Howdy Folks,
Just want to see how many military families have been impacted by the differences in education across the states. Currently, the US Dept of Education only requires standardization within a state, not among states. That means that any kids moving (especially near the end of high school) can find themselves not eligible for graduation/advancement from their new school home. I'm hoping to change this problem. Please take the below short poll.
By the way, my daughter falls under option 3. She has to take 4 classes here in LA that didn't transfer from WA state. Two of the classes will be by correspondence as the school only offers summer classes to "failing" kids. So much for enjoying her time as a senior!
Thanks,
GunBaron

Question:
My military dependent kids are/have been affected by the non-standardization of education among states:

Choices:
No, haven't had a problem - yet.
Yes, but we had time to catch up without a problem or expense.
Yes - but we had to take extra classes from the school (without expense) to catch up.
Yes - but we had to take extra classes from the school (at our expense) to catch up.
Yes - kids were not allowed to graduate on time due to number of classes and/or fees required.
Not worried about this issue.

 

This affects more than just military families. My sister was moved back a grade (1st to K) just because of her age and they threatened to do the same to me (7th to 6th) even though I had all A's in the 6th grade and was doing just fine (except for state history) at the new school.

Even within schools districts it can make a difference. I went from one school district in the Dallas area to another and was probably six weeks behind at the second school.

I have recently found out that the DoD changed the enterance age for enter school so my daughter who was suppose to start at age 4 and turn 5 the first week will now have to wait till she is five and turn 6 the first week of school, which makes me very unhappy

Are you talking kindergarten or first grade? And remember that this only applies to DoD schools. There is a strong possibility that your child will be in a Columbus city school, or Phenix City if you choose to live on the Alabama side.

I don't remember if the cut-off date for Georgia schools is July 1 or September 1. If it is September 1 then you may be able to start her this year. My daughter's birthday is in July and she started kindergarten at age 5 but was 17 when she finished high school.

quote:

Originally posted by newtoitall:
I have recently found out that the DoD changed the enterance age for enter school so my daughter who was suppose to start at age 4 and turn 5 the first week will now have to wait till she is five and turn 6 the first week of school, which makes me very unhappy

Are you sure that this wouldn't apply to a civilian school as well? I know that at home in NC they just changed it so that kids have to be 5 by August 31, it used to be October. I know it's a state by state thing but my point is depending on where you live (or if you PCS between now and then), it could be totally up in the air.

The extra year may not hurt. I remember that all through school there were always kids all the way through age spectrum for each particular grade, from the youngest that just made the cutoff to the oldest who didn't when they first got started. It may seem like a big deal now when they're little and starting, but by the time they get to middle school and especially high school, it's just totally inconsequential.

Here in KS, my son missed the cutoff by four days, so, he was almost 6 by the time he entered Kindergarten. It's just the law here. What annoys me about it is he's years ahead of the other students in his abilities to read, add/subtract, etc so I have to supplement him at home to keep him challenged.

There are kids the same age as him that struggle.

It's just the law, which happens everywhere. It's a problem inherent in systems nation wide that rely on age rather than abilities for placement.

Why are you so unhappy she cant go?

These are good examples of the issues facing families and what I'm trying to standardize. Seems that every family will encounter, some time in their career, issues with their kids educations. Whether it's the age specific to each grade, course standardization, or final graduation requirements, they'll be felt.
I've found that the US Dept of Ed does require A state to come up with standards WITHIN its boundary, but when you move (and this doesn't apply just to military families), you may find (likely) that there are things about already completed classes or age levels don't transfer from state to state. There's nothing about standards AMONG the states. The issue is that education standards are considered states' rights issues and not a national issue. Seems to me that the big dogs would want ALL the people taught equally well and consistently. After all, don't the colleges All have the same general/basic standards for entry? Any help y'all could provide would be great. I DON'T need financial help, just info - tell me your story and answer the question in the poll. With the stats indicating how many people are affected by this disparity in educational standards, I can try to effect positive change.

quote:

don't the colleges All have the same general/basic standards for entry?

Not by a long shot. There is not even standardization among universities in a state school system, much less private universities and colleges. There is even less standardization over what each university will accept on transfer from another university.

Even though I had already taken Comp at one college and had 57 hours, when I applied at another I had to go through the entire entrance testing and they made the decision that I needed remedial Comp. I never entered that school and never took remedial Comp anywhere else. At the school that I did attend after the first one, they accepted all 57 hours but applied 30 of them to general electives so I graduated with 159 hours.

The fourth school that I went to (I have two degrees and am working on a third) required that all undergrads take Phys Ed regardless of age or military status. The only way I got around that requirement was because I already had an undergrad degree. One of my classmates was 35 and had to take Phys Ed.

quote:

Originally posted by mturnb:
Not by a long shot. There is not even standardization among universities in a state school system, much less private universities and colleges. There is even less standardization over what each university will accept on transfer from another university.

Agreed. Universities and Colleges across the nation have such varying requirements that it's impossible to predict what any will do. Even within the same school enterance standards and credit transfers and vary based on type of degree. KU will take my arts credits as towards my core requirements if I stay in engineering, if I transfer to the College of Liberal Arts and sciences I have to re-take all of them.

