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Choose The Best School For Your Child

Queen Elizabeth High School (Halifax, Nova Sco...

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It’s essential that your child goes to the right school – a school that will motivate them to succeed, and give them ambitions and experience. Choosing a school does require plenty of research, to ensure you have the full story, especially if you are not familiar with the area your child will be going to school.

Look at school guides. Many states do this, such as the Washington State Post, and have page for each school giving some information. Some review schools on different areas, such as extra curricular activities, and you might find comments from previous students here too.

Look at the schools website. This should list important information such as what courses and activities are on offer, term times and any special points. You should also be able to see the latest score that the school was given under the ‘No Child Left Behind’ law.

Visit the school. Make sure your child is ready to ask any questions they have, and take a notebook to make notes. Talk to the principle, and find out about the schools aims, strengths and weaknesses. Consider whether you would have the principal as a friend, or if you would hire him as a colleague. If you can’t see the principle, or don’t get along with him, this should be a warning sign. This man will have a lot of control over the school.

Talk to other parents if you can, and the Parent Teacher Association. Find out what they think – would they send their child there again? Where else did they consider? Why did they choose this school? Their answers might help you to make up your mind.

Talk to your child and find out what they thought. Make a shortlist of schools, and talk about your gut feeling for each one. Allow your child to have their say, too. Then make the choice together, and get ready to go to school!

Filed Under: Education, Students Tagged With: , ,

Liberty, Freedom and Education

In our country we are ruled by laws and legislation. Part of what ensures our freedom and our liberty are these very same laws. A very big part of these laws surround our children. They are designed to protect them and to teach them. The Federal government, state government and even local governments have passed many laws that impact our schools, our teachers and their ability to teach. Understanding these rules and how they impact our children is important if we hope to guide our children into the next generation.

While there are several major pieces of legislation that have been passed in the past 50 years perhaps none is as significant as the No Child Left Behind Act of 2002. This act was passed by the Federal government in an attempt to regulate the content, course selection and standards our schools use during the education process. While the Federal government could not directly require state and local governments to change the guidelines they used the act to entice school boards through monetary gains. In other words, schools that met certain criteria were offered additional funding.

Unfortunately many people feel that this act had several negative impacts on our students. They believe it has led to a culture in which we teach to the test and effectively ignore educating our students. Because of this legislators at the Federal level are currently investigating other options for regulating education.  NCLB is currently up for renewal and many legislators are interested in repealing the act and replacing it with a more effective piece of legislation.

Using laws to regulate education makes sense but only if those writing the laws understand how those laws impact every single aspect of our children’s education. Perhaps the best idea is creating laws based on input from teachers, students, parents and administrators.

Filed Under: Education, Students Tagged With: ,

What Is In A Law?

We don’t like to think about it, but our schools are not so much sacred institutions of learning as they are commercial enterprises. Like any commercial enterprise, our schools are governed by a specific set of rules and regulations.  These rules vary slightly from state to state and, obviously, differ the rules are different at the varying levels of education, elementary school, secondary school and the college level. Still, at their core, many of the regulations are the same.

The first big set of rules governs income generation. Thanks in large part to the No Child Left Behind Act, schools have the ability to generate income based on the performance of their students. Because of this, most administrators follow the guidelines set forth in NCLB very carefully.

Part of following NCLB is compliance. This means nothing more than setting policies within the school that follow not only education laws but also discrimination laws and laws protecting the rights of students and staff.

Special education needs are carefully governed as well. Laws specific to special education mandate the education, resources and even physical premise to ensure that students with special needs have them met.

In recent years rules and regulations governing pupil behavior have been at the forefront, with schools and administrators treading the line between discipline and going too far. Many states have mandated additional laws governing pupil behavior in order to protect their students.

Admissions, primarily at the college level, are carefully regulated.  Discrimination plays a large role in many college admission disputes. Because of this, many institutions have themselves implemented transparency regulations to prevent the appearance of impropriety.

The truth is that every aspect of education is subject to rules and regulations. In many cases, these rules and regulations are followed not to protect the students or even to improve academic standings but to increase revenues.

Filed Under: Education Tagged With: