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Sunday, Feb. 3, 2013 | 2:02 a.m.
The overcrowding at Clark County schools is a major problem but has several solutions. The proposal by the Clark County School District to go back to a year-round school schedule is a partial element in solving overcrowding. The second is to encourage home-schooling via the Internet, which would be beneficial to learning and ease pressure on on-site facilities. The final solution is to have more portable classrooms available for instruction, considering that further school construction won’t happen anytime soon for budget reasons. Overcrowding of the School District, which is one of the largest nationwide, isn’t an easy crisis or one ...
Bill correctly "The second is to encourage home-schooling via the Internet, which would be beneficial to learning and ease pressure on on-site facilities."
Absolutely the right thing to do
Thousands of others are doing online-schooling or e-schooling - why is Nevada waiting
Just 15% online-school would free 15% of the classrooms
3 suggestions for Clark County School District AND NEVADA: Homeschooling, charter schools, and school vouchers. Nevada is the last in the nation in education of students. When you are last, at the bottom of the heap, what do you have to lose.
CarmineD
All sensible ideas. It makes little sense to build additional multi-million dollar schools while multi-million dollar schools sit idle for three months of the year. Portable classrooms do not detract from the education experience and you don't need additional real estate to support them. Internet instruction would bring education into the twenty-first century. There are elements of our current nineteenth century model that require a campus and fixed times of instruction that are expensive and no longer work well.
To these I would suggest adding twenty days of instruction to the school year.
Homeschooling via the Internet? Many of the parents of these children never made it through high school. That's just what we need in this state. "Education through the Internet."
If this state wants more well-to-do people moving here the quality-of-life metrics have to be improved. The hospitals are in trouble, a major cancer center just closed, violence is sky high, and our young people do not have the requisite education to provide a decent labor pool.
If the letter writer believes you can get this through portable classrooms and the Internet he sorely mistaken. It takes quality schools with good teachers and motivated students.
The above commentators obviously don't have any children. When children are sitting in front of the computer they are looking at nothing but garbage. High-tech devices are the reason American kids are lacking in education. They are definitely not the solution.
Bill Gates only allows his kids on the computer a few minutes a day. If high-tech devices could educate children, Gates would have figured out a way to accomplish this.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,2533...
If overcrowding, not a teacher shortage, is the main problem change the attendance criteria. Put these overcrowded grades/classrooms on a three and one-half day shift and the teachers on a four day 40 hour week with all of the overlaps occurring on either Saturday or Sunday. This keeps the parents from screaming about their child not staying in their local school.
BTW, homeschooling only works when the parent can be at home and is already better educated than the child. This also assumes that the parent is actually capable of teaching.
I sure wish I had the computer back in my school days instead of dealing with typewriters and reading dated information in 15 year old encyclopedia books.
Today, they have online tutoring and online classes I could have taken for college course credits that would have reduced my commute time to college leading to more time studying. Online courses would have save gas money and let me learn at my own pace instead of class speed which would have allowed to graduate earlier. Many people forget that classes sometime get full so you can't get the classes you need in the semester you need to take the course(prerequisites). I've learned so much more from resources available to me via the computer than I did in college. And I'm connected to colleagues around the world in my profession for collaborative problem-solving.
No, give me the computer age any day over the typewriter/letters/encyclopedia days.
Reading the comments to Sun letters makes me wonder just how bad the Clark County schools really are. Most of the commenters here did not attend the local school system, and despite that, they still can't support their argument, resorting to debunked talking points or ill-considered ideas.
As zippert1 correctly notes: "Homeschooling via the Internet? Many of the parents of these children never made it through high school."
And as I commented on 1/29/13:
Comments to the effect of let the kids do online classes from home or get home schooled demonstrate a complete lack of understanding of the issues faced by the children who are most likely NOT to graduate.
When dad is a violent drunk and mom is a meth head, do you really believe these children will have an internet connection? A computer? Food? The desire to stay home all day to study? Enough silence to concentrate? A home?
Do you really believe that parents that didn't make it through high school are equipped to home school their children? How about if they are equipped but have to work 4 jobs between them to support the family? As the conservatives love to claim here the "real" unemployment rate is 20%, so how many of these families with an unemployed parent still have a home conducive to learning?
You are an adult in your mid-40s. We are talking about children here. Not college-age adults. Adults may use computers to facilitate business activities and education. Children use them for porn, social networking and music.
