Reply to Concerned about lower spending on Regular Kids in FCPS?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]That's been a problem for a long time.  FCPS not only has to meet the needs of all the spec ed and esol kids, but it also decides to spend money on all the *gifted* kids and the language immersion kids.  That leaves nothing for the regular kid.[/quote]

+100
Really tired of paying all these taxes, only to have my "regular" kid pretty much ignored.[/quote]

You people are morons. A very tiny percentage of 'your taxes' goes to educate your kid or any other kid for that matter. 
Every single one of us is paying taxes, from teens to the eldetly - most of whom don't have kids in the public school system.
It's not 'your money' to be spent on 'your kid'. 
Hell, we've been paying for 30 years to get 'your kids' a free public education even while our kids are at a 35k private school and we are not whining like you.[/quote]

Not the taxes poster, but if your kids don't even attend FCPS, how is your opinion on whether others have a concern about the level of spending on nonspecial ED/ESOL kids even relevant.  Of course you're not concerned because your kids aren't in the schools, and so you have no clue about the level of education those kids who are in the schools are getting.  Your taxes don't cover the President's or Congress' salaries either, but I'm pretty sure if they were acting in a manner contrary to your or your kid's interest you'd have an opinion.  The number of ESOL kids in our schools affects spending on nonESOL kids.  As inflation adjusted spending per "regular" child decreases, at some point there will be a decrease in the quality of education.  [/quote]

Because we are all paying to educate ALL of the kids, including the special ones, not to just throw  more money at your kids. Your children are in one of the most generously funded schools in the nation. [/quote]

Our DD was going to be bad parochial school. Didn't end up mattering because she is [b]NOW[/b] a top student in high school. Most kids - unless they are special in some way - don't need a ton of instruction at younger ages. A lot of it is developmental.

What did matter was no screen time until high school basically and much time spent doing hands on things and also reading. Your children will learn most of what they need to learn through
play, experience and reading at these ages.  Encourage outside reading - get them anything that they find fun and interesting and encourage reading (Captain Underpants, something about cars - 
anything). Don't have them staring at screens all the time doing dumb social media stuff and have them playing with friends and out in the neighborhood interacting with other children and problem solving.
Video games aren't the worst way to spend some time but in moderation.

Sign them up for one or two educational summer camps a year. Something involving science or building something or zoo camp or programming or something. The rest of the time they can just have fun but sign them up for something educational for some of the weeks.

What you won't ever get in public school is apparently a great writing curriculum. I don't know why, but if you have a battle to pick you might pick that at least once it's middle school time. 
Also by middle school a strong math program is needed. And by strong math program I don't mean what the public schools do which is accelerate kids into higher level math before they are ready just to show on paper that they are learning at a high level (they are not and often they are then unprepared for high school math and fail). By strong math program I mean a good foundation in the basics that will eventually be a good foundation to learning higher level math like geometry and calculus.

The thing is is that I'm not sure you're ever going to get a good educational foundation for your kids in the public schools because they don't always seem to know what they are doing. The bright ones do fine because they are bright and they learn on their own (or in the case of some public schools having gifted programs for them). The schools spend time with the SPED kids and the ESOL kids early on because they understand that they don't understand the basics and they spend time teaching them those basics. After that those kids are left to flounder as well.

They don't ever seem to understand how to educate the middle of the pack but that's not because there are SPED kids or ESOL kids or Gifted kids or that they don't have enough money - it's because they don't care.

I have a SPED kid and they don't care or understand how to teach anything but some basics and we have had to deal with that. I can't see them fixing that ever - the public schools just aren't that good even at their best.

I would pick one aspect of school that you want to see get better - such as more rigorous match teaching or teaching writing skills - and try to get that changed.

Or, take the kids to Kumon...[/quote]

OUr DD is NOW a top student in high school despite her crappy early parochial school years of learning nothing. There were large classes, bad teachers (they hired friends and kept the bad teachers - offering no criticism of their teaching so they could get better and no training other than some pats on the back and social events) and nothing substantial was taught for years. But DD progressed anyway because she read things outside of class, we took her to things like museums and cooked and gardened and got her playdates and did those fun science kits in a box and for her that was enough. She is a crazy strong student.
She was sent to much better schools for middle school and high school. So, if you see that the schools are not going to improve and you can't change them you might consider fleeing by middle school. [/quote]

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