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Thread: Do you trust the public schools?

  1. #1
    Curmudgeon OtakuLoki's avatar
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    Default Do you trust the public schools?

    I don't.

    And stories like this just fuel my mistrust, and disgust.

    If you don't care to read the link: a suit has been filed in Federal court alleging that the Cherry Hill school district took no effective actions against bullying by a fucking teacher. For reasons best known to the teacher, he found it appropriate to call a student "Handy Mandy," with predictable results for the rest of the students - they started her calling her everything from slut on through the lexicon.

    School staff told her to ignore the harassment, according to the lawsuit. The principal briefly suspended DiPatri [the unconscionable teacher in question] for the name-calling but did not apologize or acknowledge the misconduct to the girl and her family, Singer contends in her lawsuit.
    If there's anything to the complaint, and if the teacher was suspended for name calling that should be easy to prove, this is literally inexcusable.

    And I believe it happens all the fucking time.

    When are we, as a nation, going to admit that bullying in the schools doesn't just happen because the kids get a hard-on for one student? ISTM that it also requires an ineffectual response from the school administration - and that's in those cases where the staff isn't actually encouraging the behavior.





    Decimate the bastards, then start talking about substantive reforms.

  2. #2
    Curmudgeon OtakuLoki's avatar
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    Default

    For what it's worth: I do not go through my days looking for news stories about abuses in the schools. Of the four stories I've posted in the past two weeks, I found out about three of them when they were picked up by Jim Romensko's Obscure Store & Reading Room news miner. Which is where I usually go for odd and interesting stories. The fourth - the Phoebe Prince story - is in the national news.

    I'd actually prefer to avoid learning about these abortions of responsibility: I've been so mad this past week, it's interfering with my sleep.

  3. #3
    Elen síla lumenn' omentielvo What Exit?'s avatar
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    I do trust them but I am coming to believe that NJ is the exception and not the norm as far as public schools go. We have excellent schools in most of the state. Our crappy schools tend to be just below average for the nation and it appears we require more education and continuing education for our school staffs than most or perhaps all other states.

    So I trust the public school of my State but I can understand the complaints about others. I have always been against private schools and especially home schooling but apparently the mediocre schools I went to as a kid would be considered very good in much of the country and the great school system we have in my current town is among the best in the country, especially is magnate schools are not included.

    And yes the response to bullying in the schools I am familiar with also appear to be quite good and swift.

    I should add, it pisses me off the new Governor is correcting a large part of the financial crisis in NJ at the expense of our great school system and the goddamn teaching union is compounding the problem by being uncompromising assholes collectively as far as forgoing their schedule COL raises. Not a salary freeze, but just the schedules raise of something over 3% for next year. So instead many teachers will get laid off and the kids will suffer in the end. Nice political football assholes!Gov. Christy please be less of an ass and Unions stop being blind to reality.
    Last edited by What Exit?; 05 Apr 2010 at 08:53 AM.

  4. #4
    I've had better days, but I don't care! hatesfreedom's avatar
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    New Jersey does have good schools, its because New Jersey isn't poor. Observe even my hillbilly Virginia math is enough to figure out why certain schools are so good. Anyway, the entire education system is collapsing under lack of funding and the article never even mentions if handy mandy actually was a slut or not. Granted that teacher should still be dismissed to go teach in some other state, but maybe Mandy was really an epic tramp.

  5. #5
    Elen síla lumenn' omentielvo What Exit?'s avatar
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    True, we are a wealthy state overall and have the highest overall taxes I think. We also have a giant bureaucracy and well paid teachers and lots of requirements and laws concerning all school issues. The state has taken over many school districts that did not measure up. Maybe all of this is what is needed.

  6. #6
    I've had better days, but I don't care! hatesfreedom's avatar
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    I dunno, the school system got all whacky. Homeschooling, retard science, paperwork and bullshit. I believe the education system could be improved but I've never put in the time to think on how.

  7. #7
    Aged Turtle Wizard Clothahump's avatar
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    Default

    Depends on what we are trusting them to do.

    Educate our kids? No way in hell. They graduate children who can't even read the diploma they are handed.

    Expose our kids to drugs, gangs and violence on a daily basis? Yeah, they do a great job of that. And let's not forget how they set a great example of leadership by implement zero tolerance guidelines that punish the innocent as well as the guilty.

    How do we fix it? Well, getting rid of "No Child Left Behind" is a start. Kid fails, kid repeats class, period.

    How about we make teacher salaries higher so that we can, you know, hire qualified people to teach? And make their jobs performance based. Every class has to take a standardized test, created and administered outside the school district, and if the pass rate for the class is not 90% or better, the teacher is put on probation. A second "failing" grade and the teacher is looking for a new job.

    And we bring discipline back into the schools. Whiny liberals will get all upset about this, but the good old "Board of Education" was a wonderful means of keeping control. The decline in its usage is pretty much in direct relationship with the increase in student misbehavior.
    Political correctness will be the death of our country.

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