Get your kids out of government schools

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Point taken. I agree. Differing schools and regions may have access to different types and degrees of resources. How to allocate what is available to meet the needs of student populations can be challenging and there may be cases (as there are now) where parents may decide that the resources available are insufficient, given the needs of a particular child.
Addemdum: Sorry Meltzerboy, I didn’t address the salary/tuition challenge, and it is a challenge.
Catholic schools in my area peg their salaries against the public school district. Many are a 99% or 100% but others cannot achieve this goal as yet. It is a challenge. Tuition also varies from school to school and, of course, there is a connection between staff salaries and tuition costs. On the positive side, many of the school ‘plants’ are paid off, as Catholic schools have existed in my area for many, many decades. It helps to be paying upkeep rather than buying a new plant.
Schools attempt to help families afford tuition by creating a tiered system where there is a decreased tuition amount for a second child and a further decrease for additional children. This is helpful but there are still families who find themselves priced out of Catholic education.
In some cases (but not, by any means, in all cases), this is due to parents confusing wants with needs. In our culture, it is no uncommon to consider nice cars, all sorts of electronics, cable TV, and/or meals out/ vacation trips/ trendy hair/clothing updates as the basics that everyone has or does. What were once considered add-ons after food shelter and clothing (the basics) were dealt with, are competing with Catholic tuition. Some parents, may choose against givingup such items in order to send their children to Catholic schools. Material priorities can crowd out the spiritual and our culture is quite materialistic.
We have many challenges to overcome.
 
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Threads like this honestly make me disappointed.

If we just shelter our children from the world by pulling them away from every instance where they don’t have to stand up for the faith then how strong will our kids be really
 
In the state where I live, public schools are controlled by elected school boards. The faceless bureaucrats whomst are making the decisions are actually your neighbors, friends, coworkers, etc.

I went to a conference on what to do about dwindling resources and funding. One of the presenters was a woman who had been unhappy with the direction of her district so she ran for and won a seat on her board. She said, “If you’re unhappy, don’t complain. Run for a seat on your school board and do something about it.”
 
Hi luciavento,
I think that, in part, this may be necessary to make up for the time lost to programs which were not offered to previous generations.
In my area, grade school students now have art, music, P.E. technology, Foreign language (although not at all schools) library, and social/emotional/learning skill education as well as the odd assembly worked in around their old-school courses.
That’s a lot of teaching time each week and there are still Science, history, math, reading writing, grammar, spelling, and (most importantly if the school is Catholic) religion to be taught.
More practice and work needs to be off-shored to parents to accommodate the expansion of these programs.
As a parent, recognizing this, I would be more concerned if my child’s school was not sending home lots of homework. He needs to be practicing the skills presented in class.
 
I think people REALLY underestimate how expertly this stuff is marketed to our schools. Tech companies (and text book companies for that matter) spend fortunes on flying administrators, school boards, parent advisory committies, etc to be “wined and dined” and given presentations by professional sales people who all claim to be former teachers on how their technology is the cutting edge in education and how students will be failures in the “real world” if they don’t get their stuff. This has been really effective over the past few decades because the tech representatives knew their audience. They were dealing with the older generation of educators who were caught off guard at the technological explosion and learned quickly that failure to adapt to the use of computers and technology in the classroom could mean their jobs. People actually believed that if students didn’t leave middle school with knowledge of certain software, they were essentially unhirable. Nowadays, most teachers have to squint to remember the programs they used to put grades in five years ago. Everything changes constantly. Spending money on the newest gadget or program is a bad investment. Kids need to learn problem solving skills and how to adapt to new work situations. They need to learn to create and design.
 
They need to know their faith in order to be able to stand up for it. That, in part, is what has been discussed on this thread.
It’s tough to be salt and light to the world if you lack formation.
 
meltzerboy2 said:
Yes, I am. I would add though that there is nothing wrong with having fun during childhood (even during adulthood!). At the same time, I think children should learn that sometimes good old-fashioned work is beneficial and there is a time for this as well as play.
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Well, one of the other concerns I have about “brick and mortar” schooling is that so often, the reading is not fun. Right now, all my boys absolutely love to read and learn. But both my school-aged kids bring home the most boring and awful “easy readers” that are assigned to them. I can tell they’re supposed to be teaching certain lessons, but honestly, we don’t read them. I borrow other books from the library and read them instead, in addition to the other family reading we do. And so far they do just fine with that.
 
