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Are charter schools helping or hurting public schools essay
Are charter schools helping or hurting public schools essay
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The documentary “Waiting for Superman” investigated the ways in which the American Public Education system is failing our nation’s children. It highlighted the roles that Charter Schools and education reformers could play in an effort to offer hope for the future. Moreover, the movie depicted the dropout rate of high school students and schools closing due to lack of funding. The families of five children, who were enrolled in public school, shared their personal stories. These families have taken the necessary steps to provide their children with the opportunity to obtain a good education. The children themselves aspire to be great, and desired the opportunity to one day be able to attend college. They feared, however devoid of a good public …show more content…
(Tuckman & Monetti, 2013, p. 7 & 8) Classroom climate is designed to assess the average child’s experience in the classroom. The amount of emotional support experienced by children in a classroom is based on the warmth, respect, teacher sensitivity and responsiveness, support, approachability, child-centered focus and positive effects that are provided. Anthony’s classroom climate portrayed a welcoming atmosphere to all students, a place where instructions and responses are in an individualized way and motivated to foster each student’s learning. Although Anthony’s classroom didn’t seem to be culturally diverse in terms of ethnicity, his teacher had to respect the diversity within her classroom in order to create a positive classroom climate for Anthony to feel safe, which would benefit his achievement socially, emotionally and academically. High-quality emotional climate in classrooms may have beneficial effects for all children and particularly protective effects for children with existing behavioral, academic, or contextual risks (Rucinski, Brown & Downer, …show more content…
I believe that a student’s success in traditional learning and social development is dependent upon the skills of the teacher in the classroom in addition to family involvement. Families and educators build the foundation upon which students will either thrive or fail. To build this foundation in our changing and expanding world, teachers must have the ability to engage and connect with students of different ethnicities, diverse socioeconomic backgrounds and familial environments. Socioeconomic status can profoundly affect the learner’s attitudes toward school, background knowledge, behaviors, expectations and academic achievement. (Education & socioeconomic) It is the job of the teacher to encourage parental involvement in the classroom. As Anthony’s grandmother raise her grandson with the absence of a biological mother and deceased father due to drugs she was innately aware of their difficult situation and was doing her best to make sense of it. Anthony’s grandmother did not have anyone to motivate and encourage her to value education. In the research by Hickman, Greenwood & Miller states that parents of high socioeconomic status are actively involved and interact with their children both at home and at school, while low socioeconomic status parents value education but are less involved in the school community because they are less comfortable communicating with administrators, and they work longer hours
Educational systems in America are impaired, and the very educators that are meant to teach are the one’s pulling it down. That is the apparent message that Davis Guggenheim attempts to convey in his documentary “Waiting for Superman”. He uses many strategies to get his message across. Some of these include cartoons, children, and those reformers that are attempting to pull the system out of the ditch that it has found its way into. He makes his point very well, and uses facts and figures correctly. He does leave out some of the opinions of the opposing views, but it does not take away from his point that the educational system in America is in need of repair.
One of the most pressing issues facing the United States today is its failing educational system. While many solutions have been proposed, the idea of charter schools has been both popular and controversial. The topic of charter schools is being debated in as many places as local school board meetings to state supreme courts. Though on the surface, charter schools seem like an exciting and promising step for the future of education in America, they are not the answer to this country’s ever-increasing educational problems. Charters will drain already scarce funding from regular public schools, and many of the supposed “positives” surrounding them are uncertain and unpredictable at best.
The documentary “Waiting for Superman” directed by Davis Guggenheim, takes an in depth look at the public school systems and how it affects the children of America. One of the first things the film points out is there are clearly good and bad schools in every district in the country. There is never enough room for all the children in a district to attend excellent schools; because of this many children are put at a disadvantage for their education.
This would lead to higher grades, test scores, school attendance, decreased use of drugs and alcohol, and lower rates of suspension and dropping out (What Research). With his parents not around to support him, he lacked the necessary moral compass, decision making, and social skills needed to succeed not only in school, but in the world. Many kids have the same parental situation as Holden, also with similar results. -----Family participation in education was twice as predictive of students ' academic success as family socioeconomic status. Some of the more intensive programs had effects that were 10 times greater than other factors” (What Research). Increased parental involvement could be the first step to breaking the cycle of poor education and poverty. Poor students are at a much higher risk of not having parental involvement, which draws a clear parallel to these students and Holden
Carol Gerber Allred (Allred, 2008) describes strategies for improving classroom climate related to learning for the students, while enforcing a set of classroom expectations, informing students of their positive actions, infusing intrinsic motivation, encouraging positive behavior, connecting with students’ families and community, and being positive yourself (Allred, 2008). These strategies align with the attributes described in indicator 1a to foster respect for diversity, establish rapport, promote risk-taking and establish high
A child’s first day of school is often viewed as a rite of passage; the first step on the road to a happy and successful life. This is true for most children from affluent families who live in the best school districts or can afford expensive private schools. But what if a child’s first day of school is nothing more than the first step on the road to poverty and possibly even illiteracy? The documentary Waiting for “Superman” addresses many issues in a failing school system and the innocent children that system leaves behind. Although the documentary spends little time suggesting parents’ roles in their children’s education, it clearly shows that we must make changes to help children from low-income families and improve the teacher’s unions.
