Marlowe Chapters 9 and 11

Marlowe page 92

“Worse yet, it turns them into “containers,” into “receptacles” to be “filled” by the teachers.”

The “them” Marlowe is referring to is the students in a classroom.  He is referring to the information we are teaching our students and how we are teaching it to them.  Instead of helping the students to learn and understand concepts, we lecture our students so that they can memorize and recite it back whenever we ask them to do so.  He compares teaching to a banking industry, again showing how much our education system is being run by and run like the world of business.  In this banking educational system, the teacher is the actor and the children are the audience, having little to no interaction with the learning process other than to sit in a desk and listen to a teacher all day.  How is it that a student can actually be expected to retain any information in this learning environment?  The classroom, in this case, is not a comfortable environment, it does not allow children to interact with the learning process, and it does not foster any creativity or interest in the students.  Many classrooms today look more and more like this because of NCLB and RTTT, which force our education systems to focus on test scores.  Why are we moving from a society that holds precious the idea of creativity and individuality, toward a society that is producing an army of robot children who are all stopped from thinking this way?

Marlowe page 94

“They may discover through existential experience that their present way of life is irreconcilable with their vocation to become fully human.”

At some point, hopefully, students will come to the realization that they are being raised to act and learn like robots, all the same way.  This learning requires no thinking or personal growth.  Hopefully, if a person realizes how to think on their own (although they are taught to do the opposite), then they should realize what is going on and act against it.  As humans, like Marlowe states, it is natural for us to think and process what is going on in our lives.  The more we are taught to not do this, the less we are acting like humans and the more we are disregarding our natural way of life.  At some point, the more people realize what is going on, the more they are going to rebel against it.  Eventually this will end up happening more and more because our education system is trying to go against the natural way of life, and this can only go on for so long without people catching on and refusing to let it continue to happen.  Is our government making more trouble for themselves in the long run by having our teachers teach this way or will our country continue to allow itself to be run in this controlling way? I wonder if people will ever gain the confidence they need to stand up against it.

Marlowe page 99

“Education as the practice of freedom-as opposed to education as the practice of dominion- denies that man is abstract, isolated, independent and unattached to the world; it also denies that the world exists as a reality apart from people.”

Education as the practice of freedom reminds us that as people in this world, we are connected to the world and everything in it.  Nature is a part of us, as we are a part of nature.  Teaching this way also helps to remind us that we are people of different cultures, involved in different ways of life with other people.  It forces us to be conscious of the events and happenings in our lives, and of who we are becoming as we learn and grow.  It is impossible to argue that we are not connected with the world around us, that we exist as individuals. This type of education is called problem-posing education.  It helps us to engage in creative thinking about ourselves being something that is a work in progress, always changing and forming into something new (unfinished.) This way of thinking is healthier for the students because it helps them to fight against the oppression of the current school systems by forcing them to question their existence and the purpose of it.  I wonder if our school systems will ever follow an educational model like this; one that is healthier for everyone involved and one that allows for the most individual growth, or if it will continue to oppress the citizens of this country so that we all end up following the same business-like model that is becoming our way of life. 

Marlowe page 113

 “A common form of data-students’ standardized test scores, now all the rage- provide little guidance for teachers, and are among the most useless (and harmful) pieces of data, in terms of helping teachers and future teachers, to say nothing of useless in helping students actually be successful.”

Teaching is a job that is for hard workers who have the time and will power to dedicate their entire selves to the profession.  Teachers often have their time swamped with trivial things not related to teaching and, based off of today’s trends, are not faced with an easy way to help assess how much and how well their students have learned something.  Today’s government is telling us, as a country, to have our students take standardized tests (that are the same for all of the schools in a state) and use the scores that they receive as the indicator to let us know how well are students are internalizing information and what level they are at.  Research has shown that these tests do not show any of these things, they are not indicators to how much a child knows because of the stress level and un-real situations that the children are placed in while taking them.  If these are not good indicators of how well our children are learning, what else are we supposed to do if this is what our country is telling us we have to do?  Why are these tests controlling what our standards are for teaching, shouldn’t the children who are in our classroom’s do that?  Shouldn’t we be focusing on the individual needs in our classroom and test their learning based on in-class actions?  If that’s what research shows to work (atleast better than testing does), why aren’t our laws being changed to incorporate those practices?

