toldailytopic: In your opinion, what is the ONE worst thing about public schools?

[Nathon Detroit]

The TheologyOnline.com TOPIC OF THE DAY for November 8th, 2010 11:22 AM

toldailytopic: In your opinion, what is the ONE worst thing about public schools?

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[chrysostom]

teachers union

 

[Granite]

The fact that parents who don't send their kids there still have to pay taxes that fund public schools.

I mention money matters because, frankly, many public schools are better than others, and many provide good educations. But being double taxed is universal, unfair and flat-out bogus, especially considering the costs of private education, or the sacrifices inherent to home schooling.

 

[TomO]

Well....if you would have asked me when I was attending I would have told you the worst thing was lack of a student smoking area but they've seemed to have fixed that. lain:

 

[Granite]

Oh, and a very close second? For all the money we throw at the system, these schools consistently turn out a lousy product.

 

[steko]

Quote: In your opinion, what is the ONE worst thing about public schools?

The worst thing and the root of all others is that they are 'government schools'.

 

[nicholsmom]

The TheologyOnline.com TOPIC OF THE DAY for November 8th, 2010 11:22 AM

toldailytopic: In your opinion, what is the ONE worst thing about public schools?

The time waste. Bus rides, wasted lectures on lessons already learned, chaotic environment for doing school work means less done there, home room... and undoubtedly more, but that's all a total waste of time. My kids get loads more free time and get to use it in fun, often productive ways. And they get enough rest.

I see way too many high school students who are wiped out from too little time to get their school work done and trying to have a life as well. I seriously doubt that their retention is much helped by all that fatigue.

 

[Arthur Brain]

Well the school meals weren't up to much...

lain:

 

[Nang]

The heavy exposure to secular, humanistic, anti-christian brainwashing that accompanies the small doses of reading, writing, and arithmetic.

 

[ebenz47037]

The worst thing about public school is that, once you hand your children over to them to "educate" them, you have no say-so in what your children learn.

 

[Nydhogg]

A pro-government attitude.

Which is to be expected, given that they're government-owned schools.

 

[Ktoyou]

The "Board of Education"

 

[Buzzword]

#2 worst thing: The parents who wouldn't give their kids the time of day, then get up in arms when the school refuses to create/implement policies which gives it more parenting responsibility than the actual parents.

#1 worst thing: OVEREMPHASIS ON ATHLETICS.
Holy GOD why do high schools in the lowest GPA percentile still have MULTIPLE sports teams?

I was a lucky public school student.
My hometown did have SOME emphasis on sports, but MUSIC (specifically, the band) got the big percentage of funding off the top.
I have yet to see it done to this extent anywhere else; people would come from everywhere to our football games, then leave after halftime regardless of how well their or our team was doing.

When you attend a 4A school, and the band is over 1/4th of the student body, with its own traditions going back five generations (as of this year's freshman class), and you're part of the band?

Ain't no experience like it, as a cultivation of teamwork, as a cultivation of a good work ethic, to say nothing of cultivating appreciation of music itself.
I'm more than six years out of high school, and rarely a day goes by when something doesn't remind me of those four amazing years and makes me pine for that camaraderie and unity of purpose...and that epic music!




I agree on the tax thing, though my family has experienced firsthand what happens when a parent doesn't want to invest the time and money to send kids to school (of any kind), fills out homeschooling paperwork...then never actually DOES homeschooling.

My 26 year-old cousin is still recovering from the ten years of his life spent essentially imprisoned in his parents' house with his siblings because my uncle wanted to have complete control of their lives.
My cousin ended up stabbing my uncle after crossing the breaking point.

Things have improved since then (my cousin now has a GED and is attending community college, and their relationship has improved), but the situation was a view of the nightmarish potential of the lack of government-enforced school attendance.



All that being said, the problems kids will face differ greatly across different school districts.
In some places, the arts have been downgraded over and over until nothing remains.
In others, it's academia ground down to nothing.

 

[Nick M]

They are Godless. And they are run by ididots like Buzzword who doesn't like competition, and wants communism indoctrination instead.

 

[MrRadish]

Probably the way in which the myth is propagated that hard work is the sole factor involved in success, and that academic/sporting/artistic prowess somehow elevates one above other people. The way in which people are rewarded for natural talent, rather than resources being channelled toward cultivating it in people to whom achievement comes less easily. The competitiveness of the current system irks me as it does Buzz.

Especially as it drives many children to be home-educated, which in spite of its undeniable benefits also (in my opinion) has significant drawbacks in that it deprives children of unsupervised interactions with people their own age with a wide range of backgrounds, attitudes, ideas and perspectives.

 

[Memento Mori]

The bathrooms.

'Nuff said.

 

[Quincy]

The bullies. Then again you never really escape those in life, they're always there. Even on the *coughinternetcough* despite the anonymity.

 

[Nydhogg]

Especially as it drives many children to be home-educated, which in spite of its undeniable benefits also (in my opinion) has significant drawbacks in that it deprives children of unsupervised interactions with people their own age with a wide range of backgrounds, attitudes, ideas and perspectives.

That's not neccessarily true. Many homeschooled kids are quite allowed to socialize with other kids their own age, they're just not handed over for the Government to educate'em.

Not everyone who homeschools their kids does it out of nutty fundamentalism.

 

[bybee]

Well

Well

The TheologyOnline.com TOPIC OF THE DAY for November 8th, 2010 11:22 AM

toldailytopic: In your opinion, what is the ONE worst thing about public schools?

Take the topic above and run with it! Slice it, dice it, give us your general thoughts about it. Everyday there will be a new TOL Topic of the Day.
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The fact that they cannot seem to get a grip on bullying. Hold parents accountable for their children's words and deeds.

 

[Town Heretic]

Here it's overcrowding. We have an excellent school system, but it's being overwhelmed by the current economic environment and that means higher student to teacher ratios, which is a very bad thing (as home school advocates are aware).