Has anyone here given up on public education in the past few years?

[sergio]

The recent trend in middle/high public schools around here has been to slowly eliminate honors courses, switch from A-F grading to more of a pass/fail system, setting minimum grades of 50%, and substantially reduce the numbers of students suspended or expelled for major discipline issues. And these are districts that were considered 'very good' historically.

The basis of this is supposedly to reduce the unequal performance among the different groups. I get the feeling that they are equalizing performance by reigning in the high-performers, which I cannot accept for my kids. I don't know what changed in the past 5-10 year since I got out of school.

We have a very high-performing 7th grader who we've always homeschooled in addition to her going to public school - lots of extra math, field trips, educational YouTube videos, weekend science experiments etc. I'm worried she is going to lose motivation. In the real world, you don't get 50% pay for 0% work. And your boss will definitely notice the difference between a C+ and an A+ effort.

We're unfortunately having to look into private and charter high schools, which is a PITA both due to cost and commute issues. But if that's what it takes, we'll do it.

Has anyone else noticed similar trends? What other strategies are there than I may be overlooking? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

[rk911]

The recent trend in middle/high public schools around here has been to slowly eliminate honors courses, switch from A-F grading to more of a pass/fail system, setting minimum grades of 50%, and substantially reduce the numbers of students suspended or expelled for major discipline issues. And these are districts that were considered 'very good' historically.

The basis of this is supposedly to reduce the unequal performance among the different groups. I get the feeling that they are equalizing performance by reigning in the high-performers, which I cannot accept for my kids. I don't know what changed in the past 5-10 year since I got out of school.

We have a very high-performing 7th grader who we've always homeschooled in addition to her going to public school - lots of extra math, field trips, educational YouTube videos, weekend science experiments etc. I'm worried she is going to lose motivation. In the real world, you don't get 50% pay for 0% work. And your boss will definitely notice the difference between a C+ and an A+ effort.

We're unfortunately having to look into private and charter high schools, which is a PITA both due to cost and commute issues. But if that's what it takes, we'll do it.

Has anyone else noticed similar trends? What other strategies are there than I may be overlooking? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

we don't have kids but if we did have school aged at this point in time we would definitely not use the government schools. we would either enroll him or her in a private, possibly, religious based school or consider home-schooling. we still respect most, not all, teachers but not the...persons...running them.

 

[njhowie]

I went through this 40 years ago personally. My high school was ill equipped for high performers. The school offered no AP, no honors, etc. We fought with the administration to get AP Calculus ... as an extra curricula activity after school 3 days a week. Starting in 10th grade I was enrolling in one course a semester, and during the summers at the local community college. For senior year, since my high school had nothing, I was offered a full schedule of shop classes. We investigated going to the public high school next district over from ours, which offered a full slate of AP. However, we would have had to pay a good amount of money to do it. In the end, I graduated at the end of 11th grade and just went away to college.

With the way everything has been moving online, there is an enormous amount available. You might want to investigate possibly enrolling your daughter in an online course through your local community college as the tuition for residents is generally quite low. This may help keep her engaged, and even push her a little. Sure, 7th grade is early for taking college courses. However, there are plenty of courses which high school students could do just fine in. She could take something that interests her that isn't available in her school. What's more, if she does get motivated and takes a liking to it, she could obtain her Associates degree at the same time she graduates from high school. Not that it's any kind of end point, but it would certainly be a benefit when applying to a 4-year college, having demonstrated she can handle college level work. There's also a good possibility that a fair amount of the coursework (certainly the general ed courses) could transfer and cut the amount of time to get the Bachelors degree. This is the route I took. When I set foot on campus at the 4-year university, I had 32 credits transfer in, and it enabled me to get my BS in just 2 years.

For our daughter, she was enrolled in the private school from Pre-K3 through 6th grade. We weren't happy with what was taking place at the school, and so we pulled her out, and DW home schooled her from that point on through high school. DW refused to send her to our public school. Since then, she's been doing well working on her Bachelors degree in a "go at your own pace" distance program (started well before Covid happened) through one of the Ivy League schools. She's taking the slow route and making good progress as she's working professionally at the same time.