Marlowe page 114

“I am calling for simply naming, noting, identifying what these teachers do, teachers whose students are succeeding-academically and socially- despite unfortunate conditions in their schools and communities.”

Marlowe has several worries that he voices when speaking about great teachers voices not being heard.  First, he talks about the same mistakes being repeated in the school system because the success stories are not being told to set for good examples.  Also, he talks about how often we hear about the bad things that happen in schools, but not enough about the good things.  What kind of mood does something like that set for people involved in the education system?  When not enough good stories are told, it brings down the moral and attitudes of the teachers who enter into that setting every day, along with the students. The success stories set up a positive atmosphere and rays of hope for those who don’t have any in their current conditions.  Without these positive examples, how can the education system ever get better?  If no one says that it can, no one will ever believe that it will.  Marlowe also says that he worries about these great teaching practices becoming dormant if they are never talked about or recognized.  The few great teachers that exist today should be made examples to all of the others, not have their practices die away with time.  We learn from people who are already doing something, and if we wait too long to learn from these teachers, our chances may never come.

Marlowe page 117

“But for this to happen, we must move the definition of “qualified” back from quantity indicators (test scores, teachers’ college degrees,  number of years teaching, and other items easily tallied) and onto quality, by teaching teachers about efficacy and caring, about the ways one can empower and engage students, while allowing teachers to retain their “distinctive character.””

NCLB and RTTT are both creating an education system that has its focus on the wrong things.  Children are not numbers that can be grouped together based off of a score that they receive on a test.  Teachers cannot teach children in the way that they need to be taught if they are forced to teach a curriculum that is centered around a test.  Teachers are also not the best that they can be when faced with the tremendous amount of pressure that is put on them by the government, school boards, etc. for the children to score well. A highly qualified teacher is now seen as one who can teach children to pass a test, not one who helps each individual student learn everything they need to know to help them grow up into people with individual goals and dreams.  Why has our government turned to this form of testing to “prove” the intellectual level of children?  Why has NCLB been allowed to turn our school system into something that no longer fosters a healthy environment for children to learn, grow and feel comfortable in?  Our schools systems need teachers that care about the students and their well-being, and not about a test score that needs to be received in order to hit AYP for that year.  If our students needs are being met first and foremost and they are learning everything they need to in their own way, then they are learning and growing in the healthiest way possible.

Spring Chapters 6 and 8

Spring page 151

“The first section of this chapter, “The Education Chair,” asks a central question regarding the control of education: Who should decide what knowledge should be taught to public school students?” 

Right now, the major decisions being made for our education system is happening by people who are not in the education world, but in the business world.  School boards are often made up of elite members of the business world who do not reflect the social make-up of the surrounding community in which the serve.  Many times, these boards have an agenda that does not include listening to the voices of the families that are involved in the school system every day.  Their decisions are made up by what would be best for the economy and for the outcome of the country and working world as a whole.  What would happen if our boards actually listened to our parents, our students and our teachers?  Our boards should be made up of people that are in the system every day, living the life that the laws are being created for.  I do think that we need some business people on them to help decide where money will be allocated and have some say in what is being brought up in the meetings, however they should not be the main ones doing it.  I feel like everyone involved in the school system, in any way, should be able to have a say in what is going on.  Will the government ever see this in the way that many of our citizens see it, or will their laws and decisions continue to be made based off of whatever they want it to be (I actually don’t know why they make some of the laws they do, so I don’t have a good enough reason to actually use)?

Spring page 162

“In 2006, supporters of charter schools in the U.S. Department of Education were surprised by a report issued by the National Center for Education Statistics that found that the achievement gap in reading and math of students in public charter schools was lower than that of students in public noncharter schools.”

