I agree public schools have a huge, and often unfair burden placed on them to solve all sorts of ills. Education isnt their agenda, it is their mission. In some places public school parents are worried that there is an agenda as well. Apparently that concern increased over the pandemic.
For those of you worried about the amount of books checked out of school libraries, you need to keep in mind that many kids read books on Kindle. I know many kids at our school did.
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Don’t forget home school. There are so many resources out there now, that it is also a great choice.
Or that the parents have an agenda that differs from that of the school.
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Out of curiosity, has anyone in FL, preferably without much of a bias, polled residents to see how they feel about the ban? I just tried google, but was unsuccessful. I found myself wondering if it’s truly the masses supporting it or just the current politicians and loud residents. I have no idea TBH.
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Isn’t where your grandchildren attend school the choice of their parents?
Signed,
Me, a former public school student and the parent of two highly skilled and talented public school students. Oh! One of them is ACTUALLY a public school math teacher!
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I mean, I posted this thread largely due to the banned picture books…… 
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Oh, I dont have grandkids, and very possibly may never. It would be nice to be able to offer my own kids the resources to send any kids they eventually have to private school if they so desire. Not sure we will be able to do that, but it would be nice.
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I’m sure in some areas with poor public school systems, charter schools offer an alternative.
BUT----
I taught in the suburbs, at a high performing public high school. Surrounding towns also had very good high schools as well. A local charter school opened up 20+ yrs ago. They do not outperform the area public schools on the statewide assessment. Even though we have to accept every student who walked through the door and they get to pick and choose, they did not outperform us.
When the charter school opened, it was trumpeted that they would (a) create innovative teaching strategies and (b) would share them with the public schools. Well, in many areas (a) their curriculum consisted of rote learning using purchased canned curriculum and (b) public schools are still waiting for something “innovative” to be shared.
For its first decade or so, the school was actually run by and a foreign company, and state funds were funneled out of the country. Only in America.
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Same here with charter options, except I don’t think they’re foreign owned. They promise great things, and don’t outperform at least my district. They only drain funds from it causing taxpayers to pay more to support both.
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It seems Florida allows children to apply for and attend any public or charter school regardless of district, so anyone upset by the Board’s recent decision has lots of options.
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Was this in MA? Given that MA consistently is a leader in high school student performance, if you taught in a high performing MA school, that could make it among the top performing schools in the country. It’s no surprise that anything short of either an elite private or public magnet cannot outperform that. I don’t know why a charter school would even try.
My kids attended an excellent MA public school system. Student outcomes from this school are excellent, and therefore we never seriously considered another alternative.
But the better question is, if the local school system is underperforming, should parents be allowed to seek an alternative if it meets academic standards. I think they should.
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This is what we do as a society for tertiary education of course. Income-limited, but federal aid is provided for students to attend the college of their choice, not just the local public college.
It has gotten to the point that even with such federal aid, many students from low-money families can only barely afford the local public college (or maybe not even afford it in some states with high in-state costs and poor in-state financial aid, especially if the “local” public college is out of reasonable commute distance as may be the case in rural areas).
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People who have the means to get to the schools have options. You get transportation to the school you are zoned to, and the rest is on you.
My kids could have gone to the other high school but I would have had to provide transportation, and it was 5 miles the other way from my job. Just not doable for a single mother working 10 hour days with an hour commute. There were 6 traditional high schools in our district and they could have gone to any of them, plus 3-4 alternative schools, but some were 30 miles away (again, wrong direction). There was also the option of online school, but my kids would have been unsupervised for many many hours per day and of course no library at all so the issue of banned books was not in play.
Charter schools have changed a lot in the last 20 years in Colorado. At first, they were very independent and could pick and choose their kids. Now they have to accept special needs kids, kids with behavioral problems, kids with IEPs and 504 plans. At the school I work at, we have several with one-to-one aids (and they need them!). But the charter schools now get bus service for some kids, breakfast and lunch for all kids (state program) and lots of public funds. Each student brings their public school funds (about $10k per kid) with them. The teachers are not in the teacher’s union and get paid more than public school teachers.
But we have no library and therefore no banned books.
The moderators have given a lot of leeway here, but federal FA, in-state tuition, charter schools, your personal memories, etc are not even close to on-topic. Feel free to start a new thread, but continued OT posts are subject to deletion without notice or explanation.
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A. Man walking with arm around other man. That must be the “homosexual agenda”.
B. Most of the babies are being carried around by the father, without the mother in sight. That is an attack on “traditional values”.
C. A white woman walking with a Black woman and they are obviously friends. They may be talking about CRT, or worse, may be a couple.
I wish that it was entirely sarcastic.
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According to the American Library Association, books about Black a LGBTQ people are the most challenged. Also last year was the most challenges recorded since they started keeping track in the 90’s.
In 2020 there were 156 challenges compared to 729 in 2021.
It’s disturbing and really makes me question the progress I thought we’ve made as a society.
As the parent of a gay young man, it both saddens and angers me.
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I find a lot of what many in the US and world (Russia anyone?) are turning to scary actually, and with 1984’s type of doublethink - esp Freedom. We read the book in school in 1984 and used to scoff at the thought that it could really happen. Hence - scary. George Orwell was just a few decades off.
I googled, and yes, 1984 itself has been a banned book, though it’s not on this FL county’s current list:
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Agree 100%. And the fact that parents (even some on here) are supporting this ban in the vein of “parents should be allowed to teach their kids what they want in accordance with their values”. Really? If your values include intolerance for for LGBTQ and people of color, then your “values” should be challenged. It’s maddening honestly.
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