Not Another Homeschool Blog: Public School News

Showing posts with label Public School News. Show all posts

What is going on in our schools?

Happy Elf Mom pointed out an incident of special needs children being punished by putting cotton balls in their mouths. That's just crazy.

In South Atlanta, a child was beaten with a shoe... on her BARE bottom. That's criminal.

Let's get it together schools!.

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Reasons I am glad we homeschool: Crazy parents in the carpool lane

Karolyn Browden is still shaken by the encounter earlier this week at Arabia Mountain High School when she said a parent pulled a gun on her as she waited to drop her child off.
http://www.ajc.com/news/parent-recalls-facing-gun-1192612.html

An encounter like this would make me never bring my kid to that school again!

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Big Changes in GA High Schools

This is interesting

Georgia wants to overhaul its high school curriculum, making it more like college with courses tailored to what students want to do after they graduate.

#Under the proposed plan, students would choose a "career cluster" that would lead them through the classes they need to either go on to a two-year or four-year college or to go straight into a job. The plan — which is expected to be taken up by the state Board of Education sometime this fall — would unravel the single-track approach instituted by former state schools Superintendent Kathy Cox that assumed every student was going to college.

I find this interesting because GA has changed it's high school curriculum just a few years ago, making high school so stringent that students not aiming for college would have no choice but to drop out. I was wondering how long it would take to notice. I am not against stringent high school programs, but the past few years have been overkill.

Not that I am exactly crazy about the new course of action either, but it's at least more realistic.

Under Georgia's plan, students would take the same general core of classes with basics like algebra, English and history. At the end of their sophomore year, students would choose a cluster to determine what advanced classes they take.

#For example, a student in the health sciences career cluster wanting to be a certified nursing assistant would take nutrition and wellness, chemistry and physical science — and go straight into a job after graduation. A student wanting to be a doctor would take Advanced Placement biology, physics and biotechnology and go to a four-year college.

This is being billed as making high school more like college in GA. I don't see that, but I am curious to see where this is all going.

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Changes to the HOPE Scholarship

I wrote this article on the proposed changes to the HOPE scholarship here in GA.

Governor's Proposals Would Dim HOPE Scholarships
Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal's proposed changes to the HOPE scholarship would significantly alter the pledge that Georgia made to students back in 1992.
Read more

Basically, the HOPE scholarship is taking a 10% cut plus fees will no longer be paid. This may cost the average student $1500 a year. If students are superior with a 3.5 GPA and 1200 SAT, they get the full ride, minus fees.

But what about homeschoolers?

As of right now, homeschoolers need a 85th percentile score to get HOPE as a Freshman. They can get it retroactively if they maintain a B average.

So, why do homeschoolers need a higher SAT/ACT score than the Top public school students who will get a full ride. And, if they do get that higher score, do they get the full HOPE or HOPE lite. And if there are two tiers now, do they set a higher tier for homeschoolers to get a full ride, or do they set a lower threshold for them to get the 90% grant?

Has anyone heard? I'm very curious.

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I think they may be on to something- 75 students, 7 teachers

I have been blogging about this for ages or at least something close to it. In my special little world (in my head) school classes would be workshops with numerous teachers per classroom.

My reasons are:

They say kids need to be bullied

I have read numerous comments that say kids need to be bullied in order to know how to stand up for themselves. I disagree. I think kids get enough ribbing from friends and families to cause them to stand up for themselves and shut down the more aggressive in the group.

I was bullied as a child. I was in Catholic school. I remember being frozen out of clicks as early as 2nd grade, and by 4th grade, I was the target of a mean group of girls, and at least 1/2 of the class turned against me, with the other 1/2 afraid be my

Is this teacher pervy or is it me?

I realize some people will think I am over reacting, but I ventured onto the youtube education page yesterday, and started clicking around to see what was available. I came upon a lipdub done by a high school class. A lipdub is supposed to be a video done in one take that keeps moving from person to person as they lip sync a song. I am pretty sure this video was part of an editing project as it was not a true lipdub but clips edited together.

Anyway, it is all good and well except for the song that was chosen... for a class project... in which a teacher participated.

If you have to use bleeping, it probably shouldn't be used for a classroom project.

Parents, see this for yourself and let me know what you think.

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Reasons I am glad we homeschool: Klan Costumes?

Holy lack of judgment Batman!

A Dahlonega GA teacher in an effort to demonstrate a lesson on Racism thought up a school project that included students dressing up as Klu Klux Klan members. According to the news (on TV) black students were frightened, angered, and upset. As an African American Family living nearby this school, I am glad it is not something that me kids had to deal with. Instead of being surprised, shocked, or worse by the stupid stunt, we can discuss it and use it as a teaching moment about thinking things out before you act.

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I am glad I homeschool because of aggressive discipline methods in school

I am watching a Dr. Phil show that is breaking my heart. It is about excessive discipline of children in schools.