 

[Keim]

Schools are so localized that its impossible to make a blanket statement. The public schools are very good in my area. They score about as well on the assessments as the private schools do.

A few years ago they tried ditching grades, etc as you seem to be describing. After implementation they found it didnt work and reversed course.

Home schooling is a very popular option here. Resources for it are plentiful.

 

[RobbieB]

Public schools are good here.

Step son on PhD program at MIT and step daughter getting BS at UCLA early.

Both from public high school here.

 

[Gumby]

I went to just about the worst high school one could imagine. No parent who had any real choice would send their kid there. There were no such things as AP classes, nor any electives. In fact, the school was so laughably easy that you could graduate in three years if you were willing to skip study hall. There were so few students who had any prospect of going to college that they did not offer the SAT or ACT test at my school. If you wanted to take it, you had to first find out about it on your own, figure out how to sign up on your own, and then get transportation to another town to take it. Of course, there was no college counseling; the only time students ever spoke to a guidance counselor was either to learn how to access social services or to be told that their probation officer had called to find out why they didn't show up again. It was a violent and chaotic place, reflecting the broken and dysfunctional home lives experienced by the students and their extremely poor families. And yet, in the middle of that swamp, I was still able to get an education - one good enough to get me into and through the US Naval Academy, one of the most competitive colleges in the country. I educated myself quite a bit by reading voraciously, but things like algebra are best learned with a teacher, and I did. Importantly, I also stayed out of trouble, because I saw exactly what happened to people with a criminal record and I wanted to get out.

In case you want to know what school that was, this is it https://www.greatschools.org/illino...e_students*College_readiness*Graduation_rates It has not changed in the past 45 years.

That said, the vast majority of public high schools are substantially better than the one I attended and will serve your daughter much better. Especially if you have a supportive home life for your daughter, with plenty of educational enrichment and parental attention, she will be fine, regardless of what the rest of the school is like with respect to their academic standards or lack thereof. There still will be competent teachers at school who can help her learn if she is the least bit attentive to them. So, I say don't give up on public education.

 

[kgtest]

The recent trend in middle/high public schools around here has been to slowly eliminate honors courses, switch from A-F grading to more of a pass/fail system, setting minimum grades of 50%, and substantially reduce the numbers of students suspended or expelled for major discipline issues. And these are districts that were considered 'very good' historically.

The basis of this is supposedly to reduce the unequal performance among the different groups. I get the feeling that they are equalizing performance by reigning in the high-performers, which I cannot accept for my kids. I don't know what changed in the past 5-10 year since I got out of school.

We have a very high-performing 7th grader who we've always homeschooled in addition to her going to public school - lots of extra math, field trips, educational YouTube videos, weekend science experiments etc. I'm worried she is going to lose motivation. In the real world, you don't get 50% pay for 0% work. And your boss will definitely notice the difference between a C+ and an A+ effort.

We're unfortunately having to look into private and charter high schools, which is a PITA both due to cost and commute issues. But if that's what it takes, we'll do it.

Has anyone else noticed similar trends? What other strategies are there than I may be overlooking? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

I have co-workers who float by as well and put in about 50%. Not so much at my most recent engagement, but at a few of my past "jobs" it seemed I was always the hardest worker in the room. I was terrible when it came to highschool. I did alright until I became distracted end of Junior into Sr year and just became disengaged. I think if you keep up the outside curriculum and keep your student motivated and engaged they will do just fine in life. Make sure they have a strong peer group of kids that are also high achievers and that they keep busy with competitive activities. YMMV. Too many kids sitting around gaming chat rooms watching ridiculously uneducational YouTube videos these days. My nieces and nephews don't have an interest in dating at 16, 17 and 18. I remember as soon as I got my license I was taking girls on dates. Social interaction is key.

 

[kgtest]

Oh, have you considered moving into a district that has better curriculum and results for high performers? That would eliminate the commute part of the problem. Cost will always be an issue, you get what you give and those that are financially able should/could have better performing students if they effectively manage the resources.

