spelling and punctuation as well as usage. I honestly think that this is a much faster way to jump forward than slogging through curricula. Curricula often slow you down a lot for language arts. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arcadia Posted March 2, 2015 Share Posted March 2, 2015 My question is, why is there not more clear cut help for kids who end up behind? Lots of people in this thread said that their school district had remedial help for kids who were behind.There is help but the procedure to get help is "hidden" in the school district website. I forwarded my neighbor the school district's official request form which she had trouble finding and which I found through Google. The parent have to advocate, it is rare to get a proactive teacher if the child has no LDs. Every trimester the parent receive a record card with grades of advanced (4), proficient (3), basic (2), below basic (1). If something don't look right at any time ask for a parent teacher conference. The parent has a right to request for a conference any time but only a few of us invoke that right. My kid was behind at writing in 3rd grade but he was advanced in language arts in state test scores. He still gets remedial writing tutelage from his public school teacher because I ask for it. A child has a right to an adequate education. I might have different defination of adequate compare to my district and it can be an ugly fight but my district gets complacent when no one/very few people questions them on quality of service. We did end up calling Sacramento to get my district to comply. We ran the contacts numbers on California's department of education website until someone gave us an answer. My district people do take the easiest way out most of the time or whatever please the voters who donate to school board campaigns. Every kid in the district has a RazKids and a Aleks account. The computer labs are open for use after school. Few kids make use of the school computer lab or the library computers. The library is 5 minutes walk from school. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
imagine.more Posted March 2, 2015 Share Posted March 2, 2015 Are there no solutions? I might be spoiled by having a very good public school system in my state, but there has never been any indication to me that no help is available. In our school district no there are no options. Our adopted daughter for reasons related to just unstable home life and then moves into foster care learned almost nothing between 1st and 5th grade. The school tested her 4 years behind in reading and 1.5 years behind in math at the start of fourth grade. But in 5th grade at our district they refused to remediate her saying their policy was mainstreaming children with disabilities for their own benefit. They had no reading specialists and tried to drop her speech therapy because even though her vocabulary and comprehension of basic language was 5 years behind she had decent articulation for a HOH child. They had nothing to offer her besides sitting in a classroom and being "accommodated" in tests so they fed her the answers so she'd get A's and B's. To make us feel better about her 1st grade reading level and zero progress halfway through 5th grade the school told us "don't worry, she's not the only one, we have lots of kids at a lower reading level than her." And it was true! 20 kids out of 70 in the remedial reading class and all were reading on a K-2nd grade level....in 5th grade. That's criminal educational neglect imo. 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carol in Cal. Posted March 2, 2015 Share Posted March 2, 2015 Yes, it IS pretty annoying when you see kids from public schools doing way worse than homeschoolers and then read in the papers that a 'homeschooling family' has been criticized for educational neglect. BUT, of course, both homeschoolers and brick and mortar schools should be teaching and reaching all of their students. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FaithManor Posted March 2, 2015 Share Posted March 2, 2015 For me the bottom line is that just because there is educational neglect at brick and mortar schools that doesn't make it right at home. The difference is startling...at school not only are their books with examples and text in them but someone who stands up and presents material. In the examples often cited for educational neglect in the home, the material isn't even available to the children and the teaching parent isn't doing anything either. At least the kid in the brick and mortar has a shot. It may not be good odds, but he or she isn't totally isolated from the possibility of learning. In the case cited in the other thread, those kids don't stand a chance. In cases of true neglect, the kids are living in the modern "dark ages". At least if they went to school, they would hear from an adult who would do some math on the blackboard, offer a spelling book, make people do some reading, and give them access to textbooks and a school library. It is maddening to me when children fall through the system in the PS because I think our taxpayer funded education should be a whole lot better. But that is no excuse for people to use the guise of homeschooling to raise feral children. It should not be defended. Too many people have swallowed the cool aid. There are a LOT of homeschoolers in our area of Michigan and we have a huge number of them involved in county 4-H. For the most part, my kids stand out because they have been well educated. But MOST of the ones we've worked with have been far below their publically schooled peers in nearly every area and require tremendous remediation and hand holding from us. Here on this board, because it is comprised of parents that are passionate about education, we have this bubble where we've been spending a lot of time corresponding with like minded individuals, consulting about problems, reviewing