The show started with an absurd classroom arrest where a young woman was treated like a hardened criminal for writing a kind note on her desk with an erasable marker. I thought that was bad. But it got much worse. Children are being sent home with broken bones, and some are dying due to aggressive discipline measures. The children who are most abused are the ones who are autistic and non verbal.

I try not to say this much, but things like this make me really glad that my kids are homeschooled. Knowing that the most simple misunderstanding can spiral completely out of control is very unsettling to me as a parent.
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Don't parents think for themselves?

I am confused. I live in the Georgia NE area that is flooding today. I am watching a news story about Cobb County schools closing after flooding and parents screaming that their kids the kids should have never been sent to school.

They are angry that schools were open and the kids were permitted to go to school... but I am looking at these upset parents and asking myself... didn't the parents have to dress those kids and put them on the school buses. If they didn't know better, then how could the schools.... If they did know better, why did they send the kids in?

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The big list of female teachers who violated students

Net World Daily may not be one of my favorite websites, but they have done the job of compiling the information on sex crimes by female teachers on students over the past three years. A quick count gave me just under 170 teachers committing sex crimes. And this is just women's predators. I dare say this rivals the damage done by Catholic Priests in the 1970's and 1980's. Students from elementary to highschool to special needs were violated.

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America Oursourcing teachers?

“Some of the largest users of H-1B visas aren't tech firms or major research universities. Rather, these unlikely users are the nation's public school systems.” (Ednews.org)

Baltimore had 196 visas issued to teachers for the 2006-2007 school year. New York City had 171. Smaller school districts have a proportionate number of foreign teachers.
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Note from a public school dad

And people wonder why we choose to homeschool.

He's in 11th grade. His course in American history -- or whatever name they disguise that by these days -- is coming to an end and the finale is a big project that will largely determine his grade for the quarter. In my high school, the college-tracked kids were taking electives by that time, and I remember writing two 20-page papers, on topics of the student's choice, approved by the teacher. One of mine was on the legal challenge to Reconstruction after the Civil War, the other was on the Congress of Vienna.

My son's comparable assignment: To write about the significance of the lyrics of "We Didn't Start the Fire" by Billy Joel.

And it gets worse.

full story here

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No Tolerance for 4 and 6 year olds

This is why I think Classrooms Should Have 2 Teachers

As I said in my last video, classrooms should have 2 teachers, or parent helpers, or something like that. No teacher should be left alone with students... when they do things like this happen:

Brian Havel, 22, was teaching English at the school March 14 when the boy arrived after class started.

"In his class, the disciplinary process was X amount of sit-ups or push-ups in a certain amount of time. He either wouldn't or couldn't complete them," Delta interim Police Chief Roger Christian said of the punished student. "The class made a suggestion that if he couldn't finish, we ought to be able to punch him, and (Havel) agreed. So 10 to 15 students got to hit him," Christian said.

"Y'all are just bad kids"

Am I the only person who is sick and tired of teachers getting reassigned for abusing kids? In this case, the abuse is verbal, but it is very bad.

see link here http://abcnews.go.com/Video/player?ip=74.160.41.80&affil=&debug=&catId=&id=4350016

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Reasons I am glad I homeschool: Rape

Of course there is no guarantee that my daughter will never get attacked out of school, but to be double victimized by a school that tries to hide the assault is ridiculous.
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Outrageous Rape on School Bus

This happened last week and I am just now getting a whiff of this news. How a child gets raped on the school bus and no one does anything to help... From watching the story, the rape was done in a way that it was hard to detect what was going on? I'm really confused here.

And they say we are overprotecting our kids.... should we just hand them over to the school system who does nothing to protect them?

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Children searched like criminals

While I had mixed feelings about this story of a Kindergartener getting suspended for his hairstyle. My feelings are clear when it comes to this story of a third grade students getting searched like criminals.

The schools barely took action against the offending teachers.

The school's principal gave written reprimands to four instructors who had physical contact with the students. The principal, Sarah Newman, declined to comment and phone numbers for the four teachers could not be located Wednesday.

Had my child been searched, they would be dealing with one crazy woman right now!

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A hair-raising school suspension

My son hasn't cut his hair since before he started homeschooling over 5 years ago. It is quite long and depending on how it is styled, is all the way down his back. Most strangers mistake him for a girl, and he just corrects them. For a black child, his hair is just too long, and definitely an oddity, but he likes it that way.

So when I read this story about an Ohio school that suspended a Kindergartener over his Mohawk, I had to wonder how much grief my kid would get if he were in school.

I mean the school had given them 2 warnings that the hairstyle was unacceptable, but the mom continued to shave the sides of the kids head and spike the hair on top. Was she out of line... after all, this is a little boy? But she said he likes it that way.

I know my 13 year old bristles when we say 'haircut' but he does go out of his way to pull his braids neatly into a band when he goes to his classes or to church. He is also a big fan of newsboy hats which make him look quite stylish. He goes out of his way to not draw attention to his hair.

So I guess my question is, while I know the school went too far in this fight over a hairstyle, did the mom go to far as well?

I am undecided.

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