Spring makes several arguments about charter schools, or at least he portrays different arguments made by both supporters and non-supporters of charter schools.  There are different ways to look at the fact listed above.  Supporters of charter schools would say that they have not been around long enough for people to really know how they will do (in the long run) on teaching children to receive good test scores.  Another argument made by supporters includes the fact that many charter schools tailor to the needs of low-income students, which does not help their test scores. However, the test scores cannot be ignored, and the fact that they are lower than public schools is something that should be looked at.  Is a reason that the test scores lower because the teachers hired don’t necessarily need to follow the laws that require schools to hire certified teachers?  Charter schools are made to look like a haven for students who are not receiving a fair education, however, is the reality of it that they are going to receive any better of an education there either?  Why is it ok for the schools to advertise in such a false way then?  I feel like children are being cheated out of a promising education if they end up at a school that promises something that it can’t deliver.

Spring page 171

“Can you trust parents to be good teachers?”

This quote is in relation to homeschooling.  The main reason, according to Spring, that many parents decide to home school is related to a families religious views.  For example, strict Christian parents who do not agree with the fact that church/God cannot be brought up in the schools may decide to home school because their child can receive an education that is linked to their religious views.  For some parents, they link morals to religion and believe that if religion is not being allowed in the classroom, then the morals that are being taught are not good morals.  In some ways I agree that the morals taught in school are based too much on personal success, money, business, etc and not enough on family values, but in some cases I do understand why some parents choose to home school.  However, I worry that because parents are not required to have a teaching degree, many may not be prepared enough for the job.  I do not think that many parents are able to teach their children everything that they need to know, therefore not providing the same learning experience that they should be getting (that they would be getting from a classroom teacher.)  I do think that some of the morals that the school system is teaching are not the best for students, but will the children that are homeschooled be able to survive successfully in a world where values are placed on money and business instead of family if they are not taught how to live it like they would be in a school?  What is best for the student in this case?

Spring page 209 

“They feel the same grim climate of isolation from adults, poor physical environment, and lack of community respect. They also must seek extracurricular school and summer employment to fill the gap left by inadequate salaries.”

This is some of the harsh reality that comes with being a teacher.  Spring give us an example of a teacher named Horace who has been teaching for 28 years.  He loves his job, but is forced to cut many corners in his teaching because of the realities of the teaching career.  He doesn’t give as much homework as he should do his students, because he does not have the tie to spend that many extra hours correcting homework.  He works 42 hours a week, but also helps out in extracurricular activities at the school.  He makes very little money for the work that he does, compared to most other professions that include the same amount of time spent on the job.  This example shows us the realities of the working environment that we are headed into as teachers.  Personally, I may be facing more hours of focus on work because I m going into elementary education.  Spring states that if you are going into the job because you love kids, then you need to find something else that will keep you there, because that reason won’t hold you.  It is good for us, as pre-service teachers, to have the chance to see the reality of what we are about to become.  For many people I think it may scare them, and turn them against it.  Looking at the facts, it makes me wonder why teachers are not paid more for what they do.  Teachers have such a big job that they must do well in order to help their students learn in the most fulfilling way.  I feel like most people don’t know what it takes to be a teacher, and that is why many people blame them for the problems that are occurring in the school system.  I think if more people knew, they would be less likely to criticize a teacher as quickly as they do.  In order to be a successful teacher, someone really needs to have the desire, patience, and determination to be everything that they need to be.  Why is it that these facts aren’t being made known to people who are quick to criticize the work of the teacher?  I give teachers a lot of respect for what they do, why don’t other people?

Spring page 205

“Teacher’s salaries might compare favorably to occupations that do not acquire a college diploma.  However, they do not compare favorably with other occupations requiring a college education.”

