New approach leads to drop in CMS suspensions
The number of Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools students who have been suspended is down 14 percent this year, a reflection of the district’s new emphasis on finding alternatives to sending children home to discipline them.
The goal is to keep students in the classroom and learning, leaning on numerous studies that show fewer out-of-school suspensions leads to more students graduating on time and better academic achievement. MORE... http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/local/education/article22631922.html
4.5 HOURS of EOG Language Arts testing this morning. One kid fell asleep and two girls punched each other at the end of it all (grade 5). Since some classes weren't finished, we couldn't go outside for recess. At least no one threw-up! Yet.
ReplyDeleteI can't wait to repeat "It's for the children" exercise in futility tomorrow and Friday! Because I'm too stupid to know who is and isn't performing well.
How the heck did we all survived taking the Iowa Test of Basic Skills only once a year?
Alicia
Alicia,
ReplyDeleteI think we survived because most of us could probably do our 3R's back in the day so long ago. Excessive testing wasn't necessary because the "problem" wasn't as big (and as political) as it is now.
Unfortunately it's really not for the teachers or the kids anymore. It's for the bureaucracy.
That and the fact that everyone is demanding "accountability" for all the failures of the past, most of which were due to the aftermath of de-segregation and finally seeing how poorly the black kids were really doing and realizing that simply putting them in classes with white kids with access to the same "resources" wasn't fixing it.
That was the myth many decades ago, and it really bugs people that everyone isn't "really" equal.
Well, I don't expect MY kids to beat all the Indians at spelling or all the Chinese at math, either.
My son will probably never be as good at reading or writing as the best girls and my daughter will probably not be as good at science and math as the best boys.
But, hey, they have enough going for them to get by.
And, yes, I remember the days of perhaps one big standardized test a year, or maybe only every few years.
Maybe that's good, maybe that's bad.
On the one hand, without those tests, a lot of kids who seem average simply because they are bored and don't like school busywork (which many people say is biased towards GIRLS) can shine:
http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2015/03/economist-explains-3
But I don't think we need as many tests, either.
At the private school my kids attend, they follow a British Curriculum and get use the Cognitive Ability Tests. It is something they have to do periodically and at certain points in school (like 6th grade), but not necessarily every year. It is more diagnostic than anything else and that is the way it is mostly used. I know the teachers at our kids' school are not evaluated based on that test.
But, then, they don't really have a problem with serious underachievers which could be linked to the teachers instead of the students and their families.
Come to think of it we used to have to take something called the California Achievement Test when I was in elementary school, around the sixth grade, I believe.. It was for pretty much the same purpose, to see how prepared we were for middle or high school.
Cmon guys. You know the utter stupidity with all this testing: It doesn't mean a damn thing!!!
ReplyDeleteWhen you pass kids on regardless of what the scores say, why test at all?
Educrats and politticans already have the smoking gun as to why Little Johnny can't read: segregation.
...the wheels on the bus go 'round and 'round.....
Grades 3 - 5.
ReplyDeleteHeading into 4.5 HOURS of EOG math testing. It feels like a form of child abuse. The SAT's don't take this long to finish. Private schools don't do this to children. I get why parents are starting to protest this sort of thing around the country. NY state is a good case in point where some school districts have had up to 80% of parents opting out of Common Core state standards testing. One more day of this on Friday. Good grief.
Did ya'll read the LTE in the CO today? "We" are all supposed to do the right thing and gerrymander student assignment again. Does this dude realize white students comprise only 30% of CMS' population with growing FRL numbers. The train has left the station - on it's way to charter schools, home schooling and elsewhere. How can CMS possibly divide "affluent" and white kids up equitably through highly inconsistent reassignment practices without driving more families out? I don't think it's good to have schools where 90% of kids are living in squalor but 40 years of gerrymandering student assignment at all costs is what created this mess. Charlotte had the opportunity to create better housing patterns during explosive growth. The city chose not to and so why do we expect a school system to fix what it can't?
Housing patterns really mean nothing.
DeleteWith all the high end building going on downtown these days, there is already talk of putting schools in the city center. Will they be for the people who actually live there or will they gerrymander the lines just enough to grab some houses west of the train track?
Anyway, people with kids who can afford to live downtown probably would send theit kids to private schools or charters.
By the way, Blacks are also leaving CMS. The latest demo data proves it.
