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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I am an Indian Hindu immigrant who voted for Clinton.  How will this impact my children? What happens when the standards of public education becomes very low and there is not much of a curriculum to speak of at school? What will happen if they start teaching the Bible at school?

To start with, any Indian I know is not really depending on the curriculum in this country to educate their child.  We all have the parallel system of education going on where our children are being enriched as well as participating in all possible competitions to gauge where they stand.   So, here is an entire community already on plan B, and so we will continue to do so.

Christian education?  I was educated in convent schools in India.  Nuns in habits and all.  It did not change my religious beliefs because Jesus became just one of the many Gods that we have and we fervently asked him and Ganesh for good grades.  For me,"Bible" reading will be another subject that hopefully will allow them to answer a whole category of Jeopardy questions.  They should bring on Torah and Koran and Gita too.  Because we need to be able to see what the commonalities in religions are.  And as an Indian parent focused on education - all knowledge is good.

Where does this or any education secretary leave us?  Frankly, the education standard is so low in the US, that it does not matter to any of us.  What can she or anyone do in 4 years?  The education is in a downward death spiral here - this needs to be made amply clear to everyone here that having a country completely run by Republicans will not change that at all.

Achievement Gap will become bigger because Asians students are not really depending on US K-12 academic standards for their education.  And unless they outsource the teaching to the teachers in India who know how to make silk purses out of sow ears...

Can anyone increase the instruction days in schools?  Can we have shorter summer breaks? Can we hold students back if they are not performing?  Can acceleration happen for the children who need it? No?  Then frankly this is not really impacting us.  [/quote]

I find this very interesting. Frankly, I am not doing the same enrichment for my kids, though I compensate by sending them to an excellent private school. I agree that a culture of mediocrity is a problem. Can you share more about what you are doing in terms of enrichment and competition? Thank you.[/quote]

What grade is your child in? What are his/her interests? I did not find private any better than public, because the quality of instruction and curriculum was not any greater and the teachers were less qualified.  The demographics of a public school reflects the truth of the society in which we live and so the good and bad of it was palatable  to me. 
Enrichment will keep evolving for each child and their needs, so I do not know how to answer that. For elementary school we have used magazines like Kids discover, Carus publications etc.  For math curriculum - Singapore Math, Alecs.com, Beestar.org, general elementary curriculum books by E D Hirsch Jr., used the DC museums extensively etc., traveled with a focus on making sure that the kids had some knowledge of the culture of that area. Concentrate on activities your child likes and search out competitions, projects, field-trips and exhibitions related to that. Google the competitions available for K-12 students in the area of their interest and you will get many hits.  Pick and choose.  Remember that there are only 24 hours in a day and you want your kids engaged and learning but not over-scheduled.  This also requires a lot of time committment from parents, because this is the kind of stuff that is not being taken care of during the school day. [/quote]

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