They are damning kids to failure every time they make comments such as:
WHAT HAVE CRITICS SAID? Schools with large percentages of low-income students tend to have few students at grade level. Jackson said Friday that the current grading system only denotes which schools are affluent and which are not. “All we did was label which schools have wealthy parents and which have not-wealthy parents,” he said.
Low-income school advocates have also said low grades threaten the progress they’re making in turning around school culture. The changing grading scale would almost certainly decrease grades across the board.
We've spent decades using the same excuses and the word "progress" is always tossed in as "being threatened". Sheesh, progress was supposedly going on in the 80's, 90's and even today, so why are kids still failing?
Maybe it has to do with the same status quo garbage then as today..... This stuff is really old and stale.
Changes on the table for NC school performance grades
04/10/2015 12:22 PM
"Low-income school advocates have also said low grades threaten the progress they’re making in turning around school culture".
ReplyDeleteSchool Culture: Interesting topic.
So, do we throw even more wads of money at F "magnet" schools that don't attract any kind of diversity and never will? I mean isn't this the entire point of magnets? To voluntarily attract a cross section of people for the benefit of everyone - which I thoroughly believe in? What happens when magnet schools don't achieve their fundamental goal? Do we simply open MORE and MORE magnets and the expense of those that are actually achieving their goals and making real progress? What's the yearly per-pupil spending at F magnet schools and exactly what kind of "progress" have they made?
As far as school letter grades: I think they are stupid because they don't improve a darn thing at schools where the "culture" can't be fixed by throwing more money, resources, and "highly qualified" teachers at the problem. Cultural change has to come internally, not externally. I teach at a "C" rural charter school (over 95% white) that received the same letter grade from the state as every other traditional public school in the area on significantly less money with significantly fewer resources proving once and for all that money isn't the answer. Our mission is to improve our grade to a B next year by being openly transparent about not only what teachers need to do but what PARENTS and THE COMMUNITY need to do to improve educational outcomes. It takes three legs to hold up a stool.
Alicia
As has been said many times, make every school a magnet and tada!, all our education troubles will be over.
DeleteHeath had it all wrong.
DeleteThe way to establish successful magnet schools is to strategically place them in areas that a cross section of people are willing to travel to. In addition, it's important to place magnet programs at schools that are OK but not failing. There's no reason a C school - with a quality and desirable magnet program and good community buy-in - can progress to a B or an A school. CMS has a number of very diverse county-wide magnet schools that have achieved this goal. Why not make these schools the very best they can be by focusing limited magnet funds here? Magnet schools are more expensive to operate than traditional schools.
It's ludicrous to expect an F school to progress to a B school by simply slapping a STEM title onto a school name and then claiming it's a magnet when in fact it isn't attracting any diversity whatsoever. Remember when CMS starting renaming every chronically low-performing school with the title "Academy"? How successful was that? F schools would be better served with smaller class sizes, additional teachers, more counselors, after-school tutors, more field trips (the Scheile Museum in Gaston County is awesome) and perhaps a full-time nurse - not expensive razzle-dazzle elementary school science labs where kids can't multiply 8 x 7 or read instructions let alone write a comprehensive hypothesis before comprehending data.
Alicia
Speaking of "magnets" and education. I'm always surprised that so little is said of our current president, Obama and his apparent lack of education in technical matters.
DeleteAnd, yet, he is often portrayed as a techie, "geek", or STEM president.
But he seriously lacks "street cred" in the topic as far as I'm concerned.
(How this relates to "magnets" coming soon...)
I was particularly amused at how the man didn't even know that aluminum WAS NOT MAGNETIC and didn't even learn so until he took a tour of an Alcoa Aluminum facility as president and they told him this.
He was seriously amazed at what he had learned. Something I suspect most 4th graders already knew.
(Except maybe at the CMS STEM academies, of course...)
Obama's inner geek emerges at science fair...
At an Alcoa plant in Davenport, Iowa, in June, Obama observed machines that milled aerospace parts and approached reporters who had been watching nearby: "Did you know aluminum is not magnetic? I learned something today."
http://www.postandcourier.com/article/20120208/PC1602/302089903
It's interesting to note that my charter school's 5th grade science scores were near the top in the state despite having no science lab and little science equipment. Our math scores are another story. If we can improve our abysmal math scores we can easily improve our overall grade. We just hired an additional math specialist.