I feel like that for all of the work that teachers are required to do, most of which is listed above, they should make more money than they do.  On average, an elementary school teacher makes between $30,000 and $40,000 a year.  If teachers have the most important job, helping every single person to learn and grow, which in turn helps them become the adults that they become in our country, why isn’t more gratitude given to the teachers?  Why is it a lawyer makes ten times more than that, when it was a teacher who helped them become that lawyer in the first place?  I guess the money is not what makes a teacher want to teach, I know it’s not my main focus.  Being a teacher is extremely satisfying, when it is something you love to do.  Helping children to grow and experience new things on a daily basis is one of the most rewarding things a person can do, but is that rewarding feeling enough of a thank you from others, or should  teachers income be more reflective of the job and responsibility that each teacher has?

Spring page 203

“Veteran teachers (those hired before the start of the 2002-2003 school year) must demonstrate competency by either meeting the requirements of new teachers or by meeting state requirements.”

The veteran teachers have been there for such a while that they are not usually up to date with today’s trends in teaching, unless they do outside research on their own.)   This makes me wonder how they are able to meet the standards of today’s teachers, in any way.  They have gone through their teaching career adapting to the new laws, and learning everything as they go.  Teachers today are expected to know certain things before they even enter the teaching career.  First, I feel like the teachers that are doctored into the system won’t ever be able to know everything that the teachers today are required to know.  Second, I feel like because of that, it is an unfair system that requires many things from new teachers although has lesser requirement for people who may be teaching in the classroom next door just because they have been doing it longer.  I do agree that having highly qualified teachers teaching our children is important, but I am not sure how to qualify a teacher that has been teaching for 20 years is because they aren’t force to do the same things that new teachers are.  Is experience enough to make someone a good teacher, or do people really need to take tests in order to qualify them as good?  Has requiring a teacher to have the name “highly qualified” change what is going on in the school system today, or are things still the same as they were before?

Spring Ch. 7, Marlowe Chapters 10, 19 and 20

Spring page 177

“Once the state or local district accepts federal money, then they have to accept the regulations and requirements that accompany the program.”

Money is something that many people have a hard time refusing, which makes it the perfect incentive for something to get done.  Last week in class, we talked about the world of business becoming more and more dominant in the education system, but this reading talks about the gain of the government in our school systems as well.  The government has found ways over the recent years to have more control over our public school systems, taking away local (and some state) control.  In order for states to get the money that the government offers, states must adhere to whatever laws that the government has set as mandatory for each state.  These laws may be good or bad for states, but when a price tag is behind them, many look beyond the good/bad nature of them and do anything just for the money.  My fear is that this money incentive may look very appealing to many states, leaving the states to change laws that may end up harming their education system and the educational careers of the children. An example of this money incentive changing the educational laws of states is President Obama’s new “Race to the Top” incentive.  In order to receive extra federal funding, schools must agree to change a number of things (a few of these including becoming a member of the common standards consortium, has plans to make it publicly available to improve instructions, etc.) * My worry with all of these new regulations that states must have in order to receive funding, is that all of these laws may not be what is best for local schools or the children.  Also, if these laws are made by people in our federal government who have not been in a school system for a long period of time, how are they going to know what is best for the local schools in each state?

*http://www.newamerica.net/blog/ed-money-watch/2009/state-eligibility-race-top-grants-13918

Spring page 181

“The high-stakes testing required under No Child Left Behind is having consequences for how teachers and principals are paid, real estate prices, instructional time in the classroom, profits for corporations making the tests, and contributes to the nationalization of public schools.”

This statement shows just some of the negative effects that NCLB has had on our school systems.  Although I already knew about the money incentives behind teachers to have their students earn higher grades on the standardized tests, I never related the test scores to the real estate market. The state test scores are made public via internet and newspapers after they are given each year.  By making them public material, an area that has low test scores will end up not having many perspective new buyers for the houses in that area.  Consequently, people who are currently living in an area with schools that have low AYP may have a more difficult time selling their houses.  On the opposite end of the spectrum, people who live in a passing school district will have an easier time selling their houses, and according to Spring, houses in the areas are actually going for more money (just because of their school standing).  These areas will have more perspective buyers because people, in general, want to send their children to schools that are proven to test well.  This is not helping our already low housing market, but it is also not helping the issue of segregation in our school system.  Schools that have low AYP are not going to get the higher income families, and the schools with high AYP are in areas that have too-high housing markets for low-income families to be able to afford.  Is there a way for the authority figures in our government to read what I am reading as a student and do things that would change these true statements?  If we see these negative things happening due to these laws, doesn’t it make our government want to make changes that would have a more positive affect on our students, families and school systems?

