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Joe,  Then why not make the magnet program have to be pursued by the student themselves?  Kids, esp at the High School level, given the resources and opportunity could work to place themselves where they belonged.  ok I know this won't work but still how can we let the learner drive their own learning. I mean they already do. You can't force learning. Oh yes, You can force people to sit in chairs and move between rooms. And -  People are always learning, it's just a function of being alive. 

posted 3 years, 8 months ago
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Ha, ha, ha you think there is a chance of the union permitting this? ha, ha, ha,

posted 3 years, 8 months ago
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Schools as they are need to be rethought, expanded, more varied opportunities given not go backward to forced attendance at your neighborhood school.  People learn different ways, people have different interests and needs. 

All the fancy language of those who control organized education in the city avoid the fact that all the information anyone could want is available on line.  Teachers and schools are no longer the center of knowledge. In fact they are more about indoctrination, sports and a fund raising mechanism to perpetuate itself. 

Kids are bored and there our options out there, that is why they are dropping out and/or following a passion. Even if that passion isn't valued by the system.  Families/students are not going back to even more of an institulized shape of attendance at neighborhood school.

posted 3 years, 8 months ago
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Thank you for this clear statement on the real problem.

posted 3 years, 11 months ago
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Instead of more funding Why not support more parent choice in education.  A lot of problems including learning disabilities are created just by the kinds of institutions we are putting kids and teachers in. 

posted 3 years, 11 months ago
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I believe it all starts at home where there isn't enough parent maturity, parent involvement, parent support, parent protection along with often not enough money. Being as there is no way to prevent people from having kids they are not prepared for the only solution has to come from where kids do interact with community.

Which is for most the school system. Kids need protection in school's that are too big, and have too few adults that really care and have it together enough to give anything useful to kids. And can we please not turn this into "oh there are so many good teachers in the schools, blah, blah", yes there are some and a  lot are there for a paycheck.

A school system that worked with individuals and didn't abandon them to fend for themselves in hallways, lunch rooms and school grounds would provide the protection that gangs provide. Gangs provide a service, they do provide something that kids aren't getting somewhere else. Political correctness and the status quo, protecting the current school structure just provide the need for gangs to fill. 

I am one of 11 kids raised in So Cal and I saw a lot growing up close up.

posted 3 years, 11 months ago
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Very cool practical idea!

posted 4 years ago
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Thank you for the clarity that matches our experience.

posted 4 years ago
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As a drop out myself (saved by learning how to read, curiosity and community college) and as a mom of a child who has essentially left school. I would say it is more  accurate that he was 'pushed out' than that he dropped out.

The changes we need to see are a return to basics, my child struggles to put a sentence or paragraph together, he can't do basic math and the only help the school will offer is in the area of social skills and organization. They actually say he is performing on grade level, he's a 9th grader at Lake Oswego. It's supposed to be a high performing school district.  

If we want to save our democracy citizens need to be able to read, write and process information for themselves. The rest is fluff, maybe nice fluff but the basics must come first. 

Ask yourself how would you perform if you had 7 or 8 different jobs and bosses (teachers) to perform for everyday. They all had their own expectations, personalities, routines and they all have dictatorial power over you. Then at least every 9 months (every school year) all these bosses/teachers change. Oh yeah for 3 months each year they cut you completely loose. (which is left over from when you had to go bring in the harvest) Nobody really knows you and you don't really know anybody. Now why would you want to go back there?

Although there is in theory a set schedule it is often interrupted by assemblies, specials, etc. and you are just one of more than a thousand bodies just about your same age stuffed into this program. It is no wonder that Schools and prisons are designed by the same architects.

That is what almost all schools offer, it's actually a wonder that so many kids stay inside that system. 

posted 4 years ago
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Why are none of my comments being posted? 

posted 4 years, 1 month ago
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If there is a need to support families it has to be for all families not just those who happened to have the right kind of job that qualifies them for this paid leave. 

This would further encourage parents to leave their children in the care of others by only paying those who are working outside the home. Stay at home parents are further discriminated against and they provide the bulk of volunteers at most schools.

Everyone deserves support not just the political savy.

posted 4 years, 1 month ago
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One of the best uses of education dollars would be to give parents free choice to educate their child how and where they see fit. Allowing some of these dollars to go to parent directed education including private schools would do more for having the money filter through the local economy. 

