Leon wrote:
"J. Clarke" wrote in message
...
Leon wrote:
Totally agree with that and I attribute the failure to poor teachers
that don't give a **** and that finally led to teachers that could
not find a job any where else. Long ago when teachers could step in
as a parent and administer discipline he or she could actually teach.
We have lost teachers that actually taught for baby sitters.
Uh, you might want to actually get drunk with a few teachers sometime
before
you blame them. They have to do what they can with what they've got and
what they've got these days isn't much (and I'm not talking about the
kids,
I'm talking about the rules they are required to work under). Wanna fix
education, first shoot all the professors of education and all the school
boards.


It may differ with location but for the most part the teachers you are
describing are what we had 20 years ago, but not in Houston today. Today
they are asking "how to do" from the kids.
I know it is not their fault, the teachers, for the most part the good ones
are long since gone.
And they are gone because they no longer want to be baby sitters instead of
maintaining discipline and actually teaching. Teaching should also be
considered a part of how a child is taught to act and to respect others.
That does not happen any more.
While I agree the restrictions/cigarettes was the root of the problem. That
problem has decayed enough that we now can only get baby sitters/the cancer,
to hold positions for any length of time. Any decent new teacher typically
becomes a bad one or leaves the system. The problem is through out the
whole education system now.


The HS my son went to was an exception to the norm, that school had "good"
teachers and there was not a discipline problem. That public HS was by
invitation only. The only requirement to be invited to attend that school
was that you needed to have a "Satisfactory" average, for conduct, that's
it. If a student became a discipline problem they were warned once and the
second time transferred to one of the other HS's in the district.

When my son began at that HS the school had grades 9-12. In all four grade
levels there were only 650 students. I would estimate that in the other 3
HS's that there were in excess of 10K and that is a very conservative
estimate. Out of all of those students approximately 150 were invited each
year to attend Kerr HS.

Kerr HS taught the kids how to prepare for college every day. There was no
week off to study for the TAAS test, which is a Texas thing to judge how the
students are coming along for their grade level. His middle school took a
week every year to review for that test. IIRC the year my son graduated 95%
of the students had been accepted to a college. IIRC 87% of those students
had been awarded scholarships of $15K or more.

I'm certain that the education that my son received at Kerr HS played a very
major roll in him transitioning so smoothly into college. I recall the
10th graders mentoring the incoming 9th graders and most of them were high
achievers. Life transitioning into Kerr HS was a bigger challenge for my
son than going from that HS into college. I am also certain that Kerr HS
played a major part in my son getting into the Honors College his first year
at the university and graduating with a 4 year average GPA of 3.87.


Shhhhh! Don't let the current administration or its minions know about
that school, they'll claim it's not fair and find some way to destroy
it. Good going for your son and the parents who raised such a fine young
man, I know you're proud. I wish more school systems would separate the
wheat from the chaff. The chaff doesn't necessarily have to be thrown
away, perhaps a boot camp or two could turn it into something useful.

TDD