ReplyDeleteIf I were queen for a day I'd take all the money we waste on STEM magnet programs at schools where students need basic remedial help and put it towards improving the lives of parents who are struggling. My classes have kids in them with parents in jail (mommies and daddies), kids who have been in and out of 8 different foster care homes, kids with step parents who beat them, kids with parents who have serious substance abuse problems in addition to kids with a variety of disabilities whose parents are trying their best with little or no support in terms of advocacy. What a parent and I had to go through in order to get one kid tested for a learning disability was ridiculous. I was angry the process took so long (all sorts of legalities and jumping through hoops) while a poor step-mother trying her best had to navigate confusing educational acronyms and marble mouthed edu-speak. Help parents first.
Alicia
It should never be the school's responsibility to makeup for the failures of parenting - ever.
DeleteIt is their/our repsonsibility to put programs in place to ensure every child has an OPPORTUNITY to succeed.
I have no problem with making class sizes smaller and having remedial/tutoring help within the schools to get kids who need it up to speed.
Alicia,
DeleteYou really cannot fix many of these families. There is not enough money from anywhere which could do this. A few might be helped but a lot are just too lazy and worthless to be helped. I know. I grew up in a rural area (after we left our "urban" dystopia) and got to see both types of "poor" failure.
The issues are (or were) probably different back then, though.
The violence was much worse in the urban schools, but the rural kids just didn't give a hoot about getting an education.
I specifically remember one kid saying he didn't need to learn English because he was going to work as a lumberjack just like his daddy. Only thing is, there were no lumberjacking jobs when he grew up.
This moron actually fried his brain by consuming wild mushrooms in various attempts to get "high". His mother had to walk him around everywhere because he had no idea where he was or what he was doing.
You can't help that.
Many of the "poor" had semi-literate parents and just did not see any other possibilities in life. As far as they were concerned, you grew up, never left your mother's backyard, married your neighbor (or cousin), had babies, got drunk (or stoned, or methed, or whatever they do now) and keep going until you end up in prison or dead in a car wreck.
That's life for many of these people. And they see no reason to change. If you gave them money, they'd just spend it on more crap and be more stoned, drunk, and broke the next week.
From what I've seen of the latest generation, there is a direct pipeline between the urban ghetto straight and the rural ghetto as far as drugs are concerned.
Unlike when I was a kid, these idiots now hang out with the same crowd as the urban trash, listen to the same music, and all try to act like little urban thugs.
And when they finally get thrown in jail, they make the same kinds of excuses for themselves and don't show the least bit of shame or remorse for their behavior, blaming "the man" for all their problems.
I even have relatives who are like this. I can barely stand to be around them or listen to their excuses because I know better. I know their other brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins, etc., etc., who did NOT let "poverty" keep them stupid.
Which is something that HAS changed in the past few generations. At least when I was growing up, there was some sense of shame from being a criminal, especially if drugs were involved. Not so much today. Some even seem proud of it, like it makes them a "man" to have been in jail.
There really is no talking sense to these people. And money is mostly wasted on them.
And I'm probably being generous....
Alicia,
DeleteThat's not to say that there aren't a few rural people really trying and who could use help. It's just that a lot of their problems are of their own making and due to their own choices.
It's sometimes hard for an outsider to know which is which, but a lot of these rural "poverty" issues are generational as well.
And you really cannot tell from talking to the parents what some of them are like. I've heard some of the worst meth and dope heads say some of the nicest things when they think they are talking to "straight" people.
They try to pull that crap on me all the time, but I have my local "sources" and know what's really going on behind the scenes.
It is truly like a ghetto culture. You have to be around it for generations to get "accepted" and trusted as an "insider".
We were the "new family" for nearly 40 years.
People still tell us about the time when we first moved out there and how "different" and crazy everyone thought WE were when we moved out there in the early 70's.
Yep, the neighbors still talk about us from way back then...
And it's kinda creepy hearing some 40 year old meth head talk about how he remembers your 30-year old momma (who's 75 now) cutting grass in her shorts and how he'd never seen anything like that before.
