Unless all parents get more involved in educating their children things now will get worse and worse.
I live in California where 200,000 State workers were furloughed for the first time yesterday. This will be done on the 1st and 3rd fridays of every month for the next 2 years or more. Since funding for primary, secondary, and college is also losing funding now statewide and since this sort of thing is happening or will happen in 37 states soon, unless you get more involved in your children's education they will fall behind in what they actually need to know.
This takes me back to 1980 when my son then 6 and my stepchildren ages 7 and 9 faced similar shortfalls in public schools where they lived. The solution at that time in Mt. Shasta City, California was to move the 4th 5th and 6 graders in with the 7th, 8th and possibly 9th graders. Within one month an 8th grader broke a 4th graders jaw at school.
My wife and I were so incensed we took all our children out of public school and put them on Oak Meadow School independent study. We did this for 4 years. This curriculum allowed us to home school our children for 4 years. Though it was very stressful at first, we realized we had made the right decision for our children. Now, the oldest boy is a Fire Captain, his sister is a lawyer, and my son is in university almost an RN along with his wife. Our pulling our kids out of school and home schooling them on independent study allowed them to travel with us and to live within that year 20 miles from the nearest small town. We also took them to Canada, Idaho, and learned many new things together. My oldest stepson was very interested in birds and so we sometimes followed bird migrations so he could study them better. Eventually he won a scholarship to a 2 week audabon camp in Wyoming when he was 18. He was involved in many ecological victories in the State of California. My step daughter was an artist and eventually became a lawyer. My son, I didn't realize at the time had dyslexia. I had no knowledge of this sort of thing at the time. Even though, I realize now he was always very bright, at the time he was very quiet and seldom spoke but was very sweet as a person. He became interested in dungeons and dragons and I used his interest in dungeons and dragons and role playing to allow him to teach himself to read. We would buy him books and he was so interested in the pictures and what was said that he taught himself to read so he could read what he loved. Eventually, (a few years ago) I learned he had a 150 IQ which explained why he always got A's in computer programming languages and science all the time. However, he always struggled with spelling and writing because of dyslexia. So, he was very Einsteinian in his demeanor. He was a genius but only able to manifest his genius in certain specific areas. For example, he was always a computer prodigy.
What I'm saying here is that if you home school your children directly or go through independent study during these lean times for public schools you might be doing your children a big favor long term. I have noticed that recessions come and go but they dramatically influence the quality of public education. So during these times we must take into our own hands our children's educations or they won't become all that they are capable of.
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