\doc\web\99\05\titl1.txt Date sent: Thu, 18 Mar 1999 5:49:47 Subject: [education-consumers] my journey to ed reform To: "ClearingHouse" From: "Erwin Rysz" Send reply to: "Erwin Rysz" ===================================================================== a long time ago, I graduated college (I was an English major) and but never gave thought to becoming a teacher - at least on the elementary or secondary levels. I guess after taking several mindless education courses, I saw how the field was changing and knew, that I'd be out of place in schools where content seemed not to matter and where form, style, method did. I guess i made my own separate peace with education. That all changed when my children were born. The needs of my children, now forced me to look at what was happening in our schools, in how the system had changed. My first child is severely brain injured, because of medical malpractice, and that taught me to be more inquisitive and demanding of any system that could be run without a safety net, without a real system of control. ....and that has led to my questioning our public schools, our teacher colleges, the foundations that support them, the bias that infects classes, texts, policies, the psychological manipulation that is so prevalent, the loss of any form of choice that a student, parent and teacher really have in the mess called public education. One particular sore spot I keep coming back to is Title 1. As a parent of a severely brain injured child, it has become clear that most of Title 1 is directed not at really needy children, as in the case of my daughter who cannot see, talk, walk etc., but rather is directed at children who are made to be learning disabled by the system. The vast majority of these kids are no different than my other child. I have found that one indicative measure of this lies in the child's ability to read, and the facts support a need to teach all children and not just the few. When our local school district started their journey towards whole language at the expense of phonics, I knew I had to take a stand for the safety of my younger child. I really could do little for my oldest; I could really do something for my second child. My obvious choice, was to make a choice, and not just accept a program that had no real clinical validity, which never had been proven to work. Whole language, like most of it's Title 1 counterparts, did one thing well - it was not the great equalizer, the common ground upon which an education could be built. No, what I found, was that these were the very programs that kept the poor, the needy in their place. They merely mirrored what the world was like and made no effort to change it. The schools which adopted such, got increased federal funding (Title1) and made so many more illiterates along the way. When you think of it, it is a great scam, and the neatest part of it, is that those who most need the help (the poor, the minorities, the children who actually need hands on help never get it, but are tracked down towards an LD designation, while the school districts get more and more funding for their effort). The choice I made, for my youngest, was to look for a private school, which would not make that decision, which still believed that all children could and would learn. Well, that's where I am today. It took 25 years for me to discover this. It couldn't have happened, had my first child been taken care of properly when she was born. Maybe that's why I'm so dead set against any educrat taking charge of a life and deciding what's proper, what's in the cards for any child. I'd like to think that all children deserve that much respect. ===================================================================== EDUCATION CONSUMERS CLEARINGHOUSE networking and information for parents and taxpayers on the internet Subscriptions & Archives: http://education-consumers.com or You are currently subscribed to education-consumers as: arthurhu@halcyon.com TO UNSUBSCRIBE: Send a blank email to leave-education-consumers-989462S@lists.dundee.net ===================================================================== For less mail, click on the following link and choose 1) a daily digest, 2) a daily list of subjects, or 3) no mail (read postings on Web) http://lists.dundee.net/scripts/lyris.pl?enter=education-consumers For more help & info: http://www.lyris.com/help or