Umm-hmm. Some folks call it a sling blade, I call it a Kaiser blade...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAgSUFT4cVk
"my charter school's 5th grade science scores were near the top in the state..."
DeleteI'll bet they know more about magnets than the president, then.
Off topic but bear with me:
ReplyDeleteSomething isn't right when it takes 4-5 months of "intervention", testing, and paperwork to determine if a kid has a learning disability. A CMS principal suggested a "wait and see" approach prior to this nonsense when my son was in kindergarten. Fortunately, I was armed with thousands of dollars worth of private testing in addition to an educational advocate with a PhD who made certain my son received the services he was entitled too starting the first month of kindergarten - not the 5 month of 1st grade. The EC staff at my son's CMS school also deserve credit for expediting the legal process. My son is in college now after a rough "Mr. Toad's Wild Ride" academic journey which is why I became furious when the CMS school board jerked my family around with two school reassignment changes in 4 years in order to improve the lives of low-income minority students who might be blessed enough to get to sit next to my academically struggling child who was somehow going to miraculously improve their test scores through the process of divine osmosis.
I found there to be a discriminatory nature in assuming my son and my family could raise test scores for everyone else based on nothing but our educational background and race. I didn't appreciate being profiled for the benefit of someone else's failed social experiment.
Alicia
I think you nailed 45 years of status quo and the continuation of it.
DeleteA lot of these educrats talk out of both sides of their mouths. On the one hand, they want you to believe that "zipcode is not destiny", then, on the other, they are blaming zipcodes for their failures.
ReplyDeleteThat's about as close to insane thinking as you can get.
Wabbit season!...Duck season!....Wabbit season!....Duck season!...FIRE!!
ReplyDeleteI guess I get a bit wound-up over some of these issues because I've just seen so many kids waste their lives when they've had so much put right in front of them.
ReplyDeleteWhatever bad anyone has to say about our public school system (and I do believe there is plenty to be said, mostly in the way they encourage failure), I think they are MORE THAN ADEQUATE for the typical "students" we have.
It may not be gourmet fare, but the kids won't starve if they just come to the trough.
And, for the most part, the schools are relatively cheap (practically free) for the consumer.
These people wouldn't turn down an all-you-can-eat buffet at KFC, but they can't be bothered to study at school.
Most of the world doesn't get that luxury, yet we have people who willingly piss away opportunities that most kids in the world will never even get.
It really irritates me when I see my own relatives behaving this way because I KNOW they could have done better.
That's what makes me so cynical at times (I guess). I didn't start out this way, but learned it over the years after trying and trying to "help" people who absolutely refuse to be helped.
Some of my own relatives are like this.
I've just figured out that you can't fight peer pressure.
And that's what it mostly is about. These people are really afraid to try something different.
People just don't want to rise "above" their crowd and assumed position in life (even when that "position" is mostly bent over and grabbing their ankles).
There is even an entire, rather large, sub-culture of whining about this that seems to have taken root in our society. You see it in the people who complain about drug laws (after they've been arrested) and minimum wages (after they've blown all their real job opportunities by getting arrested!).
And you can't talk any sense into these people before their inevitable downfall occurs.
I've heard and seen all the excuses. Everything except people taking some responsibility for themselves BEFORE they screw up seriously.
When I want more of this, I only need to go to some of my relatives Facebook postings.
Where I can see them posting photos of themselves and their mates stoned and stupid, glorifying drugs and criminals, making excuses for their failures, whining about how "the system" keeps them down and how everyone judges them for their past mistakes when they are only trying to "turn their lives around" (shades of Malik!).
It's just pathetic.
I wish there was a solution, but I don't think any "outsiders" can really get to them anymore. Even relatives can't break through. I know we've tried.
Many have decided at an early age that this is the life they are going to lead and seem hellbent to squander every opportunity they have to do otherwise.
I really do not think "outside forces" like schools can really do anything to stop this.
The best the schools can do is identify perhaps the top 10-20% and help get them out of that mess into a better environment.
Work on the kids at the top and the middle and the few strugglers who are actually trying to do better.
The rest will just do whatever they were going to do anyway.