Conservative parents said they’re looking to exit public schools after an anemic performance by right-leaning candidates in school board elections this week.
Conservative parents said they’re looking to exit public schools after an anemic performance by right-leaning candidates in school board elections this week.
Good. That’s the way choice is supposed to work. If you object to your kids getting indoctrinated or whatever, your remedy is homeschool or private school not trying to force everyone else’s kids to fit into your worldview.
It drives me crazy here in Florida, it’s easy to homeschool, so much support from the state and clear rules about evaluations. But no, these absolute racists (autocorrect of facist but if the shoe fits…) want to force all the kids to follow their rules. That’s bullshit.
I have plenty of problems with the local schools and have homeschooled some of mine off and on when I couldn’t find a good fit for them but one of the nicest things about public schools is the kids’ complete indifference to gender or preferences. These kids are so nonchalant when someone who was a girl last year is a boy this year or whatever, and the raging homophobia that was part of my high school experience (people getting beaten up for being different in any way) is just gone. Not that there aren’t fights and drugs like at any school but the kids overall are nicer and not so beaten down.
Hey, this is not a dig at all, but the reason autocorrect is bothering you is that “fascist” has an extra S in it.
Also I completely agree with you on all counts.
Sounds like you live in Florida so you’re closer to it than most but, doesn’t this point to it not being about what their children are exposed to?
To me the whole thing smacks of control, not concern for their children. I don’t doubt some (many?) of these parents are honest in their beliefs but with what you pointed out, wouldn’t it make the most sense to homeschool?
I’m maybe way off base it just looks to me as an outsider like these parents were more interested in controlling what all children are taught and now they’re taking their ball and going home, so to speak.
It’s been quite a ride here. I grew up here when the US was at the bottom of the world rankings for education and Florida was 49th in the nation, the absolute nadir of public education - I literally had no teacher for half of sixth grade, and in elementary we had one science teacher for the whole school so got science only once a week. I really felt like it was being in jail, they didn’t teach much. Did eventually get an education in college, and read a lot growing up, outside of school.
It was the Republicans who broke it, with their Back to Basics nonsense but the Republicans who fixed it in my county, by putting in school choice & magnet schools, some of my kids went to an environmental education charter, some to IB, one to a performing arts magnet, there were a variety of schools to choose from and most all the charters nonprofit collectives not for profit outfits. My kids got great K-12 education, a few years homeschooled, 4 years private for one of them, but the first 3 out were overprepared for college, they found college easy. All had input into what high schools they wanted to apply to, got to feel like they were participating not in jail. Now the youngest is a junior in high school and I swear to God they are trying so hard to break it back to what my schooling was like. Throwing away all the progress allegedly because they are afraid kids will encounter challenging ideas and come to conclusions that don’t fit the parents’ religious beliefs or something? Yes my older ones read challenging books, Beloved, Brodek, hard to read and important books.
I don’t understand these parents at all. I think if you put kids in school you agree to the curriculum. Stand back and let the teachers work. If you don’t want to do that then find a different school or homeschool. Trying to change the school to fit your kid is wrong, especially here where there are other options.
IF there was not school choice, like back when I was in school, sure, I would advocate for my kid inside the school but not by trying to pull all the other kids down to some lowest common denominator. Only by working to get accommodation for ability or disability, or if they had a bully teacher maybe see if they could be in a different class.
Sorry, long rant but yes it’s about controlling other people not their own kids, it has to be. They got all the sort of free market school choice and now are mad because most of it didn’t turn out to be Christian academies where the sleeves and hemlines are long and all creativity suppressed. Because almost nobody wants that for their kids.