[hogalumni Newsletter] Robin Stover
- From: Wayne Beck <webeck@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: hogalumni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 23 Nov 2011 14:20:07 -0600
AHS principal responds to editorial
By: Robin Stover - Texarkana Gazette
‘Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please.’
—Mark Twain
In regards to the recent editorial in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
(reprinted in Sunday’s Texarkana Gazette), normally, we, in the
Texarkana, Arkansas, School District would decline to respond to
slanderous and misinformed reporting in fear that it might give the
meritless some perverse sense of worth or gratification. However, when
facts are mistakenly printed, when perspectives are horribly twisted by
political rhetoric, and when accusations are made by those who have
never set foot in our school, we feel as though we have no choice but to
tell our own story.
First, the facts. Arkansas High School in Texarkana is, in fact, on the
state of Arkansas’ list of troubled school as a State-Directed Year 8
School. The reason we have remained on this list is due to low
performance in certain sub-populations on the 11th Grade Literacy Exam.
What the editorial fails to mention, however, is that Arkansas High met
Safe Harbor (the nationally-set standard for necessary growth) in math
for the 2010-2011 school year. What this means is that our Geometry
scores have shown a 29% improvement over the past three years; and our
Algebra I scores have shown a 55% improvement. Even in Literacy, we have
shown a 19% improvement.
The most egregious of the reported “facts” is the touting of a “sorry
record” of graduation that places us 239th out of 252 high schools in
the state. Our graduation rate declined along with many others when the
state moved from a completion rate to a cohort rate. By working with a
former NORMES employee, we began to understand the unique tracking and
coding problems faced by a border city competing with four other city
schools. And the result? Last year, of the 252 seniors who walked
through our doors, we graduated 248 (with two more returning to graduate
this year).
Almost as offensive is the parading around of the 5.7% dropout rate.
Although it is one of the most disturbing statistics for those of us who
understand it, those who have little to no understanding of the
educational system will balloon it into justification for an additional
school to serve those students. In actuality, that rate refers to one
graduating class of students, meaning that it indicates approximately
fourteen students—far fewer than the one hundred to two hundred that
Responsive Education claims to target. Additionally, that rate has
declined from 8.9% in 2008 by a full percentage point or more each of
the past four years.
Our story, however, is not about numbers as much as it is about people.
It is about a group of African-American students who have formed a club
intended to bring varied groups of kids together. It is about an at-risk
student with documented learning disabilities who has been embraced by a
school community that includes four counselors and a college advisor and
who now excels as a school leader and is making college plans. It is
about multiple students from varied backgrounds seeking top-notch
college education, including an African-American male from an
economically-disadvantaged environment who is currently being courted by
multiple Ivy League schools. It is about a school family of
highly-qualified and Arkansas-certified teachers with a student to teach
ratio of 12 to 1 (not the 150 to 1 reported in the editorial), as
opposed to the 25 to 1 staff to student ratio of Responsive Education,
making use of non-certified facilitators and computers in place of
certified teachers.
Not every statement in the editorial is false. Good schools don’t come
naturally. They do take good planning, smart leadership, and new
initiatives. These characteristics do not, however, include flashy sales
videos and extremist discourse. They do not include placing an at-risk
student in front of a computer for a shortened school day in a school
without a counselor or an adequate number of certified teachers. Good
planning is developing the ability to build your own master teachers
from within. Something we have done in transitioning to a system that
provides sixty hours of teacher-led staff development. Smart leadership
is partnering with the Arkansas Leadership Academy, experts in building
the capacity for adult learning, effective teaching, shared leadership,
and sustainable growth. Something we have done for the past three years.
New initiatives do not include filing for multiple waivers to avoid the
accountability measures put in place by the State of Arkansas. If
charter schools are “ the most promising innovation in public
education,” and Responsive Education is the best current candidate among
them, then the editorial is suggesting that the greatest “new
initiative” available is simply placing a student in front of a computer
for four hours a day.
We recognize the challenges within the public school system. We see more
than anyone the struggles of adapting to the needs of learners in a
rapidly changing world. We welcome questions. We welcome criticism. But
what we welcome more than anything is you. Any of you. Anybody wondering
about the true reality of our school does not need to accept the
fictionalized accounts and offensive analogies of an uninformed
journalist. Our doors are open. We do not make any claims of perfection,
but we readily encourage visitors to see what we are actually doing to
educate our students. We hope that is encouragement enough.
Published: 11/23/2011
--
Wayne Beck (Web Master)
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