KU made a friend of mine re-take Organic Chemistry (a really crappy course no matter where you take it) because he originally took it at the University of Nebraska.

quote:

Originally posted by newtoitall:
I have recently found out that the DoD changed the enterance age for enter school so my daughter who was suppose to start at age 4 and turn 5 the first week will now have to wait till she is five and turn 6 the first week of school, which makes me very unhappy

That is actually following most state rules in starting kindergarten these days. It is better for her to start late now and be able to skip a grade than to start now and have to repeat later. Our ds is a December baby so he didn't start until he was almost 6. In some ways he was ahead and in other ways behind. We are glad we kept him back because I do feel that he would have to repeat the grade or another one later. his class had 6, 5 and 4 year old because the rules were not changed in Hawaii at the time. They have since changed and it helps.

Part of the reasoning behind this compared to when we went to school is what the requirements are. Before it was play, nap, play, play and play. Now they need to read, writing, math, science, etc... Most kindergartens are full day as well

I've notice that the farther east we get the older they want the kids to be.

I know it was hard for the kiddo when we moved from cali to Indiana. the things she was doing in kindergarden were being covered in 1st grade there. And with a kid who's already 2 grade lvls above her peers she hated it. I don't know about the DOD school since this is the first DOD to DOD transfer we're doing with her.

Having a standardized system across all states would make things easier but it'd be a nightmare to get started.

You know I forgot to mention one problem we had when we went from San Diego to Florida before moving overseas. We had to get a physical done for the overseas screening and for their applications for the school here. But the school system in Florida wouldn't accept that, we had to go and do it all again including their immunizations folder and we had to pay it out of pocket because Tricare wasn't going to cover the same thing twice in 4 months and nor should they. There needs to be exceptions as well for military kids when it comes to admissions in a school. The people I dealt with at the med office totally understood because they thought it was dumb as well.

That must have been your particular school system requiring the extra physical. Moving from GA to FL, all I had to do was show them the shot records and a recent physical. Actually, I had to take the "blue form" and get the doctor's office or county health office to transcribe the information from their shot record and physical to the form. That may have been the problem for you in that the person you were talking to didn't let you know that the county health department could just transcribe the information onto the form.

I do agree that it is better to start later rather than earlier. I was the only 16-year-old in my senior class at high school and I didn't skip any grades. We had kids that were 18 when they started their senior year. Because of this, I was very socially awkward with my peers. I actually fit in better with college students (which I worked with) because they are not as age conscious. It also had some impact in my first six months in the Navy because I was so young (I celebrated my 18th birthday 10 months after enlisting).

quote:

Originally posted by newtoitall:
I have recently found out that the DoD changed the enterance age for enter school so my daughter who was suppose to start at age 4 and turn 5 the first week will now have to wait till she is five and turn 6 the first week of school, which makes me very unhappy

It's much better that this happens now for you than when she is much older. The same thing is happening with my daughter, but I would much rather have it this way. When growing up this happened to my sister, but the problem was that she was already in 3rd grade when we moved stateside. She didn't get it and thought she was bad and that's why she was held back.

The glory of this discussion is that y'all are all talking about the same issue - there are problems with continuity or acceptance of kids due to their age or transfer location. I'm hoping to get this resolved so that we can all have a level playing field. The people to decide a childs education should begin with the parents, not the state. If the parent fails, then (and only then) should the state step in. All too often, in the not to distant past, standards have been lowered to the student, not raising the student to the standard. All the experiences y'all have had lend credence to the fact that something has to be set in place to ensure our kids have a good, solid education. Biology is still biology, civics is still civics. If our kids take, "US Government" and the class is "CIVICs", then they should get credit for taking civics, not an elective due to the TITLE difference. Colleges still require so many years of this and that (sciences, math, English, etc) to earn general degrees. Even colleges want their students to be "well rounded". Local schools don't care about students after they graduate or if they leave the state. If they did, they'd come up with standards for their students that would GENERALLY provide a for well rounded and accepted education. Instead, they meet US DOE standards WITHIN their state boundary, not among the Union.

We actually had both of those classes at my high school. So maybe that's the problem is that some schools have more options than others and guidelines are much higher when it comes to which class is really what.

I do agree that something does need to be fixed because this doesn't just effect military dependants, it effects any child that moves. But it wouldn't be something to be done easily. I do think that it would involve some kind of union or government to get these schools on the same page and that's something that you don't seem to want. So where to go from here, I have NO idea. I wish that I could help you.

Update: Daughter dear completed one of the correspondence courses and is working on the last, during the school year. She's also Drum Major in the band. I've not heard anything from the SecDef level since I started trying to make sure our kids education can transfer across state lines. I'm going to this state's legislature to see if they can get on board with the Interstate Compact on Education. We'll see how it goes. Good luck all.

You may want to read up on the work the National Military Family Association has done on this issue.



Mom

You know what I was thinking would be cool but its never going to happen because of the money and logistics is if the DoDEA had a system that included every military installation, not just the overseas and select CONUS schools.

Can you imagine having your kids transfer, at whatever grade, and not worry about being at the right level for math, or ending up taking US history twice and missing World History, etc...

While that may work scholastically, the kids would lose out on much more. No more band, choir, football, track, etc. I don't see every DOD school being large enough to support that type of activity.

Our kids were in Drum Corps International, our daughter also did Winter Guard International, and both kids were in the high school band in GA. When we moved to ME our daughter had to travel to S. Portland to be able to do winter guard because Brunswick High had no marching band. No marching band equals no guard activity at all.

So, while a good thought as far as classes go, you hit another set of problems.


Mom