Yep! Technology has become a black hole for school funds. You buy it, you update it all of the time, it becomes obsolete very quickly and you have to start over with the buying.
the opportunity cost is the money which could be spent on other programs or the tuition which could be reduced or salary which could be increased in a private school.
 
You know who controls the school textbook publishing industry? Texas!
 
If music, art, PE, and library are “new” to your area, you are few generations behind! Those existed in most states in the 50s and were considered mandatory for public schools by the 70s. They also shouldn’t be “taking away” from the curriculum, but adding opportunities for learning important skills that can’t be taught by mere drilling and practice. Well, except for library, but you can’t really read unless you have books!
 
Yep! I always wondered why our music book series always have “The Yellow Rose of Texas” in every blessed grade level.
 
You ought to see this changing soon. “The Book Whisperer” is the biggest thing right now and kids are encouraged to choose their own books. (within reason)
 
Deaf people like myself rarely participate in music program but yes this is one of many influences from Texas Board of Education.
 
We discussed that also. Allegra spoke to three generations of poor catechesis (parents can’t pass on what they do not have). There was comment on the dearth of moral formation around issues of marriage and sexuality by Catholic schools.
Reclaiming and sharing the faith is a big project and, it seems to me, one that doesn’t tend to start until an individual comes to see that s/he lacks formation and seeks to correct this.
This is not an attempt on my part to disrespect parents. My parents sent me and my siblings to Catholic schools, assuming that we would receive the same caliber of formation that they received from the Franciscan sisters. Unfortunately, by this time, there were only a few sisters teaching in the school at which we attended. I received excellent catechesis my first few years and very little after my formation for the sacrament of confession.
Our family attended weekly Mass, went to confession as a family, prayed together daily, we had several Bibles at home which we read, our religion grades were As or at least Bs, but, there was almost no content behind those grades. It was all “His banner over me is love” and some soft social justice love thy neighbor, forgive thyself stuff. Even at my Catholic high school, formation was poor, but I didn’t realize what I had missed until years later.
Our parents paid a lot of tuition, made lots of sacrifices and trusted our schools. Fortunately, we did receive enough formation at home to value our faith and continue to work to grow as Christians.
Now, we are keeping a close eye on our children’s schools, having learned the hard way, that teachers can have agendas to ‘reform’ the faith, or they may just be poorly catechised and very enthusiastic teachers who lead their students off path. Of course, there are also well formed and dedicated teachers in Catholic schools and that it is a blessing for principals to have parents helping them to keep their religion programs in-line blessing for the schools when parents and teachers work together to ensure adherence to the Magisterium an uphold high expectations for religious education programs.
 
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We had art from time to time and music more regularly. P.E. began in junior high.
I am delighted to see a greater focus on the arts now, relative to my childhood days. Library was about a half our a week The larger point that I wished to make with my post is that, roughly 5 more hours of teaching time are being traded off each week over my childhood days due to programmatic changes and there is an opportunity cost in this practice: teachers can only teach so much in a day, and when their teaching day is shortened, what they are able to do accomplish is affected by this practice.
One way to address this is by offshoring practice home in the form of homework.
Another way is to move to a year round schooling (not my personal preference) or to extend the school day (which also holds little appeal). I’d rather spend time with my family and if that means we do extra homework, I’ll take it!
 
All of our students participate in music class. I have deaf students right now.
 
I know I’m being nosy but do you think the good Catholic Schools have to be expensive or do you think a good orthodox school with a strong spiritual life, faith culture and catechism program need not be expensive. To be fair to the Diocese of San Diego, I think they’re definitely trying to promote Catholic Education (FIAT Catholic Schools, Bishop Flores Scholars), it’s just easier said than done.
 
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