“We got orders,” my friend mumbled as she fought back tears. “We’re going to Japan.”
I felt her pain. I was in her shoes seven years ago when my husband announced we were moving to Japan, and I remember that overwhelming fear and apprehension, that initial list of concerns about living overseas.
But I wasn’t worried about DoD schools. I didn’t have school-aged children. My friend has three. And one of her primary concerns about her upcoming PCS is her children’s education.
According to Marilee Fitzgerald, director of Department of Defense Educational Activity (DoDEA), nearly 87,000 students attend DoD schools in 12 different countries, two territories and seven states. That’s in addition to the 1.2 million children who will be joining their peers in U.S. public school systems. On average, these students will attend six to nine schools by the time they graduate.
That’s a lot of kids going in and out of a lot of schools, a lot of transcripts being transferred, and a lot of parents worrying that their children will fail to meet the academic requirements of the new schools they’re entering because of the old schools they’ve left.
Case in point is my friend Tricia, another MilSpouse I met while our husbands were stationed in Japan. Her three sons attended the local DoD school for the year her family spent overseas, and although she doesn’t regret enrolling her children there, she is thankful they attended the school for only one year before returning to the States.
“My opinion is that the curriculum was extremely easy,” she explained. “My middle child literally repeated first grade while in second. He even used the same textbooks. My oldest completed the math curriculum by October and spent the rest of the year writing stories on the computer and playing internet chess. He was in the gifted class!”
Several years have passed, and she’s still seeing the effects of that year.
“Unfortunately, the loss of the year of instruction followed the boys and continues to follow them,” she said. Her middle son struggles with a learning disability in writing that she was told is directly related to the loss of a year of instruction. “My oldest son never regained his drive for excellence. He experienced a year of fun and it took until his first semester senior year for him to push himself again.”
Stories like these concern me, especially because my husband could get orders overseas. I have no intention of homeschooling my children, so if we PCS’ed overseas, my only option would probably be DoD schools.
Fortunately, it sounds like things are changing for the better. Starting this year, DoDEA is joining 46 states in adopting the Common Core educational standards, which identify what students should know by grade level and by content area.
“For the first time, our nation has come together to decide what it is their children must know and learn by the time they leave school,” Fitzgerald explained in a bloggers’ roundtable about new DoDEA initiatives. “And so when children move from classroom to classroom, I think the academic disruption will be minimized as a result of these Common Core Standards.”
DoDEA has also increased the graduation requirements for math, added course offerings in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, and continued their foreign language program that starts in kindergarten.
After talking to my Japan-bound friend and hearing stories like Tricia’s and other friends who have struggled through the transitions within their children’s educational careers, I’m hoping these new initiatives will accomplish the desired results and that our military children will one day face fewer challenges as they jump from their six to nine schools.
I think we’d all agree with Fitzgerald when she said, “I like to look at our children as ambassadors of the United States military’s core values: honor, courage, selfless sacrifice, loyalty, respect, integrity and excellence.” And that’s why they deserve the best possible education we can give them.
What kinds of experiences have you had with DoD schools? What challenges have you faced with your children’s educational paths?
About Heather Sweeney
Comments
We are stationed in Europe, and I pulled our 8 year old son from the DOD school. His second grade year was a repeat of his first grade year in a private school in New Jersey. We are homeschooling. I taught high school science for 8 years, and we've always said that we would homeschool if the schools weren't meeting his needs. The DOD school most definitely didn't – it wasn't nearly challenging enough, despite numerous meetings with teachers, counselors, and plenty of test results to prove our case.
There seems to be a strongly rising trend for homeschooling families in the military, and it makes sense, given all the moves and changing educational standards.
At the same point, though, the more we all turn to homeschooling to meet our needs (and we're in the same boat here – it's exactly what we think is the only viable option to not fail our kids), the more we stretch every poor mom's already exhaustive day. Isn't the answer that we, as the military family community, demand more of the DoDEA schools? We have a very basic argument that these schools should be the ones the government could figure and make real models of – there's no excuse for not giving the children of America's military the best education America can provide – plus, if they can't figure out how to do it with their own school system, how are they going to do it nation wide? We need some real champions for this cause.
I honestly think its ridiculous to rely on everyone else to educate our children. Especially the government. We can't rely on the government to do everything for us.
I didn't have kids so someone else can raise them. Or so they could go to public school and emulate all the bad behavior they see from the other kids who curse and behave badly. (yes, the cursing thing happened last year in Pre-K…and not just one child..it was quite a few.)
Homeschooling is an honorable way to educate your child, and from what I understand, homeschooled children fare better than their counterparts. Homeschooling is growing so rapidly that there are Homeschool Co-Ops popping up everywhere. Tons of support and great opportunities. So for the nay sayers who want to bring up "socialization" …my kids have so many activities available to them we have to be careful not to OVER schedule.
We chose to homeschool after moving to NC and finding that the schools are just as bad here as they were in Oklahoma. Both on post and off. We live off post, and in the poorest county in the area. There's no way I'm taking the chance.
As far as stretching every mom's poor exhaustive day…For me personally, yes I'm busy, but it doesn't stretch my day. I have the great privilege of spending my day with my kids, teaching them and watching them learn.
saying something like "stretching every poor moms exhaustive day" is such a cop out to be selfish. You only have so much time with your children, so cherish it.
Our boys spent three years at a DoD school in the states and then moved to one of the most highly sought after school districts in the country and are doing just fine. I think it depends on the school and from what I have heard, it is difficult to get rid of less than stellar teachers overseas. It all comes down to reinforcing what they learn at school, or even supplementing their education on your own if you don't want to outright homeschool. For our oldest, he had been enrolled in four elementary schools from K-6 grade, and while some years did seem like a repeat, each school had something special to offer compared to the previous school.
I am with Heidi on this one…when I was in elementary school, we were stationed overseas for 5 years. I attended a DoD school from 6th-10th grade. When we returned I had already completed most of the courses I needed for High School, so my junior year I "slacked" off with late arrival and early dismissal, history, english and tennis. Then my senior I was only required to take history and english again, so I also enrolled in University and attend half-day at school and half day at University taking math, english and history there too. My husband and I just returned from overseas and all three of my girls are now in a grade higher than their peers and taking all AP courses and my oldest (in 10th grade) is also taking courses for college credits. So I believe it does depend on the school they attend.