Wake County Republican Party Chairman Claude Pope Jr. is accusing Raleigh Mayor Charles Meeker of making "bigoted" and "insulting" statements about the members of the school board majority.
In a press release this evening, Pope takes aim at Meeker for the remarks he made at Monday's East Raleigh Citizens Advisory Committee meeting. At a meeting in which Meeker raised the specter of legal action over the end of the diversity policy, he called board majority members "people who are not from the area, who don't share our values."
“Mayor Meeker has insulted our school board members and all the citizens in Wake County who have moved here from somewhere else,” Pope said.
Pope says Meeker, a Democrat, owes each member of the board majority a public apology for his "repugnant" remarks.
Also in the press release, Pope questions whether there's a conflict of interest because Meeker's wife, Anne McLaurin, serves on the school board.
Here's the press release:
JUNE 24, 2010
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
POPE CALLS MEEKER STATEMENT BIGOTED AND INSULTING
Wake County GOP Chair Claude E. Pope Jr. blasted Mayor Charles Meeker for statements he made yesterday in which Meeker said School Board members were ”not from the area” and didn’t “share our values.” Meeker’s remarks, quoted in the News & Observer, came at a meeting of the East Raleigh Citizens Advisory Committee.
At the meeting, Meeker also said he was seeking to find civic and business groups to file suit against the Board for its policy of forcing students to endure long school bus rides instead of attending community schools closer to where they live.
“Mayor Meeker has insulted our school board members and all the citizens in Wake County who have moved here from somewhere else,” Pope said. He owes each and every one of them an apology immediately and in public His remarks are repugnant.
“For decades, North Carolinians have encouraged the growth of our economy and the enrichment of our culture by seeking out businesses to move here, and people from all parts of the country to join us in our wonderful state,” Pope added. “Mayor Meeker’s bigoted and insensitive statement undermines that policy, and represents a bigoted attitude that has no place in civilized society,” the Republican Chairman said. It sends a clear message to anyone who is considering moving to the Raleigh area that the Mayor doesn’t want you here. What kind of civic leadership is that?
Pope said that Meeker has every right to disagree with School Board policies, although he noted that since Meeker’s wife, Anne McLaurin, sits on the board herself, and has opposed the majority’s reforms, his views may represent a conflict of interest between his obligations to the city and his natural instincts as a husband. But whatever the motivation for his views, there is no excuse for him to demean the “values” of the School Board members, who are committed, as they should be, to carrying out the pledges they made to the voters last November.
Comments
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Mon, 06/28/2010 - 20:22 — Sideburnsmp,
Yes -- because what I advocate for, just as the new Board does, is for every school to have educational opportunities designed for their student population -- not just some random lottery that benefits a few.
What exactly do you mean by
Mon, 06/28/2010 - 20:51 — magnetParentWhat exactly do you mean by "designed for their student population"? Are you saying that Broughton deserves an IB program because it population is high affluence? What educational opportunities should be designed for a neighborhood high school in, say, Southeast Raleigh or Knightdale? How about Green Hope or Wake Forest? I am curious what your expectations are, because parent expectations seem to be driving the BOE. It would be good to know what their plans are.
I find your interest in
Mon, 06/28/2010 - 21:11 — red_balloonI find your interest in non-magnet schools interesting given the following:
Regarding the stop the magnet, IB, GT ... madness comment. This kind of stuff will be the reason that people no longer want to live in Wake County. A school system that does not offer opportunities like this will lag behind other successful systems. Colleges will no longer favor students from WCPSS because their program will be sub-par to other school systems.
It appears you are in favor of a magnet system. Given that the magnet program discriminates against non-magnets, it is evident what set of parental expectations have been driving the BOE thus far. I am at a total loss as to how the WCPSS magnet program appears morally defensible when clearly you admit that a non-magnet education makes the students sub-par.
I did not say that the
Mon, 06/28/2010 - 21:21 — magnetParentI did not say that the students are sub-par. I said that the school system as a whole would be sub-par to to competing school systems that do offer programs such as IB, Arts, Technology, etc. The original comment by shearertw was implying that these opportunities should be stopped. If the whole school system did not offer an IB program, that school system is subpar to those that do. What set of parental expectations are you referring to?
