Our Children are Not Prepared by Public School

Our Children are Not Prepared by Public School
By Lee Hemen
March 2, 2021

I do not know where you live but here in the Evergreen School District in Clark County Washington they do not prepare children for Middle School. My grandson began online schooling for the sixth grade because of COVID-19. When he began I was shocked at how little he knew or understood as he began Middle School. However it soon became apparent that he was not in the minority. Most of the children did not understand what was required of them and I am not talking about being online. Most kids have no problem with being online and most of the worries are from parents or educators who are not connected enough with their kids to know that they know a whole lot more than they do about being connected; my grandson included.

What I witnessed was shocking because these kids did not understand basic math, English, reading skills or simply being polite. It truly makes me wonder why we have been spending the huge sums of money we have for our public education system; almost $18,000 per child per year from kindergarten through High School here in Washington State. I have watched in almost horror as kids misspelled and misused even the simplest words. Punctuation was nonexistent.

What I had to learn, and I am 67 years old, in 4th grade they were now learning in 6th grade! I know this to be true because I’ve kept some of my school work and report cards from elementary school. I had to retrain my grandson on how to do simple division without explaining your work in picture form and instead to use actual mathematic equations!

The English teacher he began with spent more time making up “fun” games for the students to guess how many jobs she had over the years and talking about herself than actually doing English. It made me cringe. Gratefully she has been replaced since his Middle School went to part-time in-school classes and she could not be there do to her health issues.  

Some of his teachers required that their students take a picture of their work and submit it and share it with the rest of the class. This was great because, after telling my grandson over and over that he must capitalize, use punctuation, and check his spelling he realized the importance after struggling to read his classmate’s work. He now double checks his assignments because he knows I will check them and he has learned how much farther along he is than many of the other students. He now gets comments from his teachers about how well his work looks and is done. He now can also physically write legibly but could not at the beginning of school. He was not trained nor encouraged to do so in elementary school.

Now that there is only four months left many of the students are doing better but not with their spelling, punctuation, or math usage. They still struggle with being able to explain what they’re required to read; my grandson included. I guess what truly frustrates me is the fact that instead of using our children as guinea pigs for the next great new psychological educational idea from some liberal think tank our school system needs to go back to teaching kids to be able to spell, read, write, and do math. If you want to teach kids political correctness they have plenty of time to do so in college but elementary, middle, and high school should be preparing our children to be able to do these things first and foremost. Is it any wonder we spend far more than most nations on our children's education with little to show for it and continue to fall far short of nations that spend far less?
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This article is copyrighted © 2021 by Lee Hemen and is the sole property of Lee Hemen, and may not be used unless you quote the entire article and have my permission.

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