18 Signs That Life In U.S. Public Schools Is Now Essentially Equivalent To Life In U.S. Prisons

reply to post by HimyNameisDan

my highschool was design by the same architects that built a prison, and it is unreal how much this school resembles one..theres maybe one window per room, with black bars that cut out about half of the sunlight, so its very dark, and the doors automatically lock at 7:34, so there's no escape unless its through the front door haha

Not even a firescape door?

reply to post by RUSSO


I have always thought it would be great to organize 'neighborhood' schools that are similar to the old one room schoolhouses; homeschool 'schools' if you will...kind of like the 'buy local' concept for food, only with children and education (: Simple and better. Parents take turns teaching or pool their money to hire a 'school marm (;' teacher.

reply to post by RUSSO


OP: The public school system in this country was created to create workers with the types of basic skills required to be effective factory workers. The public school system isn't broken. The economy is.

You link baldly states that the public schools fail to do a good job educating our students. Not true. They do every bit as good a job as they ever did despite the fact that they are now expected to educate (at tax payer expense) students who only two generations ago would have been either institutionalized at birth or simply kept at home. They are expected to engage and educate for college readiness students who have no natural gift, inclination, or ability for that type of learning.

Create a system where jobs exist for students to leave school earlier if that is what they want to do. With a real manufacturing base in place Votech becomes a true alternative, as it was only a generation ago. The great shame of our public school is that we as a society have determined that there is less intrinsic value in a child who wants to fix a car, a toilet, or a floor than in a child who wants to be a lawyer. I consider that a great loss. We raise children who have very natural skills in those areas to feel inferior. We force them through academic classes that are not suited to who they are and then we sit back, stumped, when they fail to achieve either success or happiness in their environment.

And, of course, no defense of education would be complete without recognizing that the family structure in this country is broken. It is financially advantageous for a woman to have a child out of wedlock. Then she can live with her baby daddy, and he can bring home a paycheck and the government will send another paycheck to this poor unwed mother.

That is not to say that social programs should be entirely abolished or that all who get assistance are gaming the system. But too much of my paycheck goes to those who are for me to not have certain feelings about the whole thing.

Education, under increasingly different and difficult societal pressures could create students that would be outperform those created in generations past. But the need that system was built to fill no longer exists. So, we end up creating disallusioned young men and women whose skills are not a match for our current reality.

And, I think it would be easier and more beneficial to change the environment we release them to after they have completed their studies.
As we decide to be a generation of "thinkers" the only way the current crop of students can hope to live the American Dream is to come up with an new idea on par with the internet. And then the generation after them will have to do the same. No pressure....

(I fully grant that many teachers don't belong in the classroom. Many involved, smart parents homeschool with great results.)

I learned in a recent conversation that the Public School Administrators are much to blame. The culture they seem to perpetuate is one of a police state bent on litigation risk aversion not only with the students but also with the teaching staff. I agree that teacher/educator talent/skill annual evaluations are critical to making public education better, but I have to wonder who is evaluating the work and capabilities of the school administrations; I believe if they are career educators they should be required to spend 3-5 years in a public business environment to maximize their effectiveness in an administrative decision making role

Some things I recall from this conversation with my sister, a public school first grade teacher the last 10 years.

1. At no time during her day on school grounds is she allowed to chew gum, talk on a cell phone, check email or the internet. And at no time is she allowed to communicate with parents via email because of the paper trail it creates. She might have mentioned more "can nots" I do not recall. Seems as though technological advantages have not take hold within public school systems.

2. She is not allowed to engage and participate with her class in playground activities for risk management concerns. The question I posed was, "You teach your kids how to play kickball or dodgeball right?" "No, I am not allowed to be involved with the childeren in their playground activities, was her response." Also, anytime a child gets a boo boo on the playground or in the classroom, no matter how small, she is to walk them to the schools nurse immediately for attention or face disciplinary action if she doesn't. .

3. All parent/teacher communication is to take place in a controlled environment with what sounded like an administrative intermediary in place and always scheduled 24-36 hrs in advance at a minimum. Seems to me that real time issue resolution or feedback, positive or negative, is not possible.