Nothing would thrill me more (in this realm) than to solicit opinions from African-American parents who have opted out of CMS in favor of charter schools. What prompted these parents to make this decision knowing that there has to be some hard feelings towards white Charlotte suburbanites. It's this "voice" that is seriously absent on this blog as well as with those writing "Our View" opinion pieces for the Charlotte Observer.
DeleteAlicia
Why would Blacks have "hard feelings" against suburbanites?
DeleteDo you mean "some Blacks" who don't live in the burbs?
I live in the burbs and have all sorts of Black families living around me.
Wasn't the original argument of abolishing seperate but equal because it was anything but equal
Again, it's the Baltimore argument. We want the police to stop being aggressive. You got what you wanted, not look at what ya got.
Seperate but equal had to be abolished. The "fix" was an epic failure we're still dealing with today.
Also, anyone is welcome to post here and anonymously.
DeletePeople just need to find out about us....
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DeleteBoth of y'all (and any "lurkers"...),
DeleteFirst, the public education folks don't really have many ( or hardly ANY) "affluent" folks to barter with anymore in places like CMS.
Most of the truly affluent send their kids to private schools. Places like Providence Day, Charlotte Latin, British School, etc., etc.
Many middle-class and below do as well, especially in the Catholic schools and probably some other religious schools as well.
Even in places like Ballantyne where I know a few families who have ALREADY pre-empted whatever crap they anticipate (or have already seen) happening within CMS, even at the supposedly "good" schools.
It's the country-club liberal myth again. Those folks only tell EVERYONE ELSE what they should do. They live in their enclaves and send their kids to private schools as they always have.
The lower classes (middle and below, including your rank and file professionals, not the "executives" who can afford private schools, or get them as part of their enticement to move to Charlotte) are more realistic and typically recommend that the parents get out of CMS any way they can if you ask them (as I have...)
But, those country club liberals ARE the "opinion makers" (and most likely the editors of your local rags). So, as we all know, you cannot really trust their opinions or the opinions they allow to filter through their rags as being representative of much more than what they want you to hear or believe.
(Thinking back to old Klan-fighter Clarke Stallworth of the Birmingham News and his over-protective wife shuttling their precious daughter back and forth between her home and school during her cloistered days as a private college student is probably more common than their rhetoric would make you believe).
As for the blacks getting upset with white suburbia, I agree with Wiley.
We have blacks in our neighborhood, too, and from what I've gathered from talking with them, they feel pretty much the same way about kids and discipline as I do. It's probably ONE reason they were able to get to the point they could live out like that.
I think one guy in our "hood" was an ex-pro athlete, but others were such things as engineers and other working stiffs, so they had to learn something.
Those folks don't believe in taking crap from kids or schools, either. They know it can be competitive out there.
Their kids go to the local public schools and aren't problems.
Also, you can see them at the schools and at teacher conferences, PTA meetings, etc., etc., so they participate in their children's education.
My "selfish" suburbanite experience with finger pointing Vilma and George during two highly contentious reassignment changes (within a 4 year period) left me thinking race relations in Charlotte were hopeless. I ultimately gave up and left CMS.
DeleteOur 3-5 kids haven't had a snack or eaten anything since breakfast this morning. The kid with accommodations I tested separately (with a proctor in the room and a hall monitor outside) finished early after circling lots of answers randomly. I'm sitting there thinking OMG.
ReplyDeleteWell, it's sad they don't get to take a break.
DeleteAs for circling random answers, my basketball players couldn't even get THAT right.
I remember the "special" 20 question T/F test the teacher made especially for them with half the answers True and half False, so you could put ALL True or ALL False and get a GUARANTEED 50%.
Darned if one of my guys didn't get a 40%. Of course, I knew this before he handed in the test (since I knew all the easy answers anyway).
I reminded him that he could just put all T or all F and get an easy "guaranteed" 50, but he went with his original random answers and got his 40.
Really, past a point, there is not much you or anyone can do.
http://www.tuesdayforumcharlotte.org/2015/05/05/video-of-a-dream-again-deferred/
ReplyDeleteWatch this and weep. It is a video of the dream deferred meeting Wiley addressed in an earlier post. Obviously there is a group (apparently led by those fine folks in the UNCC ed department) who are determined to return busing to Charlotte by hook or crook. I suspect most of the community doesn't have a clue as to what's coming.
CMS has been forced to adjust to the realities of increased charter school competition. The system will have to adjust again when the latest round of student reassignment gerrymandering fails to produce desired outcomes. At this point, CMS will have no choice but to accept looking like every other urban public school system in America.
