General discussion - Mom and Dad Esq.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally posted by viet_mom
All the postings on here about "good schools" makes me wonder how I should evaluate a school.

Subjectively is my answer.

The problem with most of the objective tests is they are manipulated - whether by "teaching to the test" in public schools or by selective admissions in private schools. Indeed, I've watched teaching to the test really do a job on our local public school.

So, we've always taken time to try to get a sense of whether the school has a coherent educational philosophy and approach (I'll take almost any kind of methodical and careful teaching over a lack of philiosophy), whether teachers are excited and invigorated, whether students seem to be creative and engaged or just showing up for a day at work.

And, most schools run a broad spectrum, with different teachers having different levels of capability and different strengths.

I think assessing a school is a very local thing - you've got to rely on people you talk to more than anything in writing or any kind of research.

[pony_trekker]

Originally posted by tmdiva
Anyone have personal experience with this issue, either for yourself or with your kids?

tm

I skipped a year which meant I started college @ 16. Bad move. Was not emotionally ready and suffered greatly.

[viet_mom]

I would think it would be tough for guys. As it is, most girls mature quicker than boys at least physically. I was pretty much matured by 9th grade and didn't date guys unless they were at least Juniors or Seniors because the 9th grade boys all looked so young.

FWIW my Dad skipped grades and ended up getting married right after after HS graduation which meant he had to elope with Mom to a state in the South that allowed kiddies to marry. Mom was 4 years older so I think technically she could have been arrested for crossing state lines with a minor for indecent purposes. (NTTAWWT, at least in their case) Heck, she had to drive b/c he had no license. Well, it all worked for him because he always looked older and played sports with kids in his grade. But I would feel really bad for the male who is in 9th grade but looks like a seventh grader. That can't be fun.

[Atticus Grinch]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
We had a lawclerk awhile back from a very wealthy HS. He told me in his high school there was a graduating class of about 300. about 10 didn't go to college. The kid was a train wreck. He had no sense of work ethic.

If you had just put a good word in for me at my review, I might still be posting on the FB during daylight hours. Penny wise, pound foolish, as usual.

[Atticus Grinch]

Originally posted by Flinty_McFlint
I can't always say the same of my private-schooled friends, who all seem to have varying degrees of difficulty relating to people not like them, or the opposite sex.

Sometimes people here lie about their gender. This makes forming lasting relationships iffy.

[Atticus Grinch]

Originally posted by viet_mom
I liked the atmosphere not because of religion but because if a kid did something wrong/mean, they would be told how the act hurt the feelings of another child, etc. as a reason it shouldn't be done (yeah, I know -- a variation of "Catholic Guilt"), whereas at the public school (which I went to briefly) a child would simply be slapped with a detension with no further discussion/action even though the child just sent a girl home in tears after calling her dead mother a whore. (Nice, huh?)

Concur. Best reason for Catholic school is that they will discipline your child and they won't apologize for it. My parents were more liberal than my school, but secretly they liked that the school wasn't afraid to kick my ass to the curb. The possibility that I would shame myself and my parents and lose all my friends by getting expelled was a serious motivator. The school had no obligation to give me a place to spend the day.

If you can possibly afford it for middle school or high school, send your kid to a school that can kick bad kids out --- charter, private, whatever. It might be your kid who deserves the boot, but it makes for a better environment. Public school's biggest (and in some areas, only) drawback is that kids have rights, some of them constitutional. This puts some administrators on eggshells, which some kids and parents exploit.

However, I concur with Hank about economic diversity.

[viet_mom]

Originally posted by Atticus Grinch
Concur. Best reason for Catholic school is that they will discipline your child and they won't apologize for it. My parents were more liberal than my school, but secretly they liked that the school wasn't afraid to kick my ass to the curb. The possibility that I would shame myself and my parents and lose all my friends by getting expelled was a serious motivator. The school had no obligation to give me a place to spend the day.

