School System – Get Off My Ass Already!

As a parent of three kids, I have to tell you that it seems to me that the “new education system” is crawling further up my butt each year. I mean come on, I have a kid in college so I must have done something right along the way.

I have a kid in pre-school and he has homework everyday. EVERYDAY. PRESCHOOL. What gives? Correct me if I am wrong here, but isn’t pre-school a made up grade that counts even less than kindergarten? Four years old and he should already know the alphabet and possess basic math skills? Hell, the middle aged lady who rings up my groceries doesn’t possess basic math skills. Show me one old guy at Wal-Mart that possesses basic math skills? I think your being a bit tough on four year olds.

Now the school is hosting “Parent Coaching”, asking all parents to come to bi-weekly coaching classes so that we, the parents, can learn how to be better parents to kids in school. The letter they send home basically reads, “If you care about your kid’s education at all, you will come to these coaching’s. Child care will be provided and the coaching will be bi-lingual”. There’s no excuse to miss these important coaching lessons, even if you’re Mexican!

I’ve about had it with their damn expectation of not only our children, but of us as parents. I leave the house at 8am and don’t get home until 6pm, and now I am supposed to skip dinner and rush off to parenting coaching provided by the school system? This is the same school who misspelled 4 words in the letter requesting me to come and be “coached”.

When I was a kid I couldn’t wait to grow up because I didn’t want to have homework, and now I learn that as a parent I am supposed to be doing homework with all of my kids. That’s three times the homework I had as a kid! I sure as heck don’t remember my dad having to do squat, but watch T.V. when he came home from work.

So school system, I realize that you are afraid of these new funding rules, such as no child left behind, but you need to stop laying your responsibility onto me. We, the parents, work full time jobs and we don’t expect you to help us meet our quotas when we get home.

Hell, you (the teachers) only work 9 months of the year and yet you make as much or more than I do, so when you want to strike and get more money don’t come to me for support. Every other year a new bond is put to us tax payers so we can raise our own taxes and send even more money to the school system.

You teachers work less, and get better benefits than most of us parents who send our kids to be taught by you, and then you want us to do your job too??????? Oh yeah, and you want a raise from us parents while you’re at it.

Until you change the system and teach in a method that is actually retained by the student, this entire process is a waste of time. If what you are teaching is so important and you are doing such a good job, then tell me why it is that NONE of us remember 90% of what we were taught when we were in school?

Maybe it’s time we start grading the teachers like they grade our children.