Tuesday, August 18, 2009

California: The Physical Education State

Yesterday was the first day of school for my kids, so I spent last night looking over their schedules and school materials such as staff directories.

We moved to California 1.5 years ago, and we love everything about it except for the schools. Maybe the high pressure, high achivement schools my kids were previously enrolled in were too much. I do like that my kids don't cry about homework anymore, and they generally like school better here, have nice teachers, and are learning. I also like that my kids are getting exposed to a lot more diversity, making friends from a wide variety of backgrounds, and they play outside more. But, I must admit the schools are easier and have lower standards.

And I can't help but notice that art, music, and foreign languages seem to barely exist while PE seems to be well funded. With a body builder Governor, I suppose this is to be expected.

Last night, I noticed that my daughters middle school has 6 PE teachers, 6 English teachers, 6 math teachers, 1 music teacher, 1 world language teacher, 1 art teacher.

I looked up the middle school she would be attending if we hadn't moved (it was larger and was 6-8 as opposed to 7-8): 4 PE teachers, 4 music, 4 art, 4 world language, 12 math, 12 english.

I looked up the middle school I attended as a kid (small, 7-8): 1.5 PE, 3 world language, 3.5 music, 4 math.

No comments:

Post a Comment