Marlowe page 107

“A map isn’t of much use to people who don’t know where they are headed.”

This quote is in relation to teachers wanting their professors to teach them more about classroom management, the “uglies” behind teaching a classroom full of students, etc.  I must admit that as a current teacher candidate at CCSU, there are times when I wish that our professors here taught me more about how to manage behavior in my classroom, how to deal with the stresses of testing and regulations that are always breathing down our backs, or just general ideas on how to teach in a way that includes the test but also relates to each individual student. However, Marlowe states that the good professors don’t give us all of the answers to our questions because it is our job as teachers to figure them out as we go.  “The path to simplicity is littered with complexities.”  Page 106.  Our professors set, in our hearts and minds, a sense of purpose behind entering into a classroom every day.  This purpose will help us to get through all of the other complexities that come with teaching as time goes on.  The world of teaching is a very scary world to enter, especially today with all of the laws about standardized test scores, etc. and because of that we want the confirmation that it is all going to be ok by getting as many answers as possible to things that we have not yet experienced.  According to Marlowe, this is not the best way to go about things, however, I still can’t help but feel ill-prepared in certain areas for my future teaching career (so far in the program).  So, what is the best way for teachers to act when in school learning how to be a teacher, do we not ask questions that we may have or do we ask them anyway and be prepared for not getting the answer we are looking for?

Marlowe page 185

“The larger goal of education is to assist people in seeing the world through their own eyes, interpreting and analyzing through their own experiences and thinking, feeling themselves capable of representing, manifesting, or even, if they choose, transforming all that is before them.”

Going to school is supposed to provide all of these opportunities of equality and growth for each student.  In essence, education then is linked to freedom.  These goals are likely to be coming true in the higher income schools where privilege and money is found more in the everyday lives of the students that live in the neighborhoods.  However, in the lower income societies, where money is scarce and people don’t have the same privileges that people with money have, the likelihood of these goals actually standing at the forefront of every school is very slim.  Instead, these schools’ goals include having enough notebooks or textbooks for each student, clean walls and windows, enough teachers that for each classroom (never mind qualified teachers), etc.  These lower income schools are in urban areas where the majority of the population is usually Hispanic or African American, not Caucasian.  So if these are the differences in goals in school systems that are in America, how can our country ever unite to create equality in the education system that is already supposed to be there?  Should the new goal of the education system be to make sure that the current “goals” that exist in the suburban schools become the same goals in the urban schools?  Could our country ever become truly equal and give the aid that is needed to our urban schools so that every child gets an equal education?

Marlowe page 188

“Understanding 1: Informative Assessment Isn’t Just About Tests”

If informative assessment is not just about giving a child a test and grading them on that test to see how well they mastered information that they were taught, why is it that our government is using standardized tests as the best way to score and track the learning of each student?  Marlowe talks about helping students to learn in the best way for each of them, or something CCSU calls multiple intelligences.  In the education classes I take, we are always talking about getting to know each student so that as teachers, we can learn how to teach each subject in the best way for each of our students to learn.  Sometimes, as Marlowe states, the best way to assess the progress of students is by looking at what they do in the classroom, listening to them talk about the topics taught in class and by looking at their everyday school work.  If these are better ways to assess how well a child has learned something, then why is our government focusing so much on standardized tests?  These tests do not include or take into account the everyday lives of the children, each individual learning style, the community in which they live, the teachers they have, or the resources they have in which to use as tools to learn with.