DeleteI find the arrogance of continuing to repeat policies that have directly contributed to segregated schools 40+ years after federally mandated forced busing astounding. I don't have the answers but another major reassignment change that negatively impacts the suburbs will ultimately be the last straw that breaks the camel's back.
Alicia
Watching this nearly made my ears bleed after a few minutes. I really can't stand long, drawn-out presentations from folks with such a blatant "holier-than-thou" agenda.
DeleteWould much rather read a transcript at 1/10 the time.
The slides were bad enough, though.
They claim diversity helps ALL kids, but then only talk about how it helps the "disadvantaged".
I'd really like to see how it helps the already advantaged. My guess is that it really doesn't unless they plan to become educrats or otherwise skim the cream off the top of some "social worker" program or the other.
Otherwise, people tend to work with other similar-minded people most of the time. Salesmen work with money-motivated salesmen, engineers with engineers, doctors with doctors (rich doctors with rich patients, poor doctors with poor patients, etc., etc.,)
Really, I think it's a sham that no one wants to be caught exposing in public for fear of being called names.
What I'd REALLY like to know, though is where all these country-club liberal types telling everyone ELSE what to do are doing with their children.
They should be "shamed" into putting their kids in the crappy schools they want everyone else to be forced to attend.
That would put an end to the BS for the most part.
Once I build my tolerance, though, I may go back and try to watch that presentation again.
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DeleteAlicia,
DeleteMaybe "breaking the Camel's back" IS the "desired outcome".
After all, it's hard to believe these people with all these fancy degrees can really be so stupid as to not see what is just so obvious to everyone else (except editorial writers for the CO, and, of course, Pamela Grundy and Kay McSpadden).
Anyway, it does seem sometimes that someone is deliberately trying to destroy public education for the "good" of us all at the detriment of some of the best in the system.
I sometimes suspect that most of them are just playing the game to get to the top and right now that means playing up to the diversity at all costs crowd. If they play their cards right, there can be big rewards (and a sense of "belonging") for all their "hard work".
Of course, what happens to the "little people" isn't really their problem, anymore, because they can opt for the gated community, private schools, and whatever else they desire.
All while keeping the "little guy" from even the most modest amounts of decency and respect in their lives.
They all need to read about the goose that laid the golden egg (but the truly deluded greedy farmers never do...)
Shamash, What I would really like to know is how the dean of a public school of education can decide that her department's goal is to basically return busing to Charlotte. How in the heck does she get to make that decision? I also would love to see who was actually sitting in that audience, as they all applauded loudly when the speakers declared that Judge Potter's decision to declare Charlotte unitary was the worst judicial decision made in Charlotte in years (never mind that the Supreme Court refused to overturn his ruling). When the ed school dean asked how many in the audience were parents of CMS students very few raised their hands--I suspect the audience was mainly older Charlotte libs, hoping to relive their glory days; ed school student coerced into attending; and employees of non-profit touchy feely groups. Probably various Observer editors were there too, and most likely Pamela Grundy and Carol Sawyer. This group is trotting out the same rationals they used years ago when fighting the end of busing. They have no new ideas!
DeleteI guess they all want deja-vu all over again. Maybe bring back bell-bottoms and tie-dyed T-shirts, too.
DeleteWhen I develop a stronger resistance to mass stupidity, I plan on revisiting that video just to understand what's rattling around in their near-empty skulls this time around.
I'm pretty sure it's more of the same, but in a way it's fun to watch the "opposition" implode, hoisted by their own petard as the old bard would say.
I really DO NOT understand what motivates these people, especially when they seem so hell-bent on a suicide mission like this.
Again, the only thing I can figure is that they are betting on getting even bigger government bucks with a massively minority, massively failing school system.
Maybe Ballantyne should fight harder for secession.
If CMS plays their cards right, they just might get that and sink even lower.
That should guarantee the "solvency" of their bureaucracy (see, I CAN spell it correctly!) for the next century.
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DeleteTo my knowledge, Kay McSpadden has never worked at a predominantly black urban public school - which I actually have - before being one of the so-called "highly effective" teachers who the brilliant Eurocrats at UNC-Charlotte have acknowledged typically leave within a short period of time. I was one of those teachers who left within a short period of time. I'd be more than happy to share why I left a predominantly minority school with the brilliant educrates at UNC-Charlote but I can assure you that none of the PHDs, local politicians, or TV personalities associated with UNC-Charlotte's "Diversiry Dream Team" will like my answers.
