As a parent who I think might obsessive about my child's future and success a little more than the average, I've been thinking a lot about schools. I know my daughter is only 1.5 years old, but I'm anxious. I've already started one of those Gerber college funds for her, and am looking for new ones that will help her earn a little more than $10k, because who knows how high tuition rates will rise by the time she's 18!!
But another thing weighs on my mind regarding school. The way I was brought up was less than ideal for my education. My siblings & I were pulled in and out of all different kinds of schools all the way throughout our childhood, from public to private to home-school and back. I didn't do so well. I was anti-social, labled "shy", "not living up to my full potential" by teachers, and always had a hard time, academically. I kept getting lower and lower grades the further on I got in school, and worst of all, I was never very well accepted by the other students. I was bullied and harassed daily. By the time I graduated from high school, I was adamant that I would never go to college, because of how "stupid" I was and how much I just bloody hated school. Of course I have since changed my mind about college and have gone, it wasn't until much later that I decided this, and I feel it could have been much better for me to have gone to a 4 year university straight out of high school instead, because it is the perfect dedicated time for college in your life, and the only one you'll ever get. Try going back to school later and even though you may succeed, it's going to be 50 times harder because you'll have things like a marriage, kids and a job to deal with also. Because of that, drop out rates skyrocket, and the possibility of gaining a college education with degree significantly lessens.
So, when it comes to my own kids, I worry and agonize over this issue a little psychotically, some might say. I don't want my kids going through that. My husband & I already know that our kids are going to college. We both agree there will be no question. So, it seems only natural that in order to do that, I am a firm believer (I have first hand experience with this after all) we need to assure that they are getting the absolute best kind of education as children first. Something that will for sure prepare them for not just the ultimate college experience, but the desire to go in the first place.
So, I started researching it. First, I looked into where the best schools were in our area. It's a strong desire for me that we stay in the same school district and not move while our kids are in school, and preferably ever. I believe stability is extremely important for kids because schools not only have different teachers, students and rules, and schedules you need to get used to, but they teach differently, and at different levels for the same grade. I struggled so much at new schools because of all this. In the middle of my freshman year in high school, we moved from a public school in Hawaii to a private school in the state of Washington. I was in the first half of pre-algebra in public school getting straight "A's" and jumped into the 2nd half of algebra in the private school. They didn't have any other options for me, and I failed. So that messed me up for the rest of my high school career. During my junior & senior years of public high school, I was taking predominately freshman & sophomore classes just to "catch up" on what I failed in private school, and almost didn't graduate. It was so incredibly hard on me, and I lay the blame for everything I've done in my adult life on my childhood school experience. So, I made it top priority to research this for the sake of my daughter's future. What parent ever wants their kids to go through the same crap they went through? I don't believe anyone does, really. That's why we all struggle with trying to find the "best schools", etc, and push the college thing on them. I'm probably not as different there as I think in that respect.
It all started with me looking for the best school districts. Ironically, the best in the area we live now was the same district that I graduated from and very well could be the reason I actually graduated at all, I thought. But I wasn't going to stop there. I wanted to see more. I wanted to learn what makes these schools "the best". By what standards are they rated? What I found turned my innocent wonder into complete controversial shock! Not that the test rating system they used to determine if they're the best was at all bad. It wasn't that at all. It was just the fact that in doing this research, I came across a lot more information about schools than I ever thought possible. The more I read, the worse the picture became, and I tried so hard to find other sources that would smooth this out for me, but it only got me in deeper. Public school systems are run by so many unbelievable counterproductive union rules, it's a wonder kids even learn anything in them at all! They're run more like prisons than places of childhood education! In some parts of the country, only 10% of the kids actually graduate from high school! Obviously, that's in one of the worst parts of the country, but the rest of the country isn't that far behind. What they did was just lower the standards at which kids can graduate and therefore give them higher rates of graduation, and make the students, teachers and parents alike thinking that they're doing well, when they really aren't. Even so, the truth is, there are just way too many restrictions that make it hard for a teacher to do their job. Strict rules prevent bad teachers from being fired and good teachers from being required. No public school teacher gets paid enough to be able to afford to teach properly because they nearly all have to supplement their income with 2nd jobs to make ends meet. This leaves them no time to prepare the lessons, etc. They also don't have the time to be available to the students when they need help because there are far too many students to spend individual time with in class or after class.
Unless I simply could not find any other option, I decided that public schools and private schools were out of the question. I would home school, except that I would cause my kids to lose out on the whole social aspect of schooling that I find so important in order to survive in a social society, so where did that leave me? After watching a couple of very enlightening, yet devastating documentaries on schools, I discovered charter schools. Highly successful, free to the public, and exactly what I was looking for in preparing my daughter with a quality education for college. The only problem: They are space limited, and enrollment to them must be determined by a lottery of drawn student names, and they aren't in every state. Luckily, Washington just happens to be one of them that just in this past election, got the popular vote to legalize charter schools in this state. I don't know where they are, or if there are any at this point, but I intend to find them and at least try to enroll my daughter in one when she's ready to start school.
Now I just have to ask, why does everything I ever look into turn into a controversial battle that ends up making me believe that society as a whole really has no rights. We are only deceived into believing that we're a "free" country, but in actuality, it's the freedom it's self that has caused us to lose it!