Marlowe page 194

“Informative assessment is not an end in itself, but the beginning of better instruction.”

Informative assessment helps teachers and students to see how well the students have mastered a subject through means other than a high stakes test.  It can be very stressful for children when they have to take a test because there is a lot of pressure on them to get a good grade.  Sometimes, this pressure takes away from the learning process all together.  Also, if the child does poorly on the test as a result of stress, then an accurate score as to how well the child has learned a subject cannot be given.  Along with added stress on the students, it is also stressful for the teachers because instead of teaching the students what they want to teach them, the teachers have to teach what will be on the tests the students are taking.  A better way of finding out what the children have learned is looking at what the children do each day in class (how they react to the subject, how they respond to tasks given in class, through conversations in class, etc.)  Doing this also lets the teacher know if they are teaching in a way that is confusing to the student, or in a way that is not helping the student to comprehend material.   Informative assessment helps the teacher to learn how to become better and more efficient at teaching.  It helps the students to actually engage in the learning process and not just memorize something for a test.  If informative assessment is proven to be a better way of assessing how well a child has learned something, how do we focus more on that when our government is focusing so much on standardized tests?  Can we, as teachers, use informative assessment and still teach the children how to take a test at the same time?  If it’s not something to be afraid of (informative assessment), then why is our government not using it?

Kozol Chapter 7 and Spring Chapters 1 and 6

Kozol Page 161

“The assignment I gave them was to describe for me in writing what they saw in front of them each day when they came into school, what they liked, what they did not like in the class, or in the school, and how they felt in general about the situation in which they and I now found ourselves.”

Kozol gave this assignment to his fourth grade class that he taught in Boston. Instead of listening to what the test scores said about his school or what the government/ administrators said about it, he decided to ask the children who live in it every day.  The officials have no idea what is truly going on inside the walls of a building because they don’t go there and they don’t ask the children about it.  The test scores only tell the administrators how well the children in the school can take a test, but they don’t tell the reasons behind the children getting the scores they got (good and bad.) Kozol expresses the importance of the way the children feel while in their learning environment.  The responses he got included one child saying the rooms and windows were dirty, another talked about new having a new teacher almost every day and another talked about seeing pigeons flying in the halls.  The students did express that they saw flowers in school sometimes that they liked.  However, the bad things (in this Boston school) far outweigh the good things.  Standardized testing scores won’t tell about these conditions in a school.  The children will come out and tell anyone, if they ask, what going to school is like for them.  If feeling comfortable, safe and relaxed and school is so important, why don’t more administrators come in and ask the children how they feel about their educational setting?  Has the voice of the child become collectedly drowned out by the booming voice of the standardized tests?

Kozol Page 183

“”Why is it,” she asked, “that students who do not need what we need get so much more? And we who need it so much more get so much less?””

Here is a question that Kozol has been trying to answer for 40 years.  There may be no answer to this question, but are there things that could be causing it to be true?  Why, if everyone is supposed to be equal, are our schools not?  The high school students in this part of the chapter talk about seeing rats in their classrooms, feeling humiliated because they need to go to the bathroom during the school day but aren’t allowed to, having to take sewing/hairdressing because the college prep classes aren’t open and not being able to do some of their homework because the library is closed a lot.  The teachers say there is just not enough room in the school for all of the students so they work on a revolving schedule that allows for shifts of students to be in the school at different times.  This year-round schooling is not common in any of the other school districts in that area, but it is used at this high school because of the size of the classes that are attending.  Why hasn’t anyone thought of re-districting or making more schools to accommodate all of the children?  If someone has thought of it, why hasn’t anything been done?

Spring page 4

“… “education” does not always benefit the individual or society.  Public and personal benefits depend on the content of instruction. To think critically about education means to think critically about the content of instruction and the potential effect of that content on society.”