If we all need to do more with less, giving parents more choice in educating their children would help individual families and small businesses while getting more dollars into the local economy. The private sector schools are not talking about cutting school days or hours and provide greater care and flexablity to working parents.

posted 4 years, 3 months ago
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This behavior and the way it is being spun, I heard the intern referred to as a colleague on the radio this morning, is definitely a problem. Sam Adams as an adult in authority had to know that this relationship was wrong and an abuse of his position. Even going to Salem for the 17 years olds birthday party is weird.
Sam Adams has shown what kind of legal, moral, ethical decision maker he can be. Add to that his direct and aggressive lying to cover his own actions, even throwing a 'true colleague' Bob Ball under the proverbial bus with the smear smear campaign.
Sam Adams cannot be trusted. I would ask his supporters to examine how much of their support stems from Sam Adam's willingness to support their individual cause. I mean the guy was promising a lot to a lot of different groups including ones having nothing or little to do with the business of the city. Our highest self interest is protecting the office not one man who made mistakes.

No one is above the law. Really we have to make this be the standard, even if it doesn't play out that way on the national level we will lose big time if we accept that locally.

My only problem with ousting him is I don't know who would replace him.

posted 4 years, 4 months ago
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As a parent I am in favor of anything that can change the current school bureaucracy. We need more opportunities, flexability and options. Children are not being served, families are not being served, communities are not being served.

We are home schooling because of the dismal state of education. I resisted the whole idea of home schooling thinking we just couldn't do it. Now I am amazed at how well it is working, how much my child is choosing to learn and becoming self directed, for example last night he asks me "what do you think, which is harder German or Japanese?" I am thinking about studying another language (he has already studied spanish and can put together his own sentences, with pronouns, even if clumsy). And this student was a 'bad' student in public education.

posted 4 years, 8 months ago
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My 14 year old boy is spending the month camping in the woods with the NorthWest Youth Corp out of Eugene, OR www.nwyouthcorps.org. He is earning an educational stip end of more than $500.00 (tax free) plus a few high school credits.

There is a bunch of differnet programs they run but the one my son is in is for 14 and 15 year olds only. The whole thing is modeled after the CCC Civilian Conservation Corp. of the 1940's. The kids do real work. They build or maintain trails, pull weeds, etc. plus an educational segment each day on ecologly, etc.

We made a parent visit and we were really impressed with how much fun our reluctant teen was having and how his behavior had matured.

I think a program like this that asks something from teens and then gives them back something is the best for developing them. We have sent our son to quite a few expensive camps and he is learning more here and having more fun and coincidently helping to solve some of our communitys problems.

We actually found out about this program on Oregon Field Guide, and then looked at thier web site. The Field Guide segment only highlighted the hard work part (and one particular kids problems)and not the fun and benefits the kids get

posted 4 years, 10 months ago
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Getting better education would mean more openess, flexiablity in the basic system which the union won't allow. The current sturtcure is left over from the industrial revolution. We need smaller schools, more options for students and their families to choose from, we desperately need charter schools or vouchers. Teachers want a better environment to work in where they can bring forward their unique skills not a curriculm they deliver.

posted 5 years ago
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I live in Wilsonville in a 5 year old subdivison named Arbor Crossing. We are required to have a lawn and to keep it green. We are even required to keep a lawn around the street tree strip. One neighbor had a professional landscape company install very nice beds of plants that wouldn't use so much water but the Homeowner association, which is actually controlled by the developer, made them put back in a lawn. The soil here is bad, you have to water almost every day durning the summer to keep the lawn green and a lot of water goes down the street. One must also use a lot of fertilizer to keep the lawn green.

The only way to change this is for a law to be made so that developers can't make a homeowner assoication require a green lawn. Nice landscaping yes, required lawns, NO.

Thanks

posted 5 years, 1 month ago
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With a son on the spectrum who has moved from moderate/severe autism to just extra sensitive and quirky I think the very best thing that could happen for kids on the spectrum is for their to be school choice.
Public school is too big, too bright, too loud, too many kids and just adding more pull outs or an aide doesn't help a person settle into themselves and come to grips with their own situation. Public schools give the most services to the most disruptive students and it creates those kids and makes a community for them that doesn't help them.
Private placements by parents in private school leave the family completely on their own. They get NO services from their local school so many families are kept virtual prisoners in their public school because they can't affford anything else.
Small small schools offer a place to actually grow. The large public schools may push some kids over the edge into autism because they can't handle the chaos.
Free choice in education where parents and students can find their best place is the best thing we can do for the individual, family and society.

posted 5 years, 3 months ago
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