Friday, June 19, 2009

but I'm sure their social skills will make up for it...

While the yellow bus has stopped hurtling down our street every morning, two of our children are still hunched over the books. Will has to finish his last week in Wordly Wise and write 2 book reports, while Mary will continue working on spelling and math. We still haven't even received the California Achievement Test and the piano teacher gave me a huge stack of books for them to work on all summer.

One of the benefits of homeschooling is that there is no opportunity to play the blame game; I am the teacher and the parent. If one of the children isn't doing well in a subject then we can immediately review, concentrate on, or experiment with another method to learn the information.

CHICAGO (CBS) ―
A startling number of children are falling through the cracks at one Chicago Public School.


The mother of a one student who failed eighth grade says she got no warning her son was struggling. The school says she was notified, and other parents insist she did not do enough. Tatianna Dennis says she had no idea her son was about to fail English; no written notices from Bradwell Elementary, she says, and no warning from his teacher. Tarrell had failed English two times before, but Dennis thought he was doing better. "They told me that he was fine. He was starting to come around and his grades were picking up," Dennis said. "They never gave me any indication that he was going downhill."

It was a disastrous year for the eighth grade at the south side Bradwell Elementary school in a tough neighborhood with high poverty. More than half the class, 44 of 77 students, did not graduate.

1 comment:

Sebastian said...

Sounds like there is much more to the story. My sister-in-law is an elementary school teacher. After a few years of trying to communicate with parents and getting few to respond or show up to parents' nights at school, she doesn't try so hard anymore.
But I sort of admire the school for holding back students who weren't ready for high school work. But it's anyone's guess if there is a plan to address any of the problems.