 

[Sanstar]

Thirty years ago the middle school teacher of our eldest with 20+ years in the field told us if we could afford private school our kids should go there. All three of our kids did public elementary then private, college prep to HS graduation. All graduated college, West Point, post grad and law school.

We are funding private school for grandkids, starting with pre-K. Money well spent IMHO.

 

[sergio]

Oh, have you considered moving into a district that has better curriculum and results for high performers? That would eliminate the commute part of the problem. Cost will always be an issue, you get what you give and those that are financially able should/could have better performing students if they effectively manage the resources.

We have considered it but we are at risk of the new district changing as well, and only have a more expensive home to deal with.

We do tons of extra fun activities at home that are also educational. Last year, she was put in a math class one grade-level above (e.g. taking 7th grade math in 6th grade). Now she's in a new "consolidated detracked" 7th grade class which has "optional advanced topics" but far more distractions and glue sniffers to deal with. Worst of all is the new grading scale puts exam scores of 65-95% in the "Proficient Category" (3/4). You can imagine how frustrated she was when her 94% became a 3/4 on one of her exams and the teacher was boasting about how "no one got a 4/4".

The school basically puts everyone in a 3/4 and now claims that everyone is doing equally well. I don't understand this logic

 

[Gumby]

....
The school basically puts everyone in a 3/4 and now claims that everyone is doing equally well. I don't understand this logic

How many times do we hear people say on this board that you should not measure your FIRE progress against other people? You should do the best you can do and ignore how everyone else is doing. The same holds true in school. Your daughter should learn the most she can and do the best she can. That will cement a solid future for her. The fact that she and everyone else is rated 3/4 on whatever scale is used is largely irrelevant.

 

[38Chevy454]

I feel sorry for parents who have to deal with the public school bureaucracy. No longer do schools teach. It is focus on indoctrinating in all things not related to the three Rs. Dumbing down to equalize test scores is not the way to improve education.
For sure if you can send your kid to private school it will be better than public school. While better performing public school programs may have the AP and advanced level classes, you still need to deal with the indoctrination problem.
I was in high school before the AP stuff existed at least in my school district in public school. They did have advanced classes in most of the traditional subjects. I did have to take calculus at local junior college, with several other advanced math kids when we were seniors. We went to evening calculus, and received real college credit.
Kind of a funny thing, most of my friends outside of school classes were all non college prep, and they didn't go on to college after HS graduation. I was only one in that social group. For sure I was the only kid in calculus that also was in advanced auto shop class.

 

[Gumby]

..
For sure if you can send your kid to private school it will be better than public school. ..

Please explain why that is necessarily true. Proof would be good.

 

[ProspectiveBum]

Our local public schools are excellent, and an overwhelming majority of students at my kids’ high school go on to college (~98%). While many parents shop neighborhoods for good schools, we weren’t planning to have any kids when we bought our home. Turns out that nice neighborhoods often have good schools, and we got lucky in that regard.

 

[sergio]

How many times do we hear people say on this board that you should not measure your FIRE progress against other people? You should do the best you can do and ignore how everyone else is doing. The same holds true in school. Your daughter should learn the most she can and do the best she can. That will cement a solid future for her. The fact that she and everyone else is rated 3/4 on whatever scale is used is largely irrelevant.

I agree in theory, but colleges DO care about grades, tests scores, and how everyone ranks against one another. Obviously we don't expect perfection but I do think that giving props to good work is motivational

 

[1242Vintage]

… in addition to her going to public school - lots of extra math, field trips, educational YouTube videos, weekend science experiments etc.

This is exactly what we did with our kids. Augmented their local public grammar and high school education with tons of extra academic, social, art, and of course a heavy dose of science and math enriching experiences.

Back then I was traveling for work and wife and three kids would come with me often. This started at an early age and into high school. While I was at some remote field office working away, wife and kids would hit a science and technology museum, zoo, art festivals, or whatever that city had to offer.

I was involved in large construction projects so on our trips I would always try to get them into some behind the scenes tour of a large tunnel, bridge, or rail job under construction.