These were the points that stood out to me and struck me as a creating a culture in the teaching community that perpetuates fear, micro-management, of communication, and generally a sense that administrators to public education bureaucracy are ill-equipped to make it any better.

This reminds me of an incident that occured when my son was in 7th grade. Mind you he was 11 years old.

Somewhere between home and the hour ride on the bus to school, he lost his pencil. He came home with a letter informing me that he would have to report to Saturday school. I called and asked what he did and was told that he came to school unprepared and that the Saturday school was a great way to inconvenience the parent and teach them a lesson about sending their children to school unprepared! By the time I said my piece, he didn't have to do it and I can tell you he wouldn't have done it anyway!

Originally posted by michaelmcclen

To reply to filosopha, children need to interact with other children. Home schooling is not a solution, althrough i do agree with it in principle it will cause more hame than good.

Children need to interact and play with each other. and this is the reason why; this is my 2000 word essay on why children interacting with each other is necessary. yes im a psychologist and yes I spend my days writing papers.

Michael, interesting read. I agree with everything you said in your paper. BUT what you haven't taken into account is that most homeschoolers interact as much, if not more, with other children than school kids do. In addition they interact with all ages as opposed to the school system when they are restricted to their own age group.

There are countless homeschool support groups (parent organized and run) everywhere. Where I live, an area of less than a million people, there are AT LEAST 10 different support groups....many of them registered non-profits and all with hundreds of members.

We don't have a problem with finding other kids to socialize with. And the kids are not pandered over by the adults....well, except when they're doing science experiments that are on the more dangerous side. For example, often a bunch of families go camping together and almost always on the list of things to do is some type of "extensive" science experiments or survival training. We (the adults) are there leading the activities and keeping a close eye during those times but other than that the kids are off playing by themselves. And rare is the time when there's a fight amongst the kids....even though teens through toddlers all play together.

This is not a rare occurrence. Homeschoolers get together often. Every week we meet in different parks around town. The kids go off and play while the primary educator (usually the mom but in some families its the dad) sit and chat about our experiences...our successes, our challenges, ask for ideas on how others teach this or that, etc.

Homeschooling is a far cry from being isolated. There certainly are those that do operate that way but they are few and far between in this day and age. There are so many of us out there that it's almost impossible to not bump into each other even when we're not intentionally meeting up.

The actual number of home-schoolers in America is between 1.9 and 2.5 million students, says Brian D. Ray, head of the nonprofit National Home Education Research Institute. Ray culled data from private home-school organizations and co-ops to supplement statistics from state departments of education, finding that “a notable number of home-schoolers might not show up on government records.”

As Homeschooling Moves Mainstream....

Originally posted by watcher3339
Create a system where jobs exist for students to leave school earlier if that is what they want to do. With a real manufacturing base in place Votech becomes a true alternative, as it was only a generation ago. The great shame of our public school is that we as a society have determined that there is less intrinsic value in a child who wants to fix a car, a toilet, or a floor than in a child who wants to be a lawyer. I consider that a great loss. We raise children who have very natural skills in those areas to feel inferior. We force them through academic classes that are not suited to who they are and then we sit back, stumped, when they fail to achieve either success or happiness in their environment.

Could not have said it better myself.

As one of the posters above said, he crammed for exams and then promptly forgot what he'd learned. You only have to see one or two episodes of "Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?" to see that alot of what is taught in school is not often used. That doesn't mean it's not valuable information but teach a child to "memorize" and he has access to that information for a week. Teach him to "think", and to research for himself, and he has access to that information, along with anything else that interests him, for a lifetime. That alone significantly reduces his odds of becoming one of the steeple. And, IMHO, that is much more valuable than any professional that is one of the flock.

private schools are different. if they don't treat your kid like the next emperor of europe, the parents pull their kid out and the school loses thousands of dollars.

anyone with their right mind and money would send their kids to a private school.

public schools are like anything in america, if it doesn't make you money, it's useless. it's simple. the politicians don't care. it's not their kids, it's not their district, but they act like it's their money.