Education options

My least favorite part of moving: deciding what to do next for the kids' education.

I would say picking schools, but sometimes I opted out by home schooling. 

So I've been spending hours scouring the internet to study the choices available to us in San Diego.  The city has more charter schools and private schools and options for education than anywhere else we have lived, which reminds me to be grateful for not having a lot of options.  I don't like the smorgasbord. It leaves my anxious that I may have missed something that is the BEST thing.  What if the kids would really have been happier somewhere else? 

Our options: 

1. Public school in the neighborhood where we decide to live (which will be based on the schools).
2. Private school if we can work the tuition numbers to a favorable level.
3. Charter school if I can figure out which school provides what advantages. Some are 3-4 day a week programs that incorporate home learning.
4. All kids at one of these three, or kids at different options.
5. And lastly, home schooling. My fifth grader is asking for this, but because he wants a short school day and snacks.

Factors in making the choice: 

• Location is partially a concern - where we school depends on where we can find housing, but we have the luxury of looking for housing after we look at schools, and some schools have the option to go across school boundaries.
• Price
• Integration - how quickly can our kids fit in? Is this a school with other transfer students or a lot of cliques that have been around since preK?
• Faith life is a consideration even if we don't pick a Catholic school. Someplace that won't hurt their faith life is crucial if we pick a public school
• Size: Will integration be easier at a large school, small school, a school with lots of military kids?  We have tended to think small is better, but after some difficulty with one child/teacher combo, I realize that at least one of my kids may do better with more options for teachers.  Midsize would be ideal. Not finding many high schools under 1800 in San Diego.
• Academic achievement - I want a high-performing school, but not one that is too competitive or too conscious of college admissions over all else. 

The challenge is figuring all this out over the internet, although next week I'll be making a trip to visit some options.  Because too many choices sometimes results in inertia, my lack of decision making becomes a deciding factor - some of the charter schools are enrolled by lotteries, which I have already missed. Simply by doing nothing I have eliminated those as a possibility for next year. Ironically, my third son came home yesterday interested in one of these because one of his teachers had shown him a video about this High Tech High.  It's a horrible name for a school, so I hadn't even really considered it, and it appears to be operated on a corporate model. It also is a very progressive and technologically minded place, two things I usually shy from.

But it would probably be a great place for him, because he loves projects. And despite the bad name, I do find the video and website appealing.  Project based learning is actually what I wanted to do with home schooling. And I am not opposed to using technology. The type of technology I don't like in the classroom is the type that in nonessential to the subject. I am STRONGLY opposed to the idea of giving all the kids at a school a laptop or an ipad and then claiming to have a technologically advanced school. Where is the study that shows that kids are learning to write better papers or solve math problems better because they have access to an ipad? Are these tools accelerating learning or deepening learning or simply providing another tool that creates extra irritating busy work?  I don't think my third grader has learned her math facts any faster or is retaining them better than her older brothers who used flash cards even though she is drilling on the computer every day.  If anything I think the computer drills impede her retention because she just presses the next button.  

And at the high school level - are these devices simply another way for kids to become distracted in class? They know the technology better than the teachers.  And the teachers are distracted by trying to figure out how to use these things instead of focusing on their students and involving them in the subject.

When can technology be a good thing?
-- In a computer programming class. Learn to build apps and use audio-visual programs to communicate ideas. Find good videos on history and science or whatever subject. But go deeper. Do Prezi and Powerpoint presentations create connections between ideas or just look flashy? 

--Use ipads to do research - but teach kids to find the journals and resources on databases - not the easy open Google search and the latest Huffington Post article on this subject.  Students can't even understand the academic sources if they haven't first TALKED about these things in class, instead of using gimmicky apps and "educational" games

--Use online classrooms when school has to be cancelled or to show films or to remind kids about assignments or provide a discussion format.  But show the films communally if possible. Letting students watch on individual screens is isolating, not creating community and sharing ideas. 

The action of writing and the action of turning pages and looking at a book and perhaps reading random pages are benefits that writing online and reading ebooks don't have. Ebook sales are slowing tremendously.  Etexts have no resale value.  Kids might spend time exploring a physical text book that they wouldn't spend with an etext. They might read photo captions or study a map or look at the next chapter.  I used to read dictionary pages when I was looking up a word.  Do kids do that with ebooks? Now when you look up a word online, you only see that word. But I guess you get synonyms and antonyms.

I'm a pessimist about technology. At the recent high school accreditation meeting, 9 out of 10 parents were actually against giving the students ipads next year. The one parent for them was touting the amazing nanotechnology and neurobiology information available online. But woah, friend! -- these are high school kids! They don't have the basics of general biology down yet.  The other example from the accreditors was the digital frog dissection. Again, I'm sorry. This is a game my fourth grader played. I want my 10th grader to touch real guts.  I wouldn't want to be operated on by a surgeon who learned to dissect on an app.

So that's my lament.  I am weary of looking at school websites that all appear similar and just want to make a decision and stop thinking about it. And I am tired of hearing how great technology is in the classroom. But I am afraid to home school again.  There are a lot of good things going on in schools. And my kids thrive on the competition - the high schoolers all three were on their school's Knowledge Bowl team that just won the county meet.  They learned  a lot of their facts from the Uncle John's Bathroom Reader my mother-in-law sent them. They also learned a lot from the volumes they used to read.

And now we have to rip them out of this environment where they've thrived and start all over again.  The 10 year old is not happy about it. Nor is the 17 year old. Nor is the 41 year old. Just when we've started to settle in.  I remind myself that we are going to meet more wonderful people in San Diego, just as we did here, and in Guam, and Mississippi, and Virginia, and Illinois, Indiana, Rhode Island, Texas, and Virginia the first time.  There are good people all over. And beautiful places and wonderful schools. We'll find one.