It is a fallacy to state
Mon, 06/28/2010 - 21:47 — red_balloonIt is a fallacy to state that a few magnet schools levitate the entire system to greater performance. The entire school system will not and does not gain. The specific schools offering the enhanced offerings gain. This most definitely is not the "school system as a whole".
Your statements indicate a belief that the system would be sub-par if the magnet program was stopped. All other things being equal, I believe a student routed through a sub-par system would fare worse than a student routed through a non sub-par system. Are you stating that the sub-par system fares no differently than the non sub-par system when it comes to setting up students for sub-par performance? Because if you are not stating so, then the implication is that the product of the sub-par system i.e., the students, are sub-par. But, on the other hand, if you are stating so, then it begs the question as to why a magnet system is needed if the non-magnet and magnet programs are considered equally adept at putting out sub-par students.
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Mon, 06/28/2010 - 21:06 — SideburnsBTW, you didn't answer my question.
Do you know the parents from Broughton? How do you know they are "done"?
I do know some parents at
Mon, 06/28/2010 - 21:09 — magnetParentI do know some parents at Broughton. I do not know any of the ones that pushed for keeping the private IB program. I am guessing they are done. I guess I should have put IMO. Now, waiting for the answer to my question.
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Mon, 06/28/2010 - 21:27 — SideburnsWith parental choice, better stability and themed academies, all students can be better served. "Designed" was probably a poor choice of words.
What themes go where?
Mon, 06/28/2010 - 21:39 — Dove314How will it be decided what schools and zones gets what themes? Will each zone have identical themed academies? Identical numbers of themed academies? How will equity be determined? How will equity in assignment to a themed academy be insured?
I cannot tell you how
Mon, 06/28/2010 - 22:11 — red_balloonI cannot tell you how irrelevant these questions appear when posed within WCPSS. When everybody cared zilch while enhanced offerings were limited to few students, or when questions of equity were limited to SES composition, it borders on the facetious that these questions arise at all. If there are concerns about equity under a revised model, I doubt these would be anything that cannot be fixed by issuing lottery tickets.
What on earth?
Tue, 06/29/2010 - 06:09 — Dove314As you yourself continue to harp, the magnet system has been and remains far from equitable. So now when questions are raised as to forward plans to fix problems of the past, because I, someone who dislikes the BoE majority raises them, why is that facetious? If a lottery is the plan, that's fine. You don't like the current magnet system, that's fine but the themed academies are what is on the table for moving forward and there will need to be decisions made about placing types of academies in various zones and how students will be selected for the themes academies. You talk about "the opposition" needing to make "concessions" and be accepting of the new BoE majority. So here I ask reasonable questions and instead of a civil answer, you trot out your standard "magnets were unfair" mantra and some snide comments about history. Maybe you need to move on as much or more than those who have issues with the current BoE majority. I get that you have some gifted and hard working children who aren't being challenged in their current schools. I get that you wanted them in the magnet program and your applications were denied. I've honored your issues and listened and realized the unfairness of the previous magnet selection system. I've posted that I support changing that system. I've even apologized personally to you when discussions have gotten heated. I'm not the one being facetious or snide here. So I'll continue to ask these questions in the spirit of trying to do what's best for the students and grasp where the system is going and if you don't like it, so be it but at least try to show me the same respect I show to you.
I do not consider you as
Tue, 06/29/2010 - 11:05 — red_balloonI do not consider you as being from the "opposition" (or from any specific camp for that matter). From your posts I have surmised that you are driven by concern for students and approach the issues in an objective manner. My response to your post is not specific to you but to anyone content with the past but now thinks they can sit back and throw in questions such as these at the new BOE. Certainly your participation on this board, by and large, evokes respect and I had no intent to focus on you specifically.
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Mon, 06/28/2010 - 21:53 — SideburnsSo many good questions. I encourage you to forward them to your Board rep or even your parent rep on the Student Assignment committee.
