Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy How do you feel about the public school system?

Yes, because they're designed to take advantage of economies of scale. That model breaks when dealing with outliers.

Also, there's the human element. In my DD's case, the educators all saw each other as trained and experienced experts in education and child development. When they looked across the table, they did not see two people with doctorate degrees in DD-ology. Had they viewed us as a qualified partner with unique information that they required to adequately serve DD, things would have been smoother.

In their defense... much like we've all dealt with educators who are woefully unqualified to do the job, the schools have dealt with scores of parents who are woefully unqualified for theirs.

DS2's music teacher won my heart on day one with a statement to the effect of, "I am merely a music facilitator. You are all your children's most important teacher, and you have a deeper knowledge of your child's needs than I have."

Bingo. Let's clone her!

This leads me to the questions I've been pondering recently. Can and/or will public school be able to serve my ds? I'm just not sure.

Also, if the answer is no or not well; what is plan b??

YES.

Yes, whenever I display "displeasure" to other parents in the district, I get looks of confusion (unless it is other parents of special needs kids). And I end up feeling that I must be unreasonable to be so unhappy. I would estimate that 90 percent of the parents in the district are happy. The other 10 percent who are not happy, the district would prefer to sweep under the rug. Most of those 90 percent of parents have probably never had to deal with the administration or had a serious concern.
But even with those 90 percent, is the district really meeting their needs? Or are they just faking it well and parents are clueless?

See Dude's observation for an explanation of perhaps 20-60% of that "happy" cohort.

JMO-- and it's a jaded one at this point.

Another factor that comes into how the PS system is designed and works is that - they groom people for all kinds of futures because society needs the blue collar worker, the janitor, the burger flipper, the garbage man etc (several thousands of these) in addition to rock star CEOs, Presidents and scientists who win Nobels (we need very few of these). After pondering a lot on this, my theory is that the outliers are expected to help themselves using their innate talents and the system grooms people who are below average, average and above average to move on and fit into society's hierarchy. When you see the system working, you can get the feel that they educate the majority of kids to be mediocre (which is what the society wants) and the effort being put into the education is also mediocre. I dealt with a "cream of the crop" PS in california and the attitude of their star administrators and their star teachers were mostly of the kind "I am a public servant, don't expect too much out of me".
Sorry for the cynicism, I am now dealing with a private school and the attitude difference towards education is stark - you will never catch this school playing a Disney movie during rainy day recess (as my son's PS was bound to do).

I don't really have one opinion of "the public school system." It's too large of an entity. Even within one district--even within one school--my children's experiences have varied dramatically from year to year. I feel lucky that we have the gifted magnet and recognize ou good fortune there.

DS5 has a very good teacher there who is going WAY out of her way for him without us having done much to make that happen. I believe she is truly passionate about making sure he learns at school. I am deeply touched by her devotion to meeting my child's needs.

I do feel that people expect a great deal--sometimes too much. I am sympathetic to the teachers' situation. I do not envy them. I do blame the test-crazed culture and also the constant "You have to do this, you have to do that" and "New rule, new rule!" nonsense for a lot of the problematic culture.

As to many/most people being happy--I think this is true, but some of this is congitive dissnonance. It's uncomfortable being unhappy and dissatisifed. It's like how everyone hates Congress but thinks their personal representatives are okay. Everyone thinks schools are failing as a whole but rates their own school as pretty good. If they thought it was terrible, but left their children there and did nothing--well, what does that say about them?

Where we are, public or private, the schools do not have any services for 2E... if a child has (ex.) sensory processing issues, but has advanced comprehension, they are out of luck until either comprehension drops to meet the SPD or the SPD goes away. We were told that our DD is SO smart that when she decides not to be dysgraphic, she will indeed not be dysgraphic! It is SO archaic here.

I agree completely. It's why I only answered the question with regard to how I feel it's servicing my specific DD's needs at this specific time. My response could change tomorrow.

The high school I attended would have, in NCLB days, been rated a failure. Yet except for my horrendous physics/calculus teacher, I received a high-quality education there. Based on that experience, I don't see any value in even rating public education at an institutional level, because individual outcomes will be so... individual.