ReplyDeleteWith unapologetic apologies for my iPhone spelling that Shakespeare himself didn't care about. Truth be known. Look it up.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteActually I like your mis-spellings. They are like the occasional neologisms I try to create for fun. Educrates sound like they would carry a lot of excess baggage. And Eurocrats, well, they sound so white...
ReplyDeleteBut, you know, these folks are "true believers" and would probably stick their fingers in their ears and say lalalalala if you tried to tell them something that didn't fit the agenda.
Because it's not like they haven't heard it before, they just don't accept it as valid.
To me it's more of a "stick it to the man" mindset that still rages in heads of clueless liberals.
ReplyDeleteThey already know we're not going back to busing, but they will use every opportunity to try and make a few waves. They will use any means to do so.
We all know that whatever tricks they try to pull, the end result will still be the same, that CMS is a failing urban school system that will never, ever be a shining star in education.
That ship sailed in 1969 along with other ships.
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ReplyDelete"That ship sailed in 1969 along with other ships."
ReplyDeleteAnd now they're all sitting around wailing "Who sank my battleship?!".
They need new pieces they can push around the board.
The old pieces have quit the game.
"The Man" done been stuck too many times to stick around.
Yep, the dummies done blew it this time.
CMS is definitely headed towards the "deferred dream" of an urban ghetto school system.
And a LOT of those edu-burro-crats and their country-club liberal supporters will be lovin' it.
Just look at how the game is being played now.
ALL THE MONEY goes to the poor performers.
They'll be raking it in hand over fist.
Lots of BIG BUCKS for consultants and "courageous conversationalists", too.
Of course, the folks in the trenches (mainly teachers, and especially those non-necessary non-minority teachers) won't get squat (as usual).
It will all go to the flashy folks at the top, or their consultants. That's where the big money is now.
Just watch their budget swell as the system goes down the drain.
Because, as we all know from looking at the more successful schools in the white enclaves of CMS....
THOSE RICH PEOPLE DO NOT NEED MONEY TO EDUCATE KIDS.
So they can just give it all to the "poor", even if their kids don't go to CMS any more.
And That's a win-win for the CMS ghetto school system and their burrocrazy.
Yep, I'm convinced now that it's for the money.
ReplyDeletePublic education has a perverse incentive to fail because failing school systems get more money "for the children".
So, unlike a real business, they are rewarded for inferior outcomes and failure in general.
Just look at the budget for Baltimore vs CMS and compare the number of students in each system.
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/baltimore-city/bs-md-ci-school-budget-session-20150414-story.html
I think CMS currently "educates" more students using less money, so there is a "reward gap" that results from them having a few schools that do well enough with less money.
I am sure they are looking to close that gap by spreading failure across the system.
It all makes sense financially when you look at where the money goes.
I'm curious now whether other school systems tend to get more money for producing worse outcomes.
In a perverse way, based on the typical "liberal" arguments we hear about WHY the schools need more money (and it's NOT to educate the smart, well-behaved and motivated kids with intact families and a reasonable command of English...).
Anyway, maybe some pundit or the other has done this investigation already.
(Or maybe I can find something in Diane Rabid's blog where someone has already written a denial of this as even a possibility, therefore proving it beyond the shadow of a reasonable doubt...)
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ReplyDeleteOn a related note in Baltimore, crime is dropping...
ReplyDeleteHow Baltimore went from 43 homicides to 42 in May
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/crime/blog/bs-md-ci-justified-homicide-20150604-story.html
Now THAT'S the kind of news that makes a city proud.
On a related note, I guess I DID find the pundits that have already pointed out the "money doesn't fix education" situation, but it's a talking point straight from the CATO Institute. (Hey, if it was the Kato Institute, I'd have a Hong Kong connection via the Green Hornet through Bruce Lee!)
Oh, well, it's an old one, though, about Kansas City...
http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/americas-most-costly-educational-failure
But, at least that gives CMS a goal to strive for.
I'm going to Kansas City
Kansas City, here I come
I'm going to Kansas City
Kansas City, here I come
They got some costly little schools there
And I'm gonna get me one
Looking on the bright side, with a 14% reduction in suspensions, Malik would have only been suspended 11 times instead of 13.
ReplyDeleteWhat a difference that would have made...