Current Debates

To me this is just crazy. Homeschooling is looking better every day.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/WireStory?id=5674249&page=1

They say they aren't designed to create anxiety but I can remeber test anxiety in Kindy because I had trouble drawing a star on the entrance exams. It would depend on the childs nature and if they are perfectionistic or not. Whatever happened to childhood being a journey instead of a race?

A star? My child has trouble writing her name- a star is ridiculous. I don't think 5 YOs EVER need to be tested. You teach them the materials and often they forget most of it during the summer and relearn again in the fall anyway (reason why we do year round school.) I just don't see the benefit in such tests. No child is really left behind at age five. It's when they are a bit older that one might be concerned about that, but even still...that's why I homeschool. No teacher can make sure that all the children are where they should be at...there's too many children to too few teachers. And then those who are more advanced in some areas don't get the learning they need because the teacher is too busy teaching Susy because she didn't do as well on the test.

So they say that each SEGMENT of the test will take 60-90 minutes. That's terrible. I can find out within five minutes if my child understands a concept, why do the tests take that long?

Yes. A star. I can still remember very vividly being afraid they wouldn't let me in Kindy because of it. I REALLY wanted to go to school.

At 4 1/2 my dd can hardly sit through a whole movie that she wants to see. I just can't see this in another year or so for a test.

She really wants to go to school, but homeschool is looking better and better to me. Even our charter schools have to do the stupid, state tests. When I checked out a Waldorf charter school one mom was there trying to get her 3rd grader in because her child was having anxiety attacks about school and would sometimes have 2 hours of homework a night.

Children aren't little, programmable micro-processors. It's interesting that as our technology has grown we have dehumanized the education of our children as well. It seems that "whomever" is in charge of our educational system thinks the more input at a younger age means a better education and it just isn't so. Brain development doesen't change just because more information is applied.

<<<Homeschooling is looking better every day.>>>

My oldest is 13 and I have homeschooled him every year except for 1 year, He went to 3rd grade , He got straight A's because the public school in our area was a year behind what I had already taught him, He was bored stiff. I pulled him back out the next year.

I cant imagine making a kid in kindergarden take a 60-90 minutes test that is rediculous.  I can tell you now that I have successfully homeschooled 5 kindergardener's that every single one of them learns different. I have some kids that can read it and do it, some have to be hands on , some have to see it to do it ( visual learner ) etc. No 2 kids are alike and no 2 have ever used the same approach to learning in my house.

The no kid left behind act is a joke You cant stuff 30-35 kids sometimes more in one class and expect them all to learn like little cookie cutter carbon copies it just isnt going to happen.

And then you have the parents who get mad when their child is not learning this or that because they expect the teachers to teach them everything they need to know in 6 hours with no one on one help LOL. Those people just kill me!  And they dont sit and do homework with their kids to help , see where they are, find out what they are learning , re-enforce skills learned through the day... Then the kids get in trouble when they get report cards that are less than what the parents expected. .......