Truthfully
Mon, 06/28/2010 - 23:37 — Dove314Truthfully, I'm interest in these but mainly from a standpoint of how this interrelates to improving student achievement, particularly among those not currently meeting their achievement goals. Equity is important as has been shown by providing the opportunities for the right levels of math. But it is important to tie even the themed academies to goals with student achievement. That is the note I will send to my parent rep.
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Mon, 06/28/2010 - 20:53 — SideburnsI never said anything about anyone's affluence. Is that really all that matters to you?
Not at all. I'm just
Mon, 06/28/2010 - 20:55 — magnetParentNot at all. I'm just trying figure out what you mean by "designed for their student population"?
duplicate
Fri, 06/25/2010 - 16:44 — shearertwduplicate
If not, fill the ones
Fri, 06/25/2010 - 14:24 — shearertwIf not, fill the ones closest to Raleigh with kids from those communities closest to the school. This doesn't have to be difficult....
It's really not that
Fri, 06/25/2010 - 14:47 — danofncIt's really not that simple.
If you leave Vandora Springs ES in Garner, you can drive to 3 other ES and only drive 6.3 miles total. You'd go past Timber Drive ES, then down Aversboro Rd to ARES, then back up Aversboro and over to Highway 50 to head up to Rand Road ES.
If you swap out Creech Road ES for Rand, you only drive 5.2 miles total.
For all 5, you drive an almost 9 mile loop. Rand and Creech are about 5 miles apart (if you drive straight from one to the other).
If you simply send kids to their closest school, the would all be underenrolled. If you filled the schools with kids who live closest, then at some point you'd get to where you had a kid who lived near one school being sent to another because it wasn't full yet. Since that isn't a good idea, that's where the busing would come in.
You fill Aversboro with kids who don't go to Creech, Rand, Vandora or Rand, and then you bus in kids to get closer to capacity. I don't think that should be considered "social engineering", "protecting Raleigh", or anything else. Aversboro just got a new building, and it needs to be used. I think it's a lot cheaper to build and maintain one 600 student school than it is 2, 300 student schools.
As a taxpayer, I don't really want the schools paying downtown Raleigh prices to build schools. I'd much rather they build farther out where land is cheaper.
I don't necessarily have a
Fri, 06/25/2010 - 15:12 — shearertwI don't necessarily have a problem with that although I don't know enough about the details to weigh in on the specifics. I'm fine with buildings schools where they are the cheapest to build within reason and I'm also fine with assigning kids to fill them up within reason. What I'm not fine with is move kids from a school 1 mile from their home to one 5 miles away just because of "diversity" or ED considerations.....PERIOD. Logical reasons for not assigning a kid to their "most" closest school may be some of the things you mentioned above. Just don't make family income one of those factors and do your absolute best to keep communities together. No assignment pattern will ever be perfect, just don't make it stupid like we've been doing for the last 10 years.
But, if high poverty schools
Fri, 06/25/2010 - 15:26 — danofncBut, if high poverty schools are poor-performing, why wouldn't you want to try to avoid having them? Isn't it a little crazy to ignore SES status if it is a factor in achievement?
I know you're probably itching to bring up your "study" from before about performance of ED kids in higher vs. lower poverty schools in WCPSS. Please understand that I am talking about schools that are 80-85% and higher, which WCPSS doesn't currently have.
Because I don't care about
Fri, 06/25/2010 - 16:06 — shearertwBecause I don't care about school performance at all, I only care about individual student performance and I'm not going down that endless road with you again. We'll just have to agree to disagree on that.
Also, I'm a community school proponent, not neighborhood school proponent so I don't really believe there will be many 80-85% and higher schools created under such a model. Poverty just isn't that widespread in Wake Co. In those few situations that are created, there are many many ways of dealing with it on that small, case-by-case situation. Its not 1960 and nobodies going to try and keep them from getting the resources they need so please don't cry wolf to me.
