Damn, I hate this review already.
I love public education. I grew up in public schools and I'm an advocate, completely. My sister is a Rhodes scholar who used her public education to further her professional career and position her life in ways that private institutions strive to equal. That tutelage was in Minneapolis, but I think this is important to point out: public schools, supported by the public at large and the state, can be exceptionally successful.
I support APS and have high hopes for a renaissance, my theory: charter schools (funded by APS) will eventually be the savior for an aggressive campaign by greedy interests to privatize this American standard. But at this very moment, APS is suffering, big time.
You read about it in the paper and if you're married to an educator, you get the reality: our public education system, in Albuquerque, is a mess. Our populace is certainly part of the problem, because many of our kids come from home situations where education isn't valued, and this rings true when the kids show up for class without a proper breakfast and claim they cannot afford supplies while they fiddle with their smart phones and happily proclaim their video game superiority. My wife often repeats this maxim: If we're going to grade the teachers, let the teachers grade the parents. It's true, a cultural shift is desperately needed.
Overall, there is a lack of support for solid, meaningful public education in this state. Simple, basic standards aren't being adhered to; by middle school, kids should know the difference between Their, They're and There, for instance. They should be eating nutritional food from the cafeteria; they should know how to read (if not write) cursive; they should know why this place is called New Mexico. It ain't happenin'. Increasingly, teachers are "teaching to the test" (increasingly prepared by private, contracted, out-of-state companies) that encumber the minds of ambitious learners and they're missing the entire point: education should be fun. In the average APS classroom (now breaking the 30-student mark), learning is a burden, a set of tests designed to make the kid feel like a failure.
I have one of these kids. She's suffering a long-standing educational deficiency wrought from an elementary education that strangled her. My advice: go Charter. These schools have the goods (most of them) to elevate the mangled minds of our youth and put them in position for great success. Or, if you can afford it, balance part-time schooling with education from home. There are some resources available if you want to go this route.
Look, I loved my public schooling. I was fine with bigger classrooms. And I'm happy to claim the basics: I know my states/countries/continents, I can write a few things, I'm good with numbers. From what I know of NM public school kids, this just ain't the case. My wife is currently struggling with a few kids who've made it to 7th grade with the literary skill sets of third graders. There's something deeply, terribly wrong with this, and the problem is compounded when we point our fingers at the educators and give them an ultimatum: fix this mess or own it.
Who wants to work in that environment? Not me. read more
