Wednesday, December 24, 2014

Are you thinking about pulling your child out of public school?

More than 150,000 people have read Lynne Rigby's letter addressed to Florida Governor Rick Scott and the the Seminole County school officials.  If you are questioning your child's education, please read this letter.  A mother of five children aged 4 to 16, a college graduate and a kindergarten teacher, Lynne Rigby discovered the profound disconnect between success in the classroom (A's and B's), success with homework, never struggling and a low score on the Discovery Education tests. Her happy, third grade son was now suddenly pulled out of his third grade class and sent to remedial programs because of his test scores. The disconnect is the validity of the test and the test's connection to the curriculum.  Now the elephant enters the room - Common Core.  Won't it be wonderful argue some politicians, some college professors and test and teaching material producers if all students in the United States in the same grade are on the same page learning the same material every school day.  Workbooks and worksheets day after day dedicated to grinding out some myth of accountability measured by tests. 
A documented study concluded that if state and national testing were eliminated, some school districts could add 20 to 40 minutes of instruction each school day and in more competitive school districts students could gain an entire class period of instruction each school day.  Additionally, school districts would have $100 per test taker to purchase other services and goods to improve student learning. See Problems With Standardized Testing from education.com for more information.   

Marketplace Mission Learning Center (MMLC) offers a one room classroom for seven students with the teacher of the online course work in the classroom.  MMLC offers parents who wish to homeschool access to 180 courses for grades 3-12.  Instruction on using the course work and support are a text or phone call away. With 40 years of teaching over 5,500 students, Mr. Hill is available to address your education questions and concerns.  

Tutoring at Home No. 1

Tutoring at Home No. 1