Having worked in the
Fri, 06/25/2010 - 17:46 — HJ2ss2Having worked in the schools, often with children who have little, I can confirm that poverty is quite prevalent in Wake County.
Quick Facts
Sat, 06/26/2010 - 02:49 — jeffrey1Some quick facts from National Center for Education Statistics, 2007-2008
Wake County F&R spiked to 31.2% in 2009-2010, but I don't have state and national figures for comparison.
I am shocked by those
Sat, 06/26/2010 - 07:46 — woodstockI am shocked by those numbers. We sure have a lot of irresponsible parents who keep having kids they cannot even afford to provide nutrition for. Those stats tell us that nearly 1 in 3 parents of school-age children in Wake County don't have have enough wherewithal or pride to put food on their family's table. That is a shameful state of affairs ...if it was true. The fact is, these figures include a tremendous amount of fraud. Parents simply fill out an FRL application, report their income with absolutely no verification process whatsoever and the Federal funds flow...about $21,700,000/yr in Wake County.
If we are using the FRL numbers to define ED students in Wake County, we are fooling ourselves. The poverty rate is 8%. How to we get from there to over 31% FRL? It is time to start asking some questions and demanding accountability.
Wow..
Sat, 06/26/2010 - 08:35 — Bob_SconceFirst of all, you can be above the poverty line and still qualify for F&R lunches.
Secondly, the populations of WCPSS students is different than the population generally. Wake County has lots and lots of single people without kids, for example, who are unrepresented in the WCPSS numbers.
Thirdly,"irresponsible parents" "pride"? No doubt that's an accurate description for some parents (unfortunately), but you're painting with a very broad brush.
First, apparently, you can
Sat, 06/26/2010 - 08:54 — woodstockFirst, apparently, you can be significantly above the poverty line and still qualify. Why? Also, remember parents self report their income with no requirement to verify it. That seems like a terrible dereliction of duty by the government especially since we are talking about literally 100s of millions of dollars state-wide and 10s of millions of dollars in Wake County.
Second, yes, as you said "populations of WCPSS students is different than the population generally," that is why I specifically stated "parents of school-age children."
Third, I painted with a broad brush because that is what our government is doing. Some people really need assistance, but there are a whole of folks who are simply taking advantage and sopping up the government gravy. We need to identify who is who.
Woodstock - here is the
Sat, 06/26/2010 - 09:52 — magnetParentWoodstock - here is the information on qualifying for FRL:
(http://www.wcpss.net/child-nutrition/understand-wcpss-participation.html)
"The USDA establishes guidelines for determining eligibility for receipt of free or reduced-price lunch and breakfast, based upon the parents’ or guardians’ income levels. Currently, if the annual income is less than 130 percent of the poverty level as defined by USDA (the level varies according to family size), the family is eligible for free meals; if the annual income is less than 185 percent of the poverty level, the family is eligible for reduced-price meals."
With that algorithm, the FRL numbers will always be more than the poverty level.
Thanks, I am aware of that
Sat, 06/26/2010 - 10:06 — woodstockThanks, I am aware of that information. My questions are 1.) Why do we buying food for families that are 185% above the poverty level (yes, I know this is a national issues). 2.) Why isn't the self-reported income verified considering it is well known that the fraud rate is enormous. 3.) This is the most pertinent one - since we know that the numbers are fraudulent, why does the status quo supporters insist that we continue to use these numbers to define "diversity" in Wake County?
Well..
Sat, 06/26/2010 - 11:22 — Bob_Sconce(1) As you point out, it's a national issue. WCPSS has to do what the Feds say. I'm just pointing out one reason why it's more than 8% of the WCPSS population.
(2) Same reason -- the Feds don't want districts to audit a ton of these things, and there's no incentive for the districts to spend their own money to audit.
(3) The fact that some recipients are committing fraud doesn't mean that the numbers are wholly uninformative. I suggest that the legitimate F&R percentage is still high at a very-high reported F&R node. It's not like we have nodes in Brier Creek of 95% F&R. Also, some of that fraud is simply in getting free lunches when maybe you only qualify for reduced-price lunches.