curriculum, talking about SWB's recommendations, forging new academic territory (How can I design a credit of robotics engineering or French Literature?"), following passions, etc. so we resent implications that homeschoolers aren't getting the hard work done because we are on the job killing ourselves to get it done right. We work tirelessly even if we have to scale back once in a while for a life event or illness. BUT what must be understood is that we have a tendency to be the exceptions and especially when religion is the motivating factor behind the homeschooling because the "anything you do at home is better than school always" mantra has been around far too long and espoused too highly across the internet, in homeschool books, in sub-standard curricula, in homeschool co-ops, in churches, and many other places. A rather startling number of homeschooling parents, the type that would never lower themselves to take part on this board because we are bunch of nuts that ruin our offspring's childhoods by teaching them to outline passages, write summaries, churn out the standard five paragraph persuasive essay, solve linear equations, learn Newtonian laws, study ancient history, ....are out there many of them doing nothing or almost nothing. Hate to say it. But, it is true and I've encounter IRL far more of that variety than the kind of parent that posts on this board. It's okay for us to debate what is and is not neglect. It's okay for us to say, "Kids have a right to some basics because their futures depend on it." 17 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jean in Newcastle Posted March 2, 2015 Share Posted March 2, 2015 The OP did a spin-off specifically because this is a different issue than homeschool neglect. So she is not the one conflating the issue. It is a valid issue - one that affects our society and may of us who have either taught in the schools or have had our kids in the schools in the past or will in the future or have them there in the present. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lanny Posted March 2, 2015 Share Posted March 2, 2015 I took a quick look at many of the posts in the other thread and I read all of the posts in this thread, up to the time I began typing this. Automatic Promotion, in Public Schools and in Private Schools, is, IMHO a horrible disservice to the students. We do not live in the USA and DD has never been in a Public School (TTUISD is accredited as a Public School district, but receives no taxpayer funds, so it is more like a Private School, because the parents pay for the courses their children take). Before TTUISD, my DD was in 2 Private brick and mortar schools. The first one (K4, K5 and First grade) was WONDERFUL but $$$$$. In that school, I am sure there was remediation available, just as there were things available for advanced students. For example, DD was pulled out of her class, once or twice a week, because she was very advanced in English. II do not believe they automatically promote students and I know there were 2 or 3 students in her class who were repeating a school year. For financial reasons, we had to remove DD from that school. The second private brick and mortar school (DD was there for 2nd grade thru 5th grade) was much less expensive and is run by a church with a reputation for excellence in their schools. $$ That school was automatically promoting students to keep their parents happy and not lose the student to another school. And, some of the parents were donating money to the school. There was a girl in DDs class, when she was in 4th or 5th grade, who could not read. The school had previously been excellent, but was in a period of declining enrollment. The quality steadily declined during the 4 school years DD was there and we pulled her out after 5th grade. DD began there with English as her best subject and after 4 school years, English was her worst subject, because it was taught so poorly. She began with two 6th grade courses from TTUISD in October 2012 (English was one of them) and is almost caught up now. I am certain that it was traumatic for DD to come up to speed in U.S. English, after 4 school years there, but she is an excellent motivated student and she did it. One issue is that remediation be available for students who are way behind. Another issue is whether or not the student has the motivation to work their tail off, to try to catch up. IMHO the Automatic Promotion of students will cause them great problems as they get older and when they are adults they will truly suffer the consequences. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joyofsixreboot Posted March 2, 2015 Share Posted March 2, 2015 We entered homeschooling when my now 13 yo was in first grade. It was obvious he wasn't " getting it" despite being " normal". Neither K nor first grade teachers nor the school admin could offer anything. We decided if I was teaching him anyway why send him to school. I'm reasonably sure his issues would never have been addressed and he would have fallen through the cracks. He had already figured out he was one of the " dumb kids". I'm sure this varies by district/state I'm just relating our experience. On the other hand, I know many homeschoolers who don't have what I would call adequate schooling. I have zero answers for either problem. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FaithManor Posted March 2, 2015 Share Posted March 2, 2015 Lanny, I agree very much that automatic promotion is a huge problem. When I was a student way, way back in the mists of time, in a main stream classroom the student had to achieve a minimum level of proficiency in reading and math in order to move up and repeating a grade was allowed, even two grades. I had a few classmates that were not likely to ever graduate. There would be a promotion out of the elementary to middle school when the student simply became socially too old to remain behind, then another to high school again when it became an issue, but not a promotion out of high school to commencement unless some criteria was met. There were some students who did drop out as they weren't going to make it. Sad. Very sad. On the other hand, it did more to prevent the issue of having kids bound for high school graduation who were functionally illiterate. A high school diploma did mean something. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pam in CT Posted March 2, 2015 Share Posted March 2, 2015 The differences in both "catching kids before they fail" and in providing services to kids at risk of falling behind are staggering between school districts. I used to work in the district next door to the west, which consistently rates among the top few districts in the state on just about all metrics. They assess kids formally three times a year, first in early October. All kids who fall in the bottom quartile get follow up assessments to target exactly which sub skills are shaky, the classroom teacher gets additional resources and a timeframe to address the skills, and if the child has not made sufficient measured progress by the next assessment, they move to the next "tier" of small-group in-class remediation (still not SE), and by the third assessment, automatically assessed for an IEP. Any child who isn't reading by end-first grade will be receiving some sort of targeted tailored assistance (not necessarily SE). Town south of us? Whole.Different.Story. Around here, the real spin-off thread is how public education gets funded, and the :svengo: differences between districts in per student expenditures and quality, generally based on birth lottery. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
umsami Posted March 2, 2015 Share Posted March 2, 2015 When we lived in upstate NY, the school district was very proactive. Even Kindy students who had fallen behind, had extra tutoring and a summer reading camp. Here in FL where I live, it seems to be that help does not come until standardized testing begins which is 3rd grade. If you don't achieve a certain score, then you have summer school. The charter school my kids go to now has weekend and after-school tutoring for kids who are not doing well, but other schools in the area do not all have this as far as I know. Still we have a large elderly population, and many of them are former teachers who volunteer to tutor kids at the library, YMCA, etc. I think in general, though, resources really can vary greatly. There's also the other side of the coin in what resources there are for gifted kids. Once again, I've seen schools that pull out once per week for an hour, some who do nothing, and others that have fully funded gifted classrooms. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
.... Posted March 2, 2015 Share Posted March 2, 2015 We entered homeschooling when my now 13 yo was in first grade. It was obvious he wasn't " getting it" despite being " normal". Neither K nor first grade teachers nor the school admin could offer anything. We decided if I was teaching him anyway why send him to school. I'm reasonably sure his issues would never have been addressed and he would have fallen through the cracks. He had already figured out he was one of the " dumb kids". This is pretty much word-for-word why we homeschool, too. When I pulled my two oldest kids out of school (younger set has never been to school), my son still didn't even know his letter sounds. The other kids were all reading, writing sentences, etc. I saw the writing on the wall. My son would have just fallen further behind. There's only so much you can do with them after school. By 4pm, mine were a nervous wreck, hungry, crabby (and I was hungry and crabby) and no one was able to focus on more schoolwork. About educational neglect in homeschools...we are around a ton of homeschoolers (my kids do way too many activities)...and I haven't met any families whose kids seemed behind in their education. It might just be the type of people we spend time with (maybe we're in our own little bubble). Maybe negligent homeschoolers don't put their kids in activities or something. *shrug* I have heard from a friend of one family that didn't really work with their kids (and the oldest is 18 and trying to remedy her situation), but I never met them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
unsinkable Posted March 2, 2015 Share Posted March 2, 2015 When we lived in upstate NY, the school district was very proactive. Even Kindy students who had fallen behind, had extra tutoring and a summer reading camp. Here in FL where I live, it seems to be that help does not come until standardized testing begins which is 3rd grade. If you don't achieve a certain score, then you have summer school. The charter school my kids go to now has weekend and after-school tutoring for kids who are not doing well, but other schools in the area do not all have this as far as I know. Still we have a large elderly population, and many of them are former teachers who volunteer to tutor kids at the library, YMCA, etc. I think in general, though, resources really can vary greatly. There's also the other side of the coin in what resources there are for gifted kids. Once again, I've seen schools that pull out once per week for an hour, some who do nothing, and others that have fully funded gifted classrooms. ...most of the charter schools here have mandatory afterschool and Saturday tutoring for students who aren't passing. The public schools can't do that because of teachers' contracts. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SKL Posted March 2, 2015 Share Posted March 2, 2015 Sylvan doesn't count? In my area at least, Math Monkey has a variety of offerings for summer and after school (enrichment as well as remediation). I assume Kumon could help with remediation (I don't have experience with them). For reading, local universities offer summer remediation programs at some of the local libraries. None of these is cheap, though. :( I would think that it would not be super hard to find a one-on-one tutor if one went looking for one. I tutored a 5th grader when I was a college student. It was a pretty simple arrangement - I came to their house and they paid me a generous $5/day (that was a long time ago). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SKL Posted March 2, 2015 Share Posted March 2, 2015 Many kids with trauma have difficulty learning for extended time periods. That is one of the reasons I did so much afterschooling for my eldest in 1st and 2nd grade. It's pretty amazing how stress can seem to lower the IQ. I know my kids' private school would not bother to accommodate such a long-term challenge. I hope the public schools would do better, but I can't say as I have no recent experience with them. My concern would be that bright kids would be categorized as incapable once and for all. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lang Syne Boardie Posted March 2, 2015 Share Posted March 2, 2015 When I was helping a homeschooling family find solutions for their way-behind kids, one of the things I did was to call their local public schools and tutoring centers (Sylvan, Kumon). From speaking with people in charge at all these institutions, I learned that older children (age 12 and up) who are more than three years behind academically are SOL if they are then dumped into public school. The rest of the cohort can't wait while they catch up; teachers aren't trained in such extreme remediation as a "differentiation" strategy within the classroom; and even if there are real learning disabilities or behavioral issues involved it will take a mighty long time to get that IEP or 504. Even beyond these issues that lead to near-certain failure, one principal said he thought it would be harmful for teens, especially, to be placed in a ps environment cold after being sheltered, very religious (he meant counter-cultural; he wasn't slamming faith), and uneducated. Bullying, confusion, academic failure, the stress of standardized testing, unfamiliarity with social media culture among classmates -- there could be disastrous outcomes for some children. He wouldn't allow it if he had the option. Sylvan and Kumon said they could remediate children, in the absence of severe disabilities, but it would cost a fortune because the typical schedule would be insufficient. Basically, everybody told me that these children needed intervention from family, friends, church, community members, because the institutions that we have in place for education cannot accommodate extreme academic neglect in older children. For this particular family, that's what happened, thankfully. But what happens to children who don't have that support network, once their parents finally pull their heads out and address the situation? This might be true for brick-and-mortar school pupils, too, if they fall very behind. They'll have the construct and culture figured out, so that's one less thing, but how far behind is TOO far behind, academically? In my local city school the majority of older children are way behind. If they could be magically lifted out to the suburbs would those "good" schools hold any promise for them? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carol in Cal. Posted March 2, 2015 Share Posted March 2, 2015 I did serious volunteer work at a school with virtually 100% ELL/free lunch program kids. The kids I was working with were smart and articulate 5th graders. And they were not on grade level, not even close. What to do with that? It's so hard. Meet them where they are? Yes, absolutely. But that means that you're not covering 5th grade material with them. Yes, it moves them along, but it doesn't get them to grade level. Sit with them while they do their homework? Sure, but the homework center has a movie playing over in to the side for the kids who have finished their homework but can't go home yet. All the kids are headed there. The holdout is paying no real attention anymore. Be sensitive to their needs? Sure, but it took a month for the girl whose brother had been stabbed 5 times in a gang fight to be able to sit down for more than 5 minutes again--she was so anxious and sad and agitated. That's a month further behind. It's understandable, but it's another month. Teach them to take pride in their work? Absolutely, but next year they will be in a large district middle school, and their competition from wealthier neighborhoods is kids who exceed grade level, consistently, and who have already had considerable exposure to science and social studies, giving them a leg up. Teach them strategies, and celebrate their successes, and really listen to them, and read them hard books without apology, and celebrate holidays and good oratory, and insist kindly on English in the group because that's all I speak, and do some science experiments, and have good discussions? Well, that's what I did, one day every week, after school. And I honestly don't know whether it did much good at all. I'm sure it did some, though. But damn it. We can't do 'nothing'. Giving up on kids is not an option. It's just not. We have to do what we can, and think creatively, and care. We just do. