A book review: Waiting For Superman

So last night, I had some time and soared through the incredibly sobering book, Waiting For Superman. I enjoyed the data and the fact that it addresses that the problem is not money per say, and it's not the teachers per say, and it's not the parents per say, but a combination of all these things. I was amazed at how quickly I had come to my own conclusion about why the school system is broken and how grateful I am to be an intervention in my own children's education. I made me aware that while we need to be assessing how well and how much our kids are learning, these tests should not be the center of the learning world. As it stands the teachers have been forced into teaching only to get kids to pass these tests and the kids will only be learning what is on those tests. No wonder there is no room for sadness as we say good bye to another art or music program....It makes me sad and yet at the same time it makes me mad enough to stand between my children and the served up mediocrity. I think what has been made apparent to me, in my own experiences, is when we stop and look at the goals of going to school it should ALWAYS be about learning and not about passing a standardized test. It seems to be logical to me that if you learn all of the objectives in a subject, you should in fact be able to in turn pass a test about it. As we have become more test focused, not only have we spent more money, but we have not improved test scores. If things follow the same trends we will have so many jobs and needs and no one smart enough to be a part of it.

Bottom Line: Kids don't need laptops, they need good teachers with the cash to do what they need to do and they need their parents to wake up and participate in their creation. It's all about kids!!!