It worked. Kids are now in their 20s and all went into STEM careers; nurse, physicist and Engineer.

 

[Gumby]

I agree in theory, but colleges DO care about grades, tests scores, and how everyone ranks against one another. Obviously we don't expect perfection but I do think that giving props to good work is motivational

I would expect that SAT scores and teacher recommendations will help an intelligent girl like your daughter stand out from the rest of the 3/4 crowd.

As for the motivational aspect, let me share a brief story. When I attended the Naval Academy, I studied French (among many other things) and I happened to be exceptionally good at it. And yet, my French professor, an actual French commando named Commandant Baudin, periodically would call me up and yell at me (in French) about my lack of effort in class. "But Commandant," I would say, "I am your best student; I have the best grade in your class." "Yes," he would reply, "but you can do better, and you should". He was right. I could have done better. But I was content to be the best among those with whom I was competing. All the A's convinced me that I need not do more.

 

[Bamaman]

We live in a state that has slipped to #50 in public school scholastics. But my county's public schools and teachers are very solid in instruction and curriculum. Excluding the pandemic months where learning was online with Google's programs, our schools have been scholastically good.

Our 10 year old granddaughter went to an excellent private school her first 4 years, and she remains a straight A student after we moved here. But she has difficulties with students of lesser economic status when she rode the bus. And it seems every class of 18 will have 3-4 such students that are just a little rough socially and they're typically difficult to deal with.

She'll be switching to a larger school next year when she goes to junior high school. It's a highly ranked school, but we're trying now to prepare her for the unknown. Private schools run about $12K a year here, but we'll have the RMD $ to send her if required.

I was reading last week about our state's public schools with very low income students that have overcome dismal reading and math scores. My hats off to the schools and teachers that have made such a positive impact. But it still seems that the very, very low quality schools in Alabama (and other Southern states) are in agricultural communities, few factories and historically very high unemployment. It seems that incomes and quality schools often are correlated.

We live in the Rocket City, and a huge base of PhD's, engineers, mathematicians demand better than normal public schools. And that comes from a community with a very solid family values.

We have close friend with a high achieving daughter. (The father was a PhD in Chemistry.) They ended up sending the daughter to the state's math and science high school--a boarding school.

If someone has such a daughter/son, home schooling is not best because the parent is often not well enough educated to get the best out the child. They seem to do best in a very demanding, and unfortunately expensive, private school.

 

[Lewis Clark]

Are dual enrollment programs available in your area? Dual enrollment allows high school students to take classes through a local community college instead of through the high school, and earn credit at both the high school and the college for those classes. These programs can allow motivated students to graduate high school and have enough college credits for an associates degree.

In Florida we have the Florida Virtual School (www.flvs.net/), which allows K-12 students to take online classes as an alternative to the local schools. If a similar program is available in your area it might be worth investigating.

 

[big-papa]

As somebody already noted, the school situations are local. Even for private schools.

Our daughter started out at a private school in Kindergarten and stayed with it through 4th grade. Her teachers and administration were wonderful. When she started, it went through 8th grade but as she progressed through it, they dropped middle school and started combining grades in classes. We pulled her out and switched her to a different private school for 5th & 6th grades. The new private school was a little larger, but the kids had all been together since kindergarten so there were cliques that had already formed and there was some bullying. Teacher quality as well as the administration were very mixed.

We pulled her out and for 7th and 8th grades, she attended a public magnet school for higher achieving students in our district and did well. She opted not to go further with the high school level magnet school and attended our neighborhood high school instead. She took AP classes, had a decent GPA and did very well on the SAT and ACT. Junior in college now at a public university in our state, with a decent scholarship.

Why did we send her to private schools in the first place? I had the naive generalization that the kids in private school would be more likely to actually want to be in school vs. kids in public school. This was based on my own personal experience. It wasn't necessarily the case, in the end.

What would we have done if we had a do-over? I would have sent her to our neighborhood elementary school to start and then either the neighborhood middle school or the magnet school she actually did attend. Same for high school. But you don't really get a do-over.

