Parents of tweens urged to tour public middle schools

Nice idea. Who's paying for it? Parents' club paying for it? Fine. Taxes paying for it. Not fine. Taxes need to go directly to our students and teachers. Improve learning conditions and raise our despicably low teacher salaries. That being said, tours are a great way to update local communities on school improvements. But you need a different name for your group. "Parents for Education" sets off my internal propaganda alert. Try something like "Parents for Education." Then we'll assume the kids get priority in a situation when one must choose between what helps a school and what helps a kid. And, no. They are not always the same thing. I was a teacher for several years and saw kids' needs consistently land dead last when it came to school politics.

Oh, and one other thing parents. I'll save you the learning curve I had to go through with my first hand exposure to public schools here. Remember how, on the mainland, you would occasionally move to a newer area to get out of the older beaten down schools and the staff within them. Newer schools often came with an new up and coming principal and teachers , approved by that principal, that wanted to make a positive change. Yeah, well forget all of that here. Ain't happening. I will pause here and give credit due to Campbell High School - a school with that attitude of "How can we do better" that has gone so far to introduce their Baccalaureate program. Why not all the schools? Because they don't have to. Back to my rant. Instead, as you tour the schools, be sure to look at how many students arrive and leave with no books in their hands. Be prepared for teachers to tell you that the reason that "they" don't require homework is because so many families don't see to it that the homework gets done - so they respond by not assigning any. Be prepared for the term "teacher preparation" for "lesson plans". Yes, even from the teachers who have been teaching the same class from the same book for years as, for some reason, previous year's lesson plans don't work from year to year. As your child becomes listless as the year goes and while stories like "yeah - one of the classes played MTV on it's tv today (even though you don't allow that channel at home)" which will prompt you to call a meeting with thier instructors, be prepared for them to tell you that they have to teach to the pace of the SLOWEST child to make sure all can learn. In short, save yourself some time and go ahead and warm up that checkbook to start writing an annual check for approx 15k per year for private school. Enjoy your tour. See you at the bank which is where I had to end up going to get the money I didn't move here with for unexpected education expense funds that I, and 25% of other parents are forking out to pay for. Did you get that? 25%!!!. And nobody is doing it because they have this "extra" money to burn every year. You'll be paying it to remove the guilt that you feel for exposing your child to such a poor education. THAT'S why you'll pay it.

Somebody sent their child to Maryknoll because the child could not handle a public school. Competition is competiton. It is just as difficult to get an "A" in a public school as it is in a private school.

Shouldn't this be a normal practice for any involved parent? Any time we moved (and we moved a lot) my mother and father would come to the school to meet our principal and teachers. They would also check with them periodically throughout the school year to verify our progress (because truthfully, my idea of "I'm doing good in math/english/science" was not often my parents idea of doing well).

Any involvment of parents is good. Tweeners need support.