Employers going too far?

[joewithaboat]

Re: Employers going too far?

Didn't once say I didn't like them. Just don't believe all of the hype surrounding private and charter schools. Just the fact that the family cares to go through the effort to see to their child's education automatically makes the kids a pre-selected sample. Do you really think that a parent paying 15+ grand a year tuition would actually admit that their choice is not a superior one? Just think about it. If all the elite private school kids somehow turned out to be "better" than their public school peers, then they would have been some sort of super-race bred many decades ago. Hasn't turned out to be the case.

Our choice for education was a long one. We fully intended for our kid to be public educated, and did so through 2nd grade. Turns out he is gifted academically, and there was not any program in place to handle this, nor are their any incentives or mandates whatsoever to address their needs. This is actually a nation-wide problem. We look after the least of us, as we should, but we let the brightest ones "take care of themselves" because they don't need help to pass the test. I can't say that I'd do any different if I were his teacher.
Soooooo, we found a school that was better able to address his particular educational needs. Many of his friends are doing just fine at the old public school, and I'm under no illusion that mine will turn out any better at the end of it all.

All I have is my personal research in my immediate area my personal experiences to go by. I went to a mixed bag of schools as we moved a lot when I was a kid. Most of the time I was in private school until it was time to play football at a serious level. For that reason I went to public school. My brother continued to attend private. Everyone's experiences are different and every school is different regardless of being private or public.

Looking back at the type of people I went to school with and who they are now and the people my Brother hung out with and who they are now, I can tell you I can see a difference.

Fast forward 25 years, I have a new step daughter in public school. She is struggling and being swept under the carpet. Detailing this would take pages. We do some checking for the best options in our area, as any good Parent would. We elect to attend a small private school.

Over the years We keep in contact with a lot of her public school Friends mostly through sports programs. We try as Parents to have a lot of interaction with the kids, new private and old public school. Anyone with any common sense can pick out the Private vs Public school Kids when together in a group setting. It is often the topic of conversation among the Adults present.

That reason alone is enough reinforcement for me that we made the right decision. Never mind the difference in the her academic performance. The money is tough to swallow sometimes. I have two brothers with Kids that tell me all the time they wish they could afford to send their Kids to our school.

It was the best choice for us at the time. Most information "statistics" that you find is formulated by one side or the other and very skewed. Local conditions are probably different everywhere.

 

[tx1961whaler]

Re: Employers going too far?

Agreed. It was a very tough choice to leave our neighborhood school. The private school thing is actually the norm in N. Dallas. Of the kids that started in the Kindergarten class that were in my son's group, very few remain. I wish it were different.

 

[LibraLabSoldier]

Re: Employers going too far?

While I was in Iraq my wife lived and taught in Richardson, TX. Our experience there was unpleasant. I mean with the administration, not the kids.

Public vs. private is easy to tell if there is a big difference when you look at the one metric people constantly apply to claim public schools are "failing" being test scores. No real difference that cannot be accounted for with socioeconomic factors. As far as government agencies being a sucking drain on taxpayers...No one says boo about the fact that the military has become the biggest new public and private welfare system. I saw so many people in the military that joined after 9/11 when the standards were dropped that were simply taking up space and getting paycheck.

If folks were serious about tackling the bloated size of the government, the military is ripe for cutting, starting with the blood sucking parasites known as "government contractors." You could spot the guys from KBR and Haliburton easily in Iraq. They had nice new SUVs, private security, and could say one word better than anything else: NO.

Haliburton contractors put the lives of every soldier and Marine in my sector in very real danger over refusing to give me two air conditioners for my laboratory. These were not for personal comfort. First off, laboratory analyzers stop working properly around 30 degrees C.

My core lab got to 125 degrees F. during the summer of 2008. My blood bank refrigerators started failing, and I was at a very real risk of losing my blood supply. After two or three hours of frantic phone calls, getting the command involved, they still would not budge. They had hundreds of the units in a warehouse on the other side of the base.

Finally I went to a mechanic friend of mine, he got a truck, brought me back two. Later he told me they came from our hospital commander's office, since he was down in Baghdad on a butt kissing mission and would not miss them anyway.

Billions of dollars of money just "disappeared" in Iraq. If we cannot afford to pay for the post office, why can we still afford to pay the most for our oversized military? I think it is time to stop being the police force of the whole world, paying in blood and money.