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tsuga Posted March 2, 2015 Share Posted March 2, 2015 Turning babies into healthy, productive members of society who value themselves and others is one of the pinnacles of civilization and it is very hard. Creating a society in which every child has EQUAL access to an EQUAL education that will prepare them for a fulfilling future is really hard. There is this idea that somehow, raising children up to be healthy, productive members of society is easy. That comes from misogyny. "Women can do it so it must not be that hard." The feminine mystique: if women do it it must be easy, so all women's work is easy because after all women are doing it, so women can't do hard work, because all their work is so easy. ​How hard could it be? The idea that women achieve what they achieve by some feminine fairy dust hurts women; it also hurts anything women put their hands to. This is the misogynist, anti-woman, sexist bullcrap that must be discarded and it's a CORE part of the anti-public-school message we get. If a child fails, it's that schools aren't working. Not, "Hey, we're trying to do something unprecedented in human history which is to erase the inequality built of 500 years of colonialism and slavery in 50 years, by building up about 60 million little children, only 30% of whom have college educated parents!!! Wow, that is harder than getting to the moon." No, it's "wow, how hard could it be?" And that is implicitly borne out of the attitude that if a grandma could do it, anybody could. As if these ladies were the dumbest people ever, so how hard could it be for a college-educated man to do? Turns out, those ladies doing the educating in one-room schoolhouses on the prairies were some of the most intelligent, hard working people we have on this mother-loving planet and suggesting that any kind of public or home schooling should be not that hard is deeply insulting to them and the others who have educated. Education is one of the most expensive, time-consuming, technically difficult, psychologically challenging, intellectually demanding enterprises on the planet. We are not making widgets here. This is not rocket science. We can make a rocket. But how can we make a person? Leave behind your ideas about how easy it is. Everyone here is building on generations of educational training and knowledge and using a hive mind to help them. Everyone. Because this is not building a car here. This is hard work. The only reason it's considered easy is that women do it, and if women can do it, it must be easy, because... I'll let you figure out the assumption there. But should it have to be that hard? Once you are developmentally ready to learn things it should be easier to learn them, right? There should be a curriculum to help catch up kids who are behind, and there should be educational specialists who can help these kids, right? I just don't get why there are not solutions given the state our educational system is in. There are in some places. They require trained people, people who are trainable (i.e. educated to the level the training starts at and who are willing to live in the area and who can live in the area on the salary offered), management, trainers, materials, space to implement the programs, and finally, a structure that separates other urgent problems such as the need to restrain a violent child, from this problem. The higher the poverty level, the harder it is to keep resources from getting siphoned off, and the fewer resources there are for this. But yes, it happens. In our district, they have ways and they have money. But it is hard, and who knows if the kids fully catch up? It is a Herculean societal effort to ensure that people who were themselves left behind, don't fail their own kids. It never ends, and it never gets easier, and it always requires everyone pitching in. It is HARD to get 100% of the population up to speed and productive. On a small scale it's hard. On a large scale not letting a single little soul slip through the cracks is insanely difficult. We're talking huge variations in human development, plus huge variations in behavior, and finally, the underestimation of the effort it takes to make this happen. Let's all hear it for the educators. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2014/10/10/educating-kids-isnt-rocket-science-its-harder/ 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carol in Cal. Posted March 3, 2015 Share Posted March 3, 2015 Turns out, those ladies doing the educating in one-room schoolhouses on the prairies were some of the most intelligent, hard working people we have on this mother-loving planet and suggesting that any kind of public or home schooling should be not that hard is deeply insulting to them and the others who have educated. Right. My grandmother was a teacher in a one room schoolhouse, and she knew 6 languages when she started. One of her students wanted to learn Russian, so she learned it ahead of him so she could teach it. While teaching all the other kids everything else as well. She was smart and hardworking. And let's not forget, for many years women could not get jobs other than nurse, secretary, factory worker, cleaning services provider, or teacher. So the teaching profession drew the best brains among women, and teachers' college could pick and choose. For several generations we had many of the smartest and most reliable women in the population providing almost ALL of the pool of grade school teachers. Now that profession has dropped in prestige, and women can do other, more lucrative jobs, and so the overall pool of teachers has degraded a bit. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tsuga Posted March 3, 2015 Share Posted March 3, 2015 I don't think it's a question of which women can do the job--in countries where education is more highly valued and respected (S. Korea and Finland, not that they are perfect, come to mind) the profession attracts more talent. Teaching could, theoretically, attract the nation's top talent if it paid a living wage from the start and a high wage by retirement, and if it were more competitive. In the top school districts in fact we do have this. But unfortunately in some areas that is not the case. :( And I don't think anyone is condoning educational neglect in schools. I am the first to say that it takes massive parental involvement in public schools to make them work. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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