Put a bunch of 10-year-olds behind computers and see how much productivity you get. I had very tough, excellent teachers when I was growing up in Santa Monica. That education enabled me to get into UCLA and study economics. Had computers existed in the 1960s I would've probably spent all of my time looking at porn and never made it through high school. As I stated above that's a big problem in Nevada.
Aggregate costs are very high today. Many families are two income families. Mom and dad are working all day and the kiddies are going to educate themselves on computers. Good luck with that one!
Schools also care for children while the parents work. They act as surrogate babysitters. Without brick-and-mortar schools many parents would not be able to be part of the workforce. Schools and after school programs are a lifesaver for many working parents.
Gerry wrote "You are an adult in your mid-40s. We are talking about children here. Not college-age adults. Adults may use computers to facilitate business activities and education. Children use them for porn, social networking and music.....Had computers existed in the 1960s I would've probably spent all of my time looking at porn and never made it through high school. "
Early 40's here Gerry, not mid-40's. LOL Are you 56 years old Gerry? That is mid-50's.
Gerry, I respect your views on puberty and adolescence but I disagree with your conclusion that teenagers would be like you and desire to view porn all the time and get nothing done on the computer.
We agree to disagree.
Great suggestions offered here and in the above letter. Sounds like many do not know of the ONLINE educational programs in Clark County and throughout this state. It has existed for over ten years now. When you drive past the PBS/CCSD building (on the north side of the road) on East Flamingo Road, try stopping by and checking it out. Very state of the art, full of the lastest technology and qualified teachers there to serve our online student population. You would truly be impressed!
As Commenter Victor Eismine pointed out, home schooling is NOT for everyone. There needs to be a supportive learning environment, committed students and parents, who, usually will subscribe to a particular curriculum for delivery of services. Online education provided by school districts, most often provide a delivery of services that has content that is aligned to standards and students are supervised by qualified teachers. Both require a commitment of integrity to study and willingness to purchase items necessary to do project based learning curricula and meet agreed time deadlines for it to be successful. Online does not necessitate the parent having an extensive education, only that they assume the position of supporting their child through the process, getting/providing for whatever their child needs for projects, and doing whatever transportation needed for mandatory meetings.
Year-round schooling is far more effective for Middle School and High School students. After doing year-round schooling at the elementary school level, I observed children becoming obsessed about what their families (while they missed yearly family reunions) and friends were doing during the summer, while they were forced to attend school during the summer. Typically, there is little motivation, great rebellion, and minimal positive student outcomes.
IF you have to do year-round schooling, it should be implemented with the older, more mature students, to be most effective.
Blessings and Peace,
Star
Gerry,
The solutions stated in my letter in a combo way will help ease the burden on our school district considering know you have classrooms with 30 some or 40 students. The smaller the class size you have the better students will learn because a teacher can concentrate more on each pupil. Right now that isn't happening for the very fact you have too many students so by using suggestions above this will lead a path to such a thing.
Ref...Do you have any kids? I do. My conclusion comes from experience.
Nearly 40% of children are being born to single moms. Probably more in Nevada. They have to have schools to take their kids to so they can work and put bread on the table. Homeschooling and internet schooling is not an option for the vast majority of families in this country.
Gerry,
Here is a list of states that offer Online Public Schools, K-12
Why would these states offer online schooling Gerry if it wasn't effective for some students?
Do you believe that learning can only occur in a class room setting? Why can't a student take an online course during the summer when time is available to do so? What is wrong with taking a self-paced online course? What stops a student from going online to view porn now? Is there causal link between taking online courses and watching more porn?
http://distancelearn.about.com/od/online...
Deal with the cause of overcrowding: ILLEGAL students moving into Nevada, sanctuary Nevada. Arizona and elsewhere has said no to free handouts, welfare, housing, food banks, UMC-type to illegals so they're running in droves to Nevada where everything is free for them.
I've seen first hand the writings of a few kids who were 'home-schooled'. These kids couldn't figure out to use the word THERE, THEIR or THEY'RE. Not much better with TO, TOO and TWO. HEAR - HERE.... and the reason??????????????????????? The parents didn't know the difference either. My point is that if it were so easy to simply 'home-school' a kid into learning then why have teachers been spending thousands of dollars in tuition costs to earn a teaching degree?
On line schooling is a very good alternative. My kids took some classes online and at first I was against it but as it turned out it was very effective. As long as our schools don't lose sight of the arts, ie. music, I'd support this idea.