A has started private school at ** ******* Academy in *********.  The Sisters of Mercy!  They are nice people.  It is three blocks from our house.  No Child Left Behind is ruining our public school system, and the children in it.  My wife and I have seen the whole transition in the first five years of A’s education.  They no longer correct spelling, as they do not want kids to feel stupid, and spell check does it for you.  Right?  They give children copies of the test to take home and “practice” the day before the test.  Needless to say, A has had quite a steep learning curve.  She is working hard and catching up.  We are spending a lot of our time helping her with this.  She is 4’ 11 1/2” tall and weighs 85 lbs.  She is ten.

I do not care what anyone says about public schools and how good or progressive they are in a given area.  We were supposed to be in the best school zone in the country.  The truth is that the best is nauseating.  It is really something to listen to the other parents continually chant to themselves “This is a great school, this is a great school, we are so lucky, we are so lucky” while their children become dull and neglected as time goes by.  You see, they all bought expensive houses in an urban setting for a specific school zone, and the teachers sell the school like a brand name.  The tests scores all look good compared to those nationwide, so the parents are none the wiser.  When presented with the information, it is like seeing a quarterly report at a corporate board meeting.  The teachers only teach the test.  A did not know that were, should, could, are, is, be and many other oldies but goodies are verbs.  That is after five years of  “The Best”.  We were shocked.

At the end of A’s 4th year, the other parents had a meeting to propose that we stick together and shepherd our children through middle school.  A kind of “safety in numbers” approach, like schooling fish with sharks circling.  When E and I expressed our concern with the experience from our perspective, they acted like we had stabbed them.  We weren’t putting them down, we were just telling them what we thought of “the whole thing”.  Most of them responded with anger, like E and I were one large, imposing Judas. 

Most people react very poorly to the truth.  They do not like to hear that their expensive house and brand name school and urban lifestyle are not what they thought they had purchased. They feel helpless.  They feel monetarily overextended as it is.  They feel threatened and scared.  Maybe they were not “schooling like fish” so much as “circling the wagons”.

I know that sounds harsh, but I get a little emotional about the whole “educating children” thing.  I wonder why?

To compound this, we asked for a meeting with her principal.  At first, the principal told us that she did not meet with parents.  This is a woman we have known socially FOR YEARS!  We have herded children down the street with her on Halloween and shared mixed drinks.  Then she called and apologized.  So we met.  Her daughter is a friend of our daughter, and they shared the same class.  We asked her why they did not correct spelling.  She said that they did not want to make the kids who could not spell feel inferior.  She said that studies show that children would teach themselves as they read more and saw the words in literature.  I asked her who did these studies, and she gave me a couple of names.  I do not think that she really read the studies, because I did, and that is not what they said.  We asked why the children were not learning long division and two, three, four digit multiplication.  She said that it was a little early.  We asked her how she felt about her own child not learning to spell (I think this is a sub-category of literacy), and she said she was not going to have that conversation.  Then, as we left, she patted herself on the back and said that she does a damn fine job.  And you want to know something, SHE IS RIGHT!  She does a great job serving the dark lord.
 
The breakdown happened when A was in first grade.  “No Child Moving Forward” was passed, the principal of twenty years took an early retirement, and the school board elected a new school superintendent.  Teachers with “antiquated” ways of teacher started leaving in droves.  When we went to parent/teacher meetings, we would ask very simple questions, not pushy, not nosey, just conversation.  The basic attitude that pervades the system is, “We are the educators, you are the parents. You feed them and clothe them, and we will do the rest.  Don’t ask too many questions, because we are the professionals.”  School is not what it was when we were young, and we were young not long ago.