Don't get me wrong -- I'm not supporting the practice of assigning based on F&R status (you know me better than that!)
I hear what you are saying.
Sat, 06/26/2010 - 11:47 — woodstockI hear what you are saying. However, I will add that I personally think the F&R numbers are mostly uninformative. Knowing who gets FRL -- legitimately or not - does not identify the challenges individual students face ...and that is where we need go if we expect to improve performance.
I am actually beginning to think I could accept a policy that provides free food for every student, if it will end this unproductive conversation about F&R rates and so-called "diversity." Hell, let's all suckle on the government teet. (okay, I don't really want that) It is distracting to the mission at hand and a complete waste of time.
What at the economics of
Sat, 06/26/2010 - 10:46 — user12345What at the economics of hiring say three non-teaching employees ($100k) to audit this? Would it save that much? Given that most of the kids who get a free lunch exhibit the signs of not being wealthy in my wife's classroom and given schools like Green Hope have few who apply it would seem the program is working fine - high F&R concentrations appear to coincide with low income area from the census. Also, I thought the money comes from the federal government and the employee cost takes away from teaching. Why would we want to take away from teaching positions?
So, if the numbers were not
Sat, 06/26/2010 - 10:25 — magnetParentSo, if the numbers were not fraudulent, would they be a valuable tool to measure ED kids? And in that case, wouldn't it be better to fix the problem of fraud (ie. change their policy for qualifying so that incomes are verified) instead of removing the measure (ie diversity) altogether? If you know the true economic status of the students, does that not help you to know what special needs they will have and what obstacles they may need to overcome to give them the education they need to achieve?
What has Wake County's
Sat, 06/26/2010 - 10:41 — woodstockWhat has Wake County's version of "diversity" given us? Knowing the economic status of a child's family does not define the challenges individual children face. Poor parents can be just as supportive or just as derelict in their support as any other family. Lumping all ED kids, or all minority kids, or all rich kids together and making assumptions about their prospects has gotten us where we are today. We need a new approach. Only when we begin to look at the needs of individual children and addressing them directly, will we begin to see improvement. That is where the BoE is taking us.
Additionally, we also need to start verifying who does and who does not genuinely qualify for FRL. Unfortunately, that won't happen however. It is purposefully ignored because no one wants to shut off the tap -- or slow the flow -- of Federal money.
Sure it is not the only
Sat, 06/26/2010 - 10:56 — magnetParentSure it is not the only measure, but it is one of the measures. Sure poor parents can be just a supportive, and there are rich parents who are not supportive at all. But with the challenges of working just to make ends meet is an obstacle to providing support - they just don't have the flexibility to break away from work to support their school or childs education (ie. homework). And that is not a general statement about poor families, but it is a risk factor that increase the odds of lack of abililty to support. As far as the comment about lumping all ED kids... or all rich kids together... isn't that what we are going to get without the diversity clause in the assignment policy? Isn't that where the BoE is taking us? Having diversity in the system does NOT prevent them from looking at the indiividual needs of the child.
Yes, we need to do a better job of verifying FRL to prevent fraud. But how does the school system benefit from ignoring it? This federal funding goes to the child, not to the school. The school is just the means for delivering the funding (by giving the child a free or reduced lunch)
"This federal funding goes
Sat, 06/26/2010 - 11:18 — woodstock"This federal funding goes to the child, not to the school."
That is not true. The money goes to the schools and they have wide discretion on how to use that money. Not every dime does into FRL, as one would assume, it can be used for other things too.
Not quite
Sat, 06/26/2010 - 15:01 — kbrooks500Money for free and reduced meals does not cover the cost of the meals. That is why schools sell ala carte items. Food service is a self-supporting, it's goal is to break even. Not make a profit.
Other federal money, such as Title I does go to schools based on F&R % and each school does determine how the money is used. The money does have to be used in the fiscal year, and it does have to be documented how it was used.
So which is it? Do we need
Sat, 06/26/2010 - 09:40 — danofncSo which is it? Do we need to do a better job of looking for fraud or cut back on administration costs? Fraud prevention would involve more staff, right?