Kipp Academy, what is it, how did it develop and why is it so important to Urban Education?
The documentary Waiting for Superman, directed by Davis Guggenheim (2010), examines public schools in the United States. Guggenheim (2010) explains some of the reasons, such as school funding and teacher quality, as to why public schools are failing. The film also follows the journey of parents seeking enrollment for their children into charter schools because they believe the public schools are not going to give their children the best educational outcomes. The purpose of this film can be viewed as an explanation of the issues in public education to spark opportunities for changes (Guggenheim, 2010).
In the text Sherman Alexie states,“I refused to fail. I was smart. I was arrogant. I was lucky.” You are probably wondering what this quote means and where it came from. If you really want to know that bad, then I guess I can tell you. The quote comes from a text called “Superman and Me”. This text is about a indian boy that lived on a reservation in Eastern Washington State. His name was Sherman Alexie. He was a prodigy to all standards outside the reservation, but on the inside people just thought that he was an outcast. Now that you know about his life before he learned to read and write let’s learn about this given quote. This quote refers to the central idea, that our class came up with, in many ways; this means many different things in our lives and in his life. A central idea is what the entire text means summed up into a sentence and that is what we will relate this quote to.
A child’s first day of school is often viewed as a rite of passage; the first step on the road to a happy and successful life. This is true for most children from families who live in the best school districts or can afford expensive private schools. On the other hand, what if a child’s first day of school is nothing more than the first step on the road to poverty and possibly even illiteracy? People are continuously saying how children are the future and we must nurture them in order to ensure a bright future for our country. The current education system in the United States is extremely under achieving. The documentary “Waiting for Superman” addresses many issues in a failing school system and the innocent children that system leaves behind.
Among those cultures, African-Americans were among the cultures that demonstrated to have high and low parental involvement in their children’s educational performance. African American parents tend to be more critical of their children’s school agenda because they do not want their child to fail in certain curriculums. Lee and Bowen (2006) discovered that although African American parents do tend to care about their children’s education, but are less engaged in their academic experiences. For example, like attending school events, social events or one on one meeting with teachers. The lack of communication between parents and teachers was also an important factor that related to the lack of parental involvement among African Americans, as well as Hispanic parents, in their children’s academic experiences. The lack of communication between a parent and teacher can negatively affect a student’s academic achievement (e.g. activities, checking homework, encouraging reading). It can affect the child’s academic achievement because the lack of parent involvement displays the unimportance of education a parent has, meaning that a child might not have any desire to continue their education since their parents do apply importance to it. Another factor that affects African American parents involvement are demographic characteristics. For instance, African American children that were high achievers were
According to Ambrose et al (2010), classroom climate is the “intellectual, social, emotional and physical environment in which our students learn” (Ambrose et al, 2010, p.170). Classroom climate is established by the various interacting factors that comprise teacher-student interaction, student-student interaction, the tone the teacher uses in class, and the way the content is delivered in class. The concept of classroom climate absorbs the idea to establish and maintain a positive context that helps learning to take place in the class. However, in reality, classroom climate ranges from toxic to supportive and can change on a daily basis and throughout the academic year.
Waiting for Superman is a 2010 documentary that focuses on the wrongs and solutions to the education system that has been instilled in America. The film features Geoffrey Canada and his importance is obvious but at the same time completely obscured. Michelle Rhee takes a front in this documentary as both the hero and the villain, in the sense that in order to fix what has been wronged she has to make choices and decisions that others view as unnecessary. The documentary itself focuses on the lives of those the education systems has wrong which include 5 children (Anthony, Daisy, Francisco, Bianca and Emily) who in some way, shape, or form have need the education system to save them and give them the kind of education that they need. We follow
Parental school involvement includes many activities. Hill and Taylor (2004) state that parental school involvement reflects activities, such as volunteering in the classroom, communicating with the teacher, participating in academic-related activities in schools, communicating the positive value of education, and participating in the parent-teacher relationship are all included in parental school involvement, and each is positively related to children’s academic success. Moreover, Hill and Taylor (2004) demonstrate several factors influencing parental school involvement, including demographic characteristics, such as socioeconomic status, ethnicity, and cultural background, and other parental characteristics are systematically associated with parental school involvement. They conclude that parents from higher socioeconomic backgrounds are more likely than those from lower socioeconomic backgrounds to be involved in schooling and manage children’s
A classroom climate is defined as “the intellectual, social, emotional, and physical environments in which our students learn”. There is a plethora of research, articles, books and thought leaders in education that advocate the need for teachers to create a positive environment in the classroom. One can safely say that it is a prerequisite if meaningful work and student cooperation are expected. It also conducive to learning and without it, teachers may find difficulty in handling classroom management and goes hand in hand with effective teaching.