biting the hand that feeds you
My rant about the issues that we've been having with David's school attracted a great response. I have a few comments to make in response, and then I'll go into more detail on how the situation continues to fishtail all over the place.
I really wasn't that naive about the current state of the US public educational system. One of the most critical factors in choosing an area in which to move, live & buy the house was the quality of the school system in that area. We ended up turning out backs on one amazing property because the schools in that area were some of the worst rated in the entire state (a significant percentage of the school population didn't even speak English as their native language). I'm not sure what we could have done better in vetting the school in the area where we now live. I guess we should have actually inquired about the curriculum, and perhaps we were neglectful in that respect. Not that it constitutes a good excuse, but with the absolute mad circus that is the home buying process around here, I don't know how we would have ever found the time to go into every school anyway (not to mention that most school were already out for the summer for most of the time that we spent house hunting). We foolishly assumed that good standardized test scores were a good indicator of a good school. Now we know better that this is clearly irrelevant (and speaks volumes about what an absolute sham "No Child Left Behind" truly is). Today, someone else suggested that we just put David into a good private school. Beyond the fact that finding a good private school could be a huge challenge unto itself, they cost a fortune. The nearest private school (which happens to be 4 blocks from our house) costs over \$13k/yr. While we could have swallowed the cost prior to buying the house, we certainly can't now that we're saddled with a nearly \$4k/month mortgage.
Last Monday when we went into the school to meet with David's teacher she asked Denise point blank, whether she'd like to come into the classroom on a regular volunteer basis to help. Now it wasn't that she wasn't willing to go in and help, as much as she wasn't all that pleased with the school situation, and it felt like a waste of time. Being put on the spot, she agreed to go in for an hour every Monday. She went today, and the teacher was beyond rude. She barely acknowledged her existence, and didn't have the courtesy to even thank her for her time. Instead, she sent Denise to the supply closet to have her work with each student on their ability to spell their name. Note, this teacher asked Denise to come in. So no matter how upset she might be that we went to the principal to complain about the lacking quality of the education, she clearly needs or wants help in the classroom. Now if she can't swallow her pride, and show some professionalism (also note this teacher was bragging about how she's been teaching Kindergarten for 18 years), then she's got far more significant issues than just doing a piss poor job in educating students. Had it never occurred to her that perhaps some parents might want to volunteer because she's doing a horrible job, and they wanted to try to improve it? Apparently not.
To add yet another layer to this mess, David came home today with an assignment that was incredibly unusual from the context of all the other work he's had thus far. He was expected to learn how to read the following poem:
Star light, star bright,
first star I see tonight.
I wish I may, I wish I might,
have the wish, I wish tonight.
What makes this shocking is that its the first truly challenging assignment that David has received in the 5 weeks that he's been at school. Beyond that, its full of words that are hardly appropriate for any child who is in the initial stages of learning to read. It has many words with silent letters. It has multi-syllabic workds. David is making excellent progress (in my opinion), but the expectation that he would be ready for something this hard seems ridiculous & cruel. At any rate, Denise is going to do her best to work with David on this assignment. He actually made good progress tonight, but there's always the risk that he's just memorizing words (or the entire poem) rather than learning how to sound out the words independently of their context. What we're not clear on is whether this is some sort of punishment that is meant to prove that David cannot read, or if the teacher is just that horrible at selecting appropriate material. We're also wondering whether David was the only child who received this assignment. So is this a punishment for us? Denise plans to ask another parent tomorrow whether they received the same thing.