Seeing this concept written in words has a harder impact on me than it did when I just “thought” about it as being true.  In the timeline that Spring gives on page 5, we see that education over the years has changed to benefit out government and how our government wants our children and our people to act and think.  For example, from 1880’s to the 1920’s, our education system had goals that including Americanizing immigrants, reforming urban areas, training labor force for industrialization, etc.  Over time those goals have changed up until the last 20-30 years or so when the goals have been community service, preparing for a global economy and controlled learning through standardized tests.  Our country has always been very focused on staying economically advance in the world, and so the government’s goals in education for children is to make sure those children are ready for our labor markets and for the changes in society that our government and the world are bringing about.  These ways of teaching are not meant to help the individual person succeed in daily life, but instead help the country succeed as a whole.  The only stuff that may benefit the children directly is the content being taught in the classroom each day.  However, the content does not promise to do this.  The teachers are taught to make sure that the way they are teaching a concept will help the concept to reach each individual child.  To me, these goals behind teaching are seen as a sort of manipulation of the American people.  In a small way, we are robots who are subject to learning what our government wants us to hear.  When looking at it honestly however, is there any other way for our government to teach its citizens?  Can our government actually teach things that will be beneficial to the individual instead of the country, or would it possibly cause division amongst the people?  These questions may never be answered, but it still makes me curious to think about them.

Spring page 12

“To stop crime, Mann reasoned, schools must instill moral values in students.”

The biggest problem with this concept, as Spring points out, is which morals do the schools want to use to teach all of their students.  Issues with religion and education come up when talking about this topic.  Do schools teach morals that are taught by the Catholic religion, or by the Jewish religion, or by the Buddhist religion, etc.?  Because schools do not want to enter into the debate on the mixing of religion and schools, they have come up with a very common and basic system of principals that basically tells the students to be good people, to be clean, be proper, etc.  Edward Ross, in the early 1890’s,  saw this as the government finding another way to control its people: social control.  He explains that the school is replacing family and religion in instilling moral values in people.  He sees it as another way for the government to find a way into people’s lives and control in whatever ways they can.  Is this still belief still considered to be true today?  The United States is not a communist country, but is there a lot of government control that we are not fully aware of as participating citizens in the country?  Also, is it too much to expect children to learn the morals of the school system when they may have different morals that they have been taught at home or in their own religion?

Spring page 158

“Transfers must be allowed for two reasons: 1) when a school is determined to be “persistently dangerous” and 2) when a student becomes the victim of a violent crime at school.”

According to this, when either of these two things happen, parents are able to send their child to a new school in the same district and this school must have a higher academic performance than the school they were originally attending. However, when transferring to a school with higher academic performance, the students must also meet the requirements that are given by the new school in terms of entrance requirements.  Hearing this makes me ask a few questions as to how well this law may actually work out.  First, what happens if the child tries to transfer to a better school than their current one (due to the reasons above), but can’t meet any of the entrance requirements at any other school?  By law, that child is not allowed to go to a school that has lower or equal academic progress compared to the one they are currently in, so they must go to a better one.  If the child can’t meet those expectations, are they forced to stay in the same school that they are trying to get out of or does the law have any loopholes when it comes to this?  Could any of the schools make any exceptions if what is stated above ends up happening?

Spring page 170

“Parents can dodge the control of an unrepresentative school board and school bureaucracy by educating their children at home; however, most states do regulate home schooling to some extent.”

I read this statement and one question automatically comes to my mind: does the government control almost everything that is happening in our country today, even things in our homes?  It is a scary thought knowing that even the parents don’t have total control in their own homes.  I am not saying that I disagree with the government having a little bit of control in the home-schooling situation, what I am saying is that it’s a scary thought knowing that the government is involved everywhere we look.  I do believe though, that it is a good idea for parents who choose homeschooling to have regulations and goals that their children need to meet over a given time period.  If these goals were not set, then who would know what was going on with the children that are being home schooled.  Not all parents can do it, despite them trying to.  Not all parents have the skills to act as a child’s teacher.  Should all parents who want to home school be forced to get a teaching degree?  Or are the regulations that the government has set up enough?