To the OP: My advice would be to ignore all of the generalizations & broad statements you're getting about public vs. private schools. Heck, ignore my story above because yours won't be the same. You're going to have to put in the legwork to find out about the local public and private schools before you can make a good decision and it's going to involve more than asking strangers on the internet or even googling about individual schools. Set up meetings with the administrators, find some parents with both good and bad experiences. Depending on your kids, perhaps consider alternatives such as online campuses, which are available in my state from both school districts and several universities. It wasn't fully developed when my daughter was in school but I believe that if it were, this would have been an option for her as well. And realize that at any school, the quality can change when administrations change so whatever you think you know about a school may no longer be valid by the time your kid starts there.

 

[mystang52]

38 years ago when our daughter was in kindergarten we made the decision to move 50 miles away to get to a better school system. That first year after the move we were a bit miserable, having moved from an exurban to more traditional suburban area. We got to like, and shortly love, our new residential area. But we sure did the right thing for daughter and her younger brother.
It's a tough decision to move, but based on OP's description I think the choices are either moving or private school.

ETA: when we moved, it was to an area where housing costs were higher, so that first year was a tough financial struggle. But as noted above it was worth it.

 

[pjigar]

The recent trend in middle/high public schools around here has been to slowly eliminate honors courses, switch from A-F grading to more of a pass/fail system, setting minimum grades of 50%, and substantially reduce the numbers of students suspended or expelled for major discipline issues. And these are districts that were considered 'very good' historically. ….

Has anyone else noticed similar trends? What other strategies are there than I may be overlooking? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

My observation is that good schools tend to move like a wave around the suburban area of a large metro. Best schools are where houses are 10-20 years old. This actually makes sense because good students make good schools. Rural schools are always hit or miss and tend to not change significantly over time.

So you either pony up the private school fees or move to an area with the good schools. By the way, charter schools are also hit or miss because their charter may not be what you want.

 

[AZ2020]

We gave up on public school for our daughter when she was in 5th grade. She was in an advanced class and the teacher could not keep up with the students. Just when she needed a better school, BASIS Charter School opened a campus very near our house. She started in 6th grade and never looked back.

She is now in college and says that BASIS was harder, and that the expectations at BASIS were higher. She is getting good grades so it looks like it worked for her.

 

[Badger]

we don't have kids but if we did have school aged at this point in time we would definitely not use the government schools. we would either enroll him or her in a private, possibly, religious based school or consider home-schooling. we still respect most, not all, teachers but not the...persons...running them.

My father was career military so during my school years I went to schools on military installations, Parochial schools, and public schools. Later I taught for 30 years in Parochial schools, public schools and later as a college professor. My wife also taught in Parochial schools, and public schools. In every case in 17 schools at different academic levels the problems with the system were due to the decisions made by administration from the Federal, State, and local levels. As long as this continues the system will be broken. The great majority of those people who make decisions about academia do not have experience in the classroom. The private schools are usually an improvement mostly because parents take an interest in the school selection and the progress of their children. However, there have also been an inordinate amount of problems with many Charter schools.
There are very few teachers that are not interested in your child's progress. Few would put up with the lack of support, be hamstrung by non-educational demands, and have to deal with irate parents for such low pay. They would not have studied to be effective teachers if they didn't care about the education of children.


Cheers!

 

[folivier]

Both of my kids went to and finished at a Catholic private school. Both earned full scholarships, oldest finished 1 class short of a college honors degree but with 2 degrees in 4 years. Youngest had a scholarship that paid for a 5 year degree. The money that I paid for their private school was less than what college would have cost. They both entered college with strong study skills which helped them tremendously. Every day I'd see them come home from school with a full backpack of books and spend an hour or two on homework before they'd get to play. I'd see public school kids get off the bus with NO books. That private school (which our 2 granddaughters are now at the elementary school there) have teachers that care and really push the kids.
My story: I went to a Catholic school until 8th grade then switched to public school. My grades went from a solid B to straight A's. And I didn't have to open a book to get A's. But that really hurt me when I went to college since I had lost my study habits.
Schools should not only teach kids but prepare them for life. IMO some public schools are failing in both.