Criticizing neighborhood schools

I have an idea. Lets make Ligon and Enloe neighborhood schools for a test case. Leave all the resources there-all the teachers, all the advanced classes, all the electives, etc. Don't move the resources out with the NED kids.

Do you think that would fly? If not, why not?

You might have to consider something that is outside the box you are used to thinking in. Consider this. What if healthy means the best teachers who are qualified to teach the most rigorous versions of courses. We have two tiered subjects in the core courses. We have advanced math and advanced language arts. It isn't that not all kids can learn the rigorous versions of these subjects. It is that you have to have top quality teachers to teach the rigorous versions. This may be outside the box of how you think. You may have thought that only some kids can actually really learn these subjects. Consider what if that is not true. What if we simply don't have enough teachers who can teach them, so we pretend that not all kids can learn these subjects. If we need the best teachers who can teach these subjects, then a healthy school is a school that offers the most rigorous versions of the core courses and has qualified teachers (whether certified or not.)What if a healthy school offers a variety of electives that enrich the educational experience of the students and prepare them to be competitive later. Like foreign languages, and orchestra, and programming, etc.We could make all schools equally healthy be spreading around those resources. Then everyone could go to their neighborhood school.But we can't do that. The reason why is because the powerful and most wealthy parents will demand that the resources that make a school healthy be put in their school. We have to spread the wealthy parents around if we want to spread the resources around. Research studies have shown (there is one buried on Wake Co. E&R website) that when more than 40% of the kids in a school are F&R, then there isn't a big enough powerful parent group to demand resources for the school. Low income people don't have enough power to demand and get the resources.If you really want neighborhood schools and you want the schools to be healthy, then you have to demand the resources be distributed to all the schools. Start by demanding that they follow their own math tracking criteria and let all students who qualify for the top math track be in the top math track. That will cause a demand for spreading those math teachers around.This is the only way you are going to have healthy neighborhood schools without managing the income levels of the schools.But to demand the resources be allocated to make all schools equally healthy, you have to start to understand how unequal those resources are going to be distributed otherwise and how to tell how they are distributed.

You could start by making the district report whether equally scoring students have the same access to the top math and language arts track in each school, and what are the quality of the teachers they have. You can measure teacher quality with EVAAS. You can't measure it with Wake's Effectiveness Index because it adjusts the results by income levels to make teachers look effective when poor kids do worse than wealthy kids.

Please consider what Geoffrey Canada has done in Harlem with the Harlem Children's Zone. President Obama wants to create 20 of these schools around the country. Why aren't we clamoring for one? Oh, well there is that uncomfortable detail that Mr. Canada unabashedly is promoting 'rebuilding communities around children where everything is about education'. Also, the title of the NYT article about him is "It takes a 'hood". He advocates the characteristics of community, family connections and stable social networks. It is these characteristics that we would like to see our BoE find a way to infuse into our school system.

What can we learn from this brave and SUCCESSFUL hero?

This is an older interview (there are many if you're interested) but it gives a good overview of the program:

http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/1384

www.hcz.org

THIS IS WHAT NEIGHBORHOOD SCHOOLS MEAN;

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2009/05/13/from_heavy_hearts_a_song_soars/?s_campaign=yahoo
the boy had attended Warren-Prescott since first grade, and many of the 437 students knew him well.

The school - a low, brick complex sandwiched into a dense neighborhood a few blocks from the Bunker Hill Monument - offered kindergarten through sixth grade until three years ago, when it added grades seven and eight. "We get to know the kids and want to keep them," said Amara. Pots of pansies sit by the front door; students in all grades wear uniforms, matching navy-blue polo shirts. The school motto is "Persist and Prevail."

http://wake.mync.com/site/wake/news/story/34106/education-forum-under-way "When you get to the school house door, you get to the classroom, you are still going to be the recipient of standard course of study based on data that teachers have used in their Professional Learning Communities, you're going to be exposed to best teaching practice regardless," said School Board member Eleanor Goettee." So if thats the case Ms Gottee then why are you shuffling these kids all around the County??? Not only are you wasting taxpayer $$$ in transportation, you are wasting services that DO NOT get to that child you claim to serve. How much of your Billion$$$ budget goes to this chess game. And how much actually gets to the children after you have wasted soooo much money on usless practices Hmmm???

It amazes me that they want to keep complaining about what was going on in 1976. I do know race relations has come along way since 1976. We would have NEVER elected a African American as President in 1976. Is there still problems, of course, but it's still not 1976. Considering I was a freshman in HS in 1976 I can tell you some of my recollection and where we are missing the boat. In the late 50's, 60's and even early 70's chances are you if you went to college you would hopefully get a job and keep that job for 30-40 years and retire with a pension. If you didn't go to college you would go get a manufacturing job and make a good living and retire as well. Let's look at 2009. If you are lucky enough to go to college you will get a job, but depending on your profession you will probably have 5+ jobs in your lifetime. You will also hope that your job doesn't get shipped oversea to a lower cost country. If you don't go to college you can get a job in manufacturing...oh wait manufacturing is not something you can count on any longer. Oh well...you can get a job in another field and retire with a pension....oh wait...companies are cutting pensions, etc. They are also shipping a lot of blue and white collar jobs overseas. WCPSS and this nation needs to wake up and try to figure out how to move this country forward instead of looking at policies and problems of the past. What are going to be the jobs of the future and how do we prepare our children with the skills to have one of the jobs. I was really encouraged when I saw that all the kids in the KIPP program in Gaston are going to college. We need to be investing more money in programs such as that. We need to look at the kids as individuals and not a collective group. Each child is different and to say you are F&R you are not smart is the message I hear constantly. Isn't that what they are saying when they say 'Healthy schools'. That is ridiculous. Intelligence or the potential for learning doesn't have anything to do with race or economic level.

I would give Ann Dennlinger's speech the "Gong" award for being the most out of touch with reality. The first part of her presentation talked about how Wake County has one of the "Best schools systems in the country." Our test scores are average in a state which ranks 35th in the nation. I recognize that her job is PR for the schools, but this is a stretch of epic proportions. She then went on to present her vague vision of what our "world class" schools should look like 25 years from now. She showed a chart listing all of the organizations involved in forming this vision -- lots of good companies and educational bureaucracies, but no Parents.

Tom Holzcom's speech was a disgrace. Our school system is facing major budgetary challenges. We are laying off teachers. But he chose to use his bully pulpit to condemn those who support change.

Right out of Rosa's playbook, he said the problem is that parents don't understand what it is WCPSS is trying to do. He said school board policy "is not about trying to make sure every child scores his best on standardized tests but is designed to keep all schools healthy." So we parents are all to stupid to understand that WCPSS doesn't want our kids to do their best?

Most of last night's discussion was focused where it should have been: How do we manage the budget cuts.
Stan Norwalk voiced his support for an APFO which I think makes sense, but will never get done in this economic climate. All the rest of the talk was about which programs should be cut. Some of the things on the table are scary. No discussion of ending MYR or busing as part of the solution. In fact, someone in the audience asked why wcpss was forging ahead with Leesville MYR conversion and Beverly Clark would not provide a direct answer.

He has his "re-segragation" card and he's not afraid to use it. It's a powerful frame to his believers but a non sequitur to everyone else.

To bad his grotesquely simplified application of history to today is simply wrong. The reasons for the demographic movements in major cities has so much going into it, say, corrupt politics, crime, high taxes, congestion among other maladies. And yet, to lay it at the feet of education alone is sadly one dimensional.

I don't mind at all the F&R's at our school and, said without sensitivities to the infrastructural support, I would like more. Like any other child they each bring their own wonderful personalities to the mix and we might provide different opportunities that they may not get at their base school. Again, the problem remains the compulsory aspect. If the parents said; "I don't mind a long bus commute to get my kids to another school," I don't see a rub -- it's elective not compulsory.

To return parental choice would go a long way to restoring parental confidence in this system.

"He said the policy is not about trying to make sure every child scores his best on standardized tests but is designed to keep all schools healthy."

In other words:

"We don't care about education; we care about looking good."

At least he was honest.