You shouldn't assume that everyone on F&R is impoverished. There are people who would be termed "working poor", who are responsible, have jobs, but just don't really make that much and can greatly benefit from the help. That is why the program exists.
I think the "highly fraudulent" evidence was a percentage of F&R claims that were actually investigated, right? That could just as easily indicate that people are doing a good job of trying to verify eligibility, couldn't it?
I'm not trying to claim that there isn't fraud. That would be silly. But, if there are large numbers of parents who would lie about their income just to get a free meal for their kid I would personally think that those kids need all the help from the school system that they can get. Obviously their parents have value problems.
I just don't believe that justifying what we do with kids based on what their parents do or don't do serves the best interests of us all.
The Working Poor
Tue, 06/29/2010 - 03:27 — jeffrey1You shouldn't assume that everyone on F&R is impoverished. There are people who would be termed "working poor", who are responsible, have jobs, but just don't really make that much and can greatly benefit from the help. That is why the program exists.
If SES has no direct effect,
Tue, 06/29/2010 - 07:08 — danofncIf SES has no direct effect, then explain the achievement gap between NED and ED kids.
Surely you are not
Tue, 06/29/2010 - 07:57 — jeffrey1Surely you are not suggesting that SES has some effect on the brain's ability to learn??? Do poor kids undergo some sort of gene mutation that results in their poor performance in the classroom?
There is a correlation between poverty and achievement. But you need to learn the difference between cause and effect. The achievement gap exists because SES is correlated with other things (one parent families, behavior issues, lack of parental participation, etc), and it is these things that are then correlated with poor performance. In other words, an indirect effect.
Perhaps you should ask: If SES has a direct effect, why do some ED kids achieve higher than NED kids?
But I can't help but notice that you ignored the larger issue, and that is your recognition that many of ED kids in Wake come from "working poor" families, who are responsible (your words) parents, who are providing the support necessary for their kids to be successful. You are basically saying (and I agree) that SES (as used in WCPSS) is not a good measure of potential success.
There is a significant gap
Tue, 06/29/2010 - 08:07 — danofncThere is a significant gap in the achievement of NED and ED kids.
You can parse the words however you want, the fact is that ED kids don't perform as well as NED kids.
That doesn't mean they are incapable, and it doesn't mean you couldn't throw out some examples of ED kids who were/are outstanding students. It also doesn't mean that you can't find any examples of NED kids who were/are failing.
I can assure you that
Tue, 06/29/2010 - 08:38 — jeffrey1I can assure you that understanding the difference between cause and effect is not a matter of parsing words.
When you have pain, you can either take an aspirin or try to get at the root cause of the pain, and it is obvious that WCPSS became addicted to pain medication over the past 20 years.
You're still ignoring the larger issue here, and that is your claim that a large portion of the ED kids in Wake are the children of the responsible, working poor. I'll take your silence to mean that you agree that SES is a poor measure of student achievement.
You can take my silence to
Tue, 06/29/2010 - 10:03 — danofncYou can take my silence to mean that I actually have things to do, so I can't always respond immediately.
At a district level, there is no way that they are going to have 140,000 individual instruction plans. That's asinine. The district has to group the kids in some way.
The ED/NED distinction provides one way of grouping the students. With the pronounced gap in achievement between the two groups (nationwide), it seems rather obvious that SES must be an indicator of something. The fact that some families/students succeed despite those circumstances doesn't disprove the fact that many ED students struggle.
What you're asking me is how to individually account for something that is a generalized grouping. In the classroom, teachers don't seem to care about ED status. They teach the kids they have to the best of their ability, and they try to maximize every single child's performance.
For their troubles, people like you downplay their efforts. Remember the other day when you were talking about how teachers only have 4 1/2 to 6 "actual teaching hours", discounting anything they do outside of actual teaching? Remember when you accused me of trying to mislead people because I said that teachers had to be in their classrooms 1/2 an hour prior to the first bell (even though it's a fact)? Remember how, in defending your erroneous position, you implied that your wife worked 24/7 and didn't even take time to eat? Based on the way you broke down the teacher's day, the only time your wife would get credit for is when she's in a face to face meeting with a client. Everything else was discounted.
