is the nation’s recent report card accurate
The U.S. government grades the schools that they run. Not much in the way of checks and balances is it? Gov. Ed. schools are a failure. They were always a failure and today they are a bigger failure. Our nation’s recent report card blames Covid for this failure. Is Covid really the problem?
This is going to be controversial. As always, please feel free to comment. The beauty of this country is that we all need not agree. Even though I had a child go through the public school system, I am anti gov. ed.. I didn’t realize how bad the public school system was until I homeschooled.
gov. ed. is a topic that makes conservatives angry
We all know how destructive the government shutdowns were with regards to Covid. It wasn’t just the shutdowns, it was also the mandates. Our government imposed itself in our lives and American’s pushed back. In America, we have rights and freedoms and the U.S. government threw those out the window and used Covid as the excuse. Our government, as you know, closed our schools.
The shutdowns and mandates along with the controversary over the 2020 election sent conservatives into a frenzy. Conservatives are angry about the government stepping in and shutting schools down. Now, with the national report card pointing out the drop in scores, since the shutdowns, conservatives are giving the government a big, “I told you so.”
let’s look at the national report card
This so called report card is broken down in a number of ways. You can see this report as a whole nation or it’s broken down by state. It is broken down by subject and year. It is also broken down into grades, 4th, 8th, and 12th.
The national report card is incomplete. An example of this is Math. 2022 has results for 4th and 8th grades. Zero results for 12th. The last 12th grade Math report is from 2013. If you look at Math scores for 8th graders, the scores started to go down in 2019 and the drop in 2022 is not huge, but it is a slight drop. 4th grade Math declined, but has fluctuated up and down since 2011. The highest 4th grade Math score was 241 in 2013 and lowest 235 in 2022. Again, that scores was up and down.
Why is there no 12th grade Math score for 2022? Why is the last 12th grade Math score from 2013? And Math isn’t the only missing subject. The last Science grade is 2015 for 4th and 8th grade and no years for 12th. The last writing scores were for the year 2002 for 4th and 8th grade and again none for 12th. 12th graders apparently do not need to know anything.
cyber public schools are great
The child we have that is homeschooled was never inside a gov. ed. brick and mortar school. This child was homeschooled until he was 8 and then went to cyber public school. Only reason we enrolled him in cyber is because our state is super strict on homeschool and the laws were intimidating.
Cyber had tons of opportunities. It offered clubs and activities. Cyber school is gov. ed. public school and completely different from homeschool. It’s also better than public brick and mortar. They offer so much more and the curriculum is closer to where it should be.
In cyber, they are in a class just like regular school. Kids are on line in a live lesson room. They have options to raise their hand and are given authorization to speak to answer questions. The kids see their teacher through a video and can talk to classmates in a chat. They have Advanced classes as well as tutors if needed. Our son had speech class online individually.
disastrous shutdowns made public schools go cyber
I see so many times, from either people I know, or the news and social media, parents refer to their kids being homeschooled because of shutdowns. These shutdowns didn’t force these kids into homeschooling. Homeschooling and cyber or virtual schooling are completely different. Public schools went cyber or virtual. The shutdowns are said to be the reason for a decline in tests scores nation wind.
This is offensive to those of us who are homeschoolers. All in all, the homeschoolers I know are far advanced to the public schools. Again, cyber public are farther than brick and mortar. I know this because we have done all three. Gov. Ed., at least in our area, is terrible. One district is ranked close to 11,000 in the nation and another is ranked almost 12,400 in the nation. Both are ranked poorly in the state as well.
The cyber schools are ranked much better. To say that homeschooling has hurt children’s education is false. To say the shutdowns hurt their education is also a bit of a stretch.
the reason behind the poor scores
A big part of the problem is the teachers. A neighbor had a terrible time with the local district. The child’s lesson were sporadic. When this neighbor questioned the teacher, the teacher explained they were sorry, but didn’t really have a lot of time for virtual. This school offered virtual for those who wanted it. The teacher was trying to divide her time between online and in class. This teacher was too busy with the kids in class. Funny thing is another child in this class, that was going to school, was also having trouble. When the same teacher was questioned, the answer was she was too busy trying to do virtual.
These teachers are paid. They could have taught their classes like the cyber schools. Teach in front of the class like always, but have it online at the same time. It doesn’t seem to be a problem for the cyber school teachers. The teachers did a huge disservice to the kids in this local school. Why? They were either lazy or were too stubborn to do their jobs because they didn’t like how they had to do it. The kids suffered.
Are parents also at fault?
I know kids, including my own who did cyber, that got up and did school like every kid should. It was never an issue for me. It wasn’t an issue for many others. There are some that have children who didn’t want to do school. Some didn’t do school. The parents use work for an excuse, but unless they work 24/7, that’s a poor excuse.
Parents have lost their ability to parent. It’s difficult for me to understand that a child will “refuse” to do something. That’s what punishments and rewards are for, try being a parent.
the shutdowns were unfortunate and uncalled for
The shutdowns could have been used as a great learning tool. Life doesn’t always go as planned. Parents were angry because they don’t feel it’s a parents job to teach their children. How sad for the kids and society? Who better to teach them? Teachers didn’t feel it was their jobs to teach either virtual, in class, or both. These people get paid to teach and yet they didn’t want to do it.
The parents didn’t teach and the teachers didn’t teach. The children are behind. Why? Because people were to busy saying this isn’t my job and you can’t make me.
homeschool, cyber school, virtual and brick and mortar
Good did come from this. If it wasn’t for the school shutdowns, parents probably would not know about a lot of the crap these schools are teaching kids. The graphic gay sex books and trans crap may not have come to light. CRT is another subject that came to light. Kids have options about their gender. Schools hide it from the parents. Very sexual drag queen shows are in schools. It is very difficult to understand why anyone wants their children in a public school.
make America school choice
What happened with the shutdowns is over. Sadly, it can’t be changed. It’s time to move on and try to fix the damage. Complaining about what has happened to the children, doesn’t help them. If your child is behind, get them some help. You may not think, once again, that you should have to do that, and you may be right, but if you don’t it’s the child that suffers.
We need people to vote for people who are school choice. It’s that simple. Gov. Ed. schools suck. They sucked before the shutdowns and haven’t changed. If parents had school choice, it would change.
Would you send your kid to a school that teaches your first grader about gender transitions? Odds are no, the majority of people would not. Would you choose to send your child to a school with CRT lessons, common core, or just a lacking curriculum? No, probably not.
the benefits of school choice
Each school, in our area, gets tens of thousands of dollars for each child in their district. If enrollment dropped, because of the crap they want to teach our children, the schools would have to up their game. People would want to send their child to the best school. It would place these schools in competition with each other.
The benefits to the children would be astronomical. Some of the money should go to the kids that homeschool. Most homeschoolers give up a lot to be able to homeschool. The prices of books, supplies, and curriculums are very high. The way it’s set up now, the crappy district that we live in gets the money for our kid, even though he’s homeschooled.
The local school is to help with any thing we need, but guess what, they refuse. We asked for help a few times and were told no. This school is happy to collect money for our child, even though he doesn’t attend there. We pulled our child out of cyber school and strictly homeschool. It was the best decision. If our country moves to school choice, money should go to children that are homeschooled.
