More School Rants

So I got this letter from the girls' school telling us how their school has once again been marked as a Program Improvement (PI) school because the kids API test scores did not attain an adequate level. Because of this, they have to hand out applications for us to transfer our kids out to a non PI district school should we wish it. The district will provide transportation as well.

However, if a lot of people apply to transfer their kids out of the district PI schools to non-PI district schools, then the students with the lowest scores and lowest income will get priority. So, in other words, what they would really like is to transport the "problem" children out so that they can raise their overall test scores and put the problem onto one of the other schools to bring down their average.

Does this not disturb anybody else?

And then, at the bottom of the school letterhead, it has a seal declaring that it is "A California Distinguished School." Now, I ask you, distinguished in what?! Certainly not for it's academics...I mean, clearly.

I'm not sure that it is worthwhile to bus my kids out to some other school since most of the objections I have with Emily's school and homework has to do with the Houghton Mifflin workbooks that the district forces all the schools and teachers to use.

I don't even know how to begin to explain some of the moronic and just grammatically incorrect statements and instructions they have on those worksheets. And you just sit there staring at it in horror thinking, these people are supposed to "teach" my kids? What I need to do is to probably scan one of those worksheets next time to illustrate my point.

Emily was always so eager to start school. She loved learning. Her favorite things to do were all those educational workbooks. But once she got into school, I've had to fight with her a lot to do homework. It is just too easy and boring for her (or really frustrating for us). Her first kindergarten teacher at her previous school, got her advanced work to do that was more of her level and she had a lot more fun with it. But when we transferred to this school, her teacher wasn't really willing to do any extra work to teach her anything. So far as I can tell, her new first grade teacher is of the same mind.

The most unfortunate side effect of the No Child Left Behind Act is this: if you are doing well, they don't bother with you. So as they are working to make it so that no one will fail, at the same time, it ends up that no one will excel either.

So, the question is, is it worth while to transfer the kids out of a PI school and doom my kids to long commutes and over crowded schools that work and dooming them to becoming a PI school a few years down the line? Probably not.