At a district level, there
Tue, 06/29/2010 - 10:29 — jeffrey1At a district level, there is no way that they are going to have 140,000 individual instruction plans.
it seems rather obvious that SES must be an indicator of something.
For their troubles, people like you downplay their (teachers) efforts.
Remember when you accused me of trying to mislead people because I said that teachers had to be in their classrooms 1/2 an hour prior to the first bell (even though it's a fact)
Board Policy disagrees with you (it's not the first bell):
3221. In order to protect student safety and to provide for the proper supervision of students, teachers’ minimum workday shall extend from one-half hour before the students’ instructional day begins until the students for which they are responsible have departed and the teachers have completed their professional responsibilities to the students and the school.
"Never said or implied they
Tue, 06/29/2010 - 11:05 — danofnc"Never said or implied they needed to. I simply asked how you would implement a plan that gives extra attention to students in need. And after 4 responses, you still haven't answered the question."
I am NOT a teacher. The plan you're asking me to "implement" is being implemented every day throughout WCPSS. It isn't a new initiative that I'm suggesting, it's what happens right now. It is easier when teachers can plan group time, have a parent or two to help their TA manage the groups, and pull a kid or two or three aside for extra help.
As kids get older, they are separated before they get into their classes (different math classes, different English classes, etc), so I would suspect it isn't as big of a deal, but I don't know.
"the point that I am trying to make, obviously lost on you, is that low SES is not the cause of underachievement."
Your point isn't lost, but there is a reason I said you were parsing words. If SES is the cause of factors that impact achievement, then I think it's parsing words to say that those factors, and not SES, are impacting achievement. You can disagree, and that's fine. If you have osteoporosis and you fall and break your hip, did the fall or the illness cause the break? Is knowing which one caused it going to make it hurt less? Is there a chance that you would have broken your hip even if you didn't have osteoporosis? If you know you have osteoporosis so you're more at risk of breaking something if you fall, does that mean you can 100% avoid falling?
"Board Policy disagrees with you (it's not the first bell):"
Well, since I have never seen any teachers racing the kids into the building in the mornings, I will go with my understanding of teacher arrivals.
Good Analogy Jeffrey1
Tue, 06/29/2010 - 08:53 — JanisTangoI like the analogy of WCPSS being addicted to pain medication instead of getting to the root cause of the pain. WCPSS' answer for underachieving students was to bus kids elsewhere to keep the appearance of 'healthy' schools. IMO, there was no focus on why they were underachieving!
How can any child achieve in
Tue, 06/29/2010 - 09:18 — virginiadareHow can any child achieve in an unhealthy, very high-poverty school? Seems like you have to have a healthy school first, before any child can achieve.
Well Virginia!
Tue, 06/29/2010 - 11:05 — JanisTangoLet me put it to you based on experience. When our school was deemed 'unhealthy' by the powers that be their answer was to bus out some F&R nodes. My response was leave the kids alone and leave them here so we can help them. NO...it would make the school appear unhealthy and they couldn't keep up the facade they were a 'GREAT' school district if they did that. They also might have to actually address the needs to these kids. The teachers at the time wrote up information in their folders and sent it onto the next school with no idea whether help would be provided or not. These kids were apart of our 'community' and they were ripped out so the school could appear healthy!
It can work. If you first
Tue, 06/29/2010 - 09:42 — HJ2ss2It can work. If you first determine the necessary services then provide those services, including involving parents, you can develop a program that can work. Just being in the proximity of high achieving students does nothing to improve performance. If anything, it results in more problems. The high poverty kids often resent the successful students. They may react with anger but if you explore that anger, you are likely to find that the lower performing students feel inferior to the higher performing students. This is not true in every case but is evident in many circumstances. Among adolescents, it's much more acceptable to be angry than to show that you are vulnerable.