If you can possibly afford it for middle school or high school, send your kid to a school that can kick bad kids out --- charter, private, whatever. It might be your kid who deserves the boot, but it makes for a better environment. Public school's biggest (and in some areas, only) drawback is that kids have rights, some of them constitutional. This puts some administrators on eggshells, which some kids and parents exploit.

However, I concur with Hank about economic diversity.

Well that is a good argument for private/Catholic school. What grade do you all consider "middle" school? Around here it is 6, 7 and 8th grade. As for economic diversity, the Catholic school here would have kids from basically two towns (one mine) and neither are wealthy by any stretch. Mostly blue collar. And somewhat ethnically mixed.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Atticus Grinch
If you had just put a good word in for me at my review, I might still be posting on the FB during daylight hours. Penny wise, pound foolish, as usual.

Dude, you know I was on the fence on that one, and besides that was right after I accidently threw away all those client documents. Do you think my subjective opinion that you seemed bright would have went far back en?

By the way, remember that analogy between the destruction of Sodom and Gommorah and the need for sanctions that you worked into the draft motion to compel in the KMart lawsuit? You know: Rules are clear-they have been ignored- punishment must be sure....

Ole' man Harness finally did use it, first he took out the part where you equated hiding documents, to putting other stuff where God didn't want it put, but otherwise it was used intact.

Hi all. I was just put on strattera for ADD/ADHD. I'm wondering if any of your children have been placed on it and how it's going for them?

[dtb]

Originally posted by Atticus Grinch
If you can possibly afford it for middle school or high school, send your kid to a school that can kick bad kids out --- charter, private, whatever.

And this, my friends, is the reason many public schools have the problems they do. They are forced to deal with disruptive trouble-makers. (Of which my son was one -- in preschool anyway -- so far, kindergarten has been a smashing success -- all 7 days of it!)

Originally posted by tmdiva
Anyone else read the article in the latest Time magazine about grade skipping? Anyone have personal experience with this issue, either for yourself or with your kids?

Not with grade skipping, but I started school a year early and was a full year younger than many in my class. I still did well, but was more immature than the other kids and since I was a painfully shy child, an extra year would not have hurt at all. The Lexling will be one of the oldest in his class and we are OK with that. Me for social and academic reasons and Mr. Lex for, um, football reasons.

Originally posted by dtb
And this, my friends, is the reason many public schools have the problems they do. They are forced to deal with disruptive trouble-makers. (Of which my son was one -- in preschool anyway -- so far, kindergarten has been a smashing success -- all 7 days of it!)

That's why my kids won't be going to public schools in Dallas (elementary is "recognized" and falling, middle and HS are "acceptable" by state ratings). They're also violent, and the local middle school had a kid stabbed to death in the door of the school last spring.

We live within 2-3 miles of most of the major private schools, and they're all damned expensive. We've already started the "mother's day out" affiliated with one of them, to give us a leg up on admissions. I literally don't know any other lawyer in Dallas ISD that has their kids in public school.

I'm a product of an economically/racially diverse public school system, in the DFW area, but it seems like that was a different time. I wouldn't feel safe at all putting my kids in the local public schools.

[Flinty_McFlint]

quote:
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Originally posted by Flinty_McFlint
I can't always say the same of my private-schooled friends, who all seem to have varying degrees of difficulty relating to people not like them, or the opposite sex.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Originally posted by Atticus Grinch
Sometimes people here lie about their gender. This makes forming lasting relationships iffy.

Dude, I didn't mean you. Mea culpa. You are totally well-adjusted, even though you went to Spence. Best friends again?

[lookingformarket]

Originally posted by Anon Parent
Hi all. I was just put on strattera for ADD/ADHD. I'm wondering if any of your children have been placed on it and how it's going for them?

I assume that it has different effects on adults than on children, so I doubt that its effect on someone's children would correlate.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by dtb
my son was one -- in preschool anyway

Have you checked to make sure his underwear are supportive enough?