Comments on: You Have Kids, Right?

By: gunky

gunky — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 00:33:22 +0000

i taught elementary school for ten years and hailed my first pregnancy as my ticket out. i had enough of raising my student’s reading levels by two years’ worth in ten months and of still being told i was a bad teacher because they were exiting below grade level. BUT LOOK WHAT THEY LEARNED!
anyway. i can’t stand it. if mccain wins i am moving to canada.

gunkys last blog post..aloha

By: aly

aly — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 05:44:23 +0000

a-fucking-men.

especially given all the discussions we had at FOR, it is so frustrating to hear people who have NO IDEA WHAT GOES ON IN EDUCATION declare what is wrong with it, and then propose “solutions” that will continue to disintegrate our schools and children.

i hate that i teach in a trailer where my classroom used to be an office, and therefore can barely fit my 15 kids on a site completely inaccessible to families, while schools in neighboring districts with money are building new performing arts centers because their old one isn’t “aesthetically up-to-date.” mother effer are you serious!?

ps- at least your governor hasn’t chosen to punish the state employees for legislators not passing a budget. if he had an ounce of sense he’d withhold THEIR paychecks and pay the rest of the state a living wage instead of putting one more family out of a house because they were barely making their mortgage as it was. just give me the nyquil is the point.

By: Gwen

Gwen — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 16:12:19 +0000

When politicians start talking about education, I stop listening because they never seem to know what they’re talking about.

My biggest issue is with the inequities in funding schools, but I think that’s been pretty well covered here already.

Gwens last blog post..Heart Throb

By: lylah ledner

lylah ledner — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 14:58:27 +0000

Hi Mocha Momma…LOVE this blog! I can tell we’re going to get along JUST marvelous!!! Cupcakes and all…:-) thanks for the HELLO on the lylah blog….yup…having 5 grandkiddos…i’m asked, “nana, can we make cupcakes?” can’t refuse!

blessings…lylah

By: Pam

Pam — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 14:39:22 +0000

>I wish I would have made my point clearer so I will just say it here: my title implied that we are all responsible, whether the children belong to our personal families or not. Any child left behind belongs to us all.

Thank you Mocha!

By: Mocha Momma

Mocha Momma — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 03:29:32 +0000

Ok. I’ll run for prez in 8 years after my man Barack is done in Washington. Buttons will be forthcoming…

So, when my sister comments on my blog I’m compelled, by Law, to answer. Otherwise, we won’t be sharing shoes and need I discuss their importance again?

Honestly, I hadn’t heard he was encouraging folks to do that, but now that I have I’m mildly impressed. The principle of the issue is to be taken seriously – shine a light on the inequities of education. People should be ashamed that the amount of money going to schools like New Trier (remember when we used to visit that school in high school? I was SHOCKED to see all that they had!) leaves children behind. The disparities should be lined up next to the NCLB statistical data and we should ALL be forced to account for it.

Side note: where I live we can’t tax property for state offices and buildings. That accounts for an enormous amount of land here. Our school gets NONE of it. Why is it, again, that Governor Blagojevic won’t live here and put his children in our schools?

Yeah, now I know.

Loralee, it will just add to the clusterfuck of NCLB and perpetuate all that was wrong with it in the first place.

KBO – I can’t wait to read what you have to say because I have the same questions about what’s force fed to educators. Ruby Payne had some interesting points, but that’s not all their is – she is missing some BIG pieces in her work on poverty.

Ellen Gerstein – This might take another entire post. No kidding. Let me get to working on that.

I wish I would have made my point clearer so I will just say it here: my title implied that we are all responsible, whether the children belong to our personal families or not. Any child left behind belongs to us all.

By: tracey

tracey — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 01:56:37 +0000

I agree with Elizabeth!! MOCHA for president. It is a bunch of McShit. Education was never and CAN NEVER be a one size fits all. Not unless you start cloning the “good students” The ones that have the potential they need to reach to make us a more superior society.

By: Amy in StL

Amy in StL — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 19:30:55 +0000

Okay, I don’t have kids AND I’m not an educator. So I thought the plan sounded pretty good. But I guess that’s what we’re supposed to think, huh? I do agree that our school system is broken and I do think that local educators should be given the empowerment to make the changes that need to be done to fix their school. I wish there was a simple fix, but having virtual classrooms available for kids who don’t have internet access 24/7 isn’t probably helping, huh?

By: TrayDay

TrayDay — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 19:03:03 +0000

Hi Sister,
I would be curious to know what you think about Rev James Meeks’ asking parents of Chicago Public School students to take their children up to White People Land on the North Shore on the first day of school to try and enroll their children in schools like New Trier and other astonomically-funded, make-people-of-color-question-their-own-human-worth-and-potential kinda schools.

While I realize that the state “loses money with every absent child” as they say, and the children are missing out on school (even though they don’t do shit on the first day), I find it hard to criticize someone (even though I don’t like Meeks) for doing SOMETHING?!? Giving a semblance of a damn?

But really, curious to know how an educator feels about it…HOLLER!

By: Swistle

Swistle — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 18:34:08 +0000

It is such a weird, weird set-up that we give decision-making power to people who have absolutely no connection to what they're making decisions about. Swistles last blog post..Distractions