When does it get better?

Oh and Vrt, you seem to have all the time in the world to monitor this board. Guess too bust to get involved!!

A typical overstatement from Smartman.

"but I guess in your warped sense of reality if we dont have 30 out of 30 tomorrow we are failing" Not even close, bud. But I do expect better than what we are getting now.

"Same ole same old Vet"- you don't change much either Smartman. None of us do in our ideas and thinking, now do we? I would imagine we will always be on opposite sides of the fence on this issue.

No excuses from me. Don't need to make 'em. It's the schools and the supporters like you who keep making the excuses as to why, once again, they didn't show some progress. The supporters are the ones who seem to encourage the REPORTED stagnation within this school system. Numbers don't lie. Look at the chart at the beginning of this subject. What do you see about the Middletown system? I had nothing to do with the bottom dwelling numbers Smartman. The people in the school system, WHO ARE ACCOUNTABLE for getting the job done (that's what they're paid to do- educate) are responsible, just like I'm responsible for my little corner of the world in testing and you are responsible for whatever it is you do for a living. Do you deny the results on the chart referred in this paragraph and will you continue to make excuses, as the school people do, as to why they are like that year after year? What is the purpose of continually making excuses. Just change the dam program if the current one isn't producing improved results. Logical?

Mercy Smartman, I didn't say anything about achieving 30 out of 30 tomorrow did I? Reread the post. I said I am tired of waiting for many years with the school district stuck at 5 of 30. Would like to see some progress.....any progress toward number 6 without having to wait another 5 years or so. Is that too much to expect?

As to your comment about having ample time on this site, if you knew what kind of job I had you might understand how it worked. I do lab testing. There are times when you must wait for the test machines to test the samples. That takes time depending on the test being done. In that waiting time, I have time to check and comment on this site, then, it's back to testing. Just so you understand I don't sit by the computer all day monitoring this site on a constant basis. I arrive an hour and a half before anyone else gets here just to do what I am doing now. It's on my own time now.

As to your comment about what a great parent I am. How in the hell do you know what kind of parent I am. My "school days" parenting is long over with. My son is out working. He has a good work ethic. Doesn't call off all the time and volunteers to go in when someone doesn't show. I'd say that's a good start on a decent working attitude. Better than alot of young people have nowadays.

I would love to teach some kids to read, if that's ok with you. Please advise on the time I would have to do this as I go to work at 5:15AM, return to Middletown at 4:45PM, immediately start taking care of my wife who is wheelchair bound until we both turn in around 9 to 10PM. That leaves 10PM to 5AM to get broken interrupted sleep until I get up and do it all over again. Weekends- perhaps I would have time to read to the kids. Are they available on weekends?

Perhaps it would have been helpful to you to have understood my situation before you started your criticism of my time to volunteer. You don't have a clue what it takes to take care of a stroke victim. Or maybe you do if you've been in my situation. Don't know. Have a good day.

Narrow minded, tunnel vision, living in the past-(you need to add stubborn and not gullible to the list too) Yep, probably all of those. As opposed to swallowing all the excuses the school system uses to make believers out of the rose-colored glasses folks.

Now, did you have a chance to look at the chart at the beginning of this subject? If so, how do you explain the poor performance on this chart and the previous charts which gave the same results from years gone by?

I'll wait and be looking for the "positives going on a small scale" and the "good things that are going to start coming out of the schools". Been waiting and looking for those for 30 years. I can wait a little longer. I might not recognize the "good things" though as I am just a narrow minded, tunnel-visioned old fart living in the past to those who believe what the schools are shoveling. Help me, Smartman, and point out when the changes happen. Some of us may not be able to recognize the changes as they may be too subtle to see, or worse yet, may not be effective at all.

Oh, and one more thing- what does volunteering have to do with finding fault with the schools? Is there a requirement that if you don't volunteer, you can't speak ill of the schools? You must participate before you can criticize? We all "participate" as we send 85% of our property tax money to the schools. That alone, gives everyone a VESTED interest in saying their piece, pro and con, about the schools. If I pay, I get to complain if I wish. Fair enough, Smartman?

hesitant to jump in the middle of a Vet vs.Smartman discussion, HOWEVER:

those poor educators - everyone is an expert - myself included.

here's a little something from a former teacher, John Gatto. does his perspective resonate with any of you?

"The Six Lesson School Teacher

The first lesson I teach is: "Stay in the class where you belong." I don't know who decides that my kids belong there but that's not my business. The children are numbered so that if any get away they can be returned to the right class.

The second lesson I teach kids is to turn on and off like a light switch. I demand that they become totally involved in my lessons, jumping up and down in their seats with anticipation, competing vigorously with each other for my favor. But when the bell rings I insist that they drop the work at once and proceed quickly to the next work station. Nothing important is ever finished in my class, nor in any other class I know of.

The third lesson I teach you is to surrender your will to a predestined chain of command. Rights may be granted or withheld, by authority, without appeal. As a schoolteacher I intervene in many personal decisions, issuing a Pass for those I deem legitimate, or initiating a disciplinary confrontation for behavior that threatens my control. My judgments come thick and fast, because individuality is trying constantly to assert itself in my classroom. Individuality is a curse to all systems of classification, a contradiction of class theory.

The fourth lesson I teach is that only I determine what curriculum you will study. (Rather, I enforce decisions transmitted by the people who pay me). This power lets me separate good kids from bad kids instantly. Good kids do the tasks I appoint with a minimum of conflict and a decent show of enthusiasm. Of the millions of things of value to learn, I decide what few we have time for. The choices are mine. Curiosity has no important place in my work, only conformity.

In lesson five I teach that your self-respect should depend on an observer's measure of your worth. My kids are constantly evaluated and judged. A monthly report, impressive in its precision, is sent into students' homes to spread approval or to mark exactly -- down to a single percentage point -- how dissatisfied with their children parents should be.

In lesson six I teach children that they are being watched. I keep each student under constant surveillance and so do my colleagues. There are no private spaces for children; there is no private time. Class change lasts 300 seconds to keep promiscuous fraternization at low levels. Students are encouraged to tattle on each other, even to tattle on their parents. Of course I encourage parents to file their own child's waywardness, too.

I assign "homework" so that this surveillance extends into the household, where students might otherwise use the time to learn something unauthorized, perhaps from a father or mother, or by apprenticing to some wiser person in the neighborhood.

The lesson of constant surveillance is that no one can be trusted, that privacy is not legitimate. Surveillance is an ancient urgency among certain influential thinkers; it was a central prescription set down by Calvin in the Institutes, by Plato in the Republic, by Hobbes, by Comte, by Francis Bacon. All these childless men discovered the same thing: Children must be closely watched if you want to keep a society under central control."