[regional_school] Re: regional_school Digest V2 #40
- From: Keith Rankin <keithwrankin@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: Regional School <regional_school@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 9 Mar 2010 19:18:07 -0500
In today's (March 9, 2010) edition of The Wall Street Journal (A21) Diane
Ravitch wrote and outstanding opinion piece re: school reform which was a bit
more indepth than her NY Times piece. In it she says:
"In short, accountability [NCLB] turned into a nightmare for American schools,
producing graduates who were drilled regularly on the basic skills but were
often ignorant about almost everything else. Colleges continued to complain
about the poor preparation of entering students, who not only had meager
knowledge of the world but still required remediation in basic skills."
Perhaps, as Dr. Ravitch points out, the "ill-prepared" students are more a
factor of NCLB then the city.
City School GRADUATES are held to the same standards as their suburban
counterparts. What I would like for Colleges, Employers, Politicians and the
community to understand is that the urban graduate accomplished this, often
times, under unimaginably adverse conditions and often by themselves. As I
drive to work every day there are traffic jams of suburban parents chauffeuring
their children to school. There are no such lines at my school in the city.
Keith
Keith W. Rankin
44 Creston Court
Rochester, NY 14612
585.734.7295 cel
Date: Tue, 9 Mar 2010 06:17:07 -0500
Subject: [regional_school] Re: regional_school Digest V2 #40
From: dinaeliz@xxxxxxxxx
To: regional_school@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
I've posted below a recent editorial in our district's union newsletter, on
mayoral control and Race to the Top, from our president's perspective (Dave
Rose, a social studies teacher at Sperry High School). I found it well-reasoned
and very compelling. Enjoy. ~ Dina
Brothers and Sisters –
If you have been following
the story of Mayor Duffy’s proposal to take over the Rochester City
School District, you are aware that the presidents of most of the
local colleges endorse Duffy’s proposal. On February 24, a supporting
Op-Ed piece was published in the Democrat & Chronicle.
In this piece, a curious assertion
was made that most local colleges are eager to work with RCSD students
but in too many cases never get the chance “either because they never
graduate…or graduate ill-prepared for college work”
(emphasis mine).
Apparently, our local colleges
have some minimum standards of preparation required before they will
even consider working with students.
Public school teachers have
no such discretion.
The local college presidents
suggest that the governance model for the RCSD is so flawed as to cause
the ill preparation of students for college success. They cite
poor 8th grade ELA scores with the note that “Students
who cannot understand what they are reading, cannot succeed in high
school” (or, by extension, college).
What these college presidents
hypocritically overlook is the vast number of city students who show
up “ill prepared” for kindergarten and each subsequent grade level.
Educational/social research
has established a striking statistical correlation between poverty and
student success. While being poor has no statistical significance for
individual students, high concentrations of poverty do appear to be
connected to large patterns of systemic failure.As a single, simplistic
indicator of poverty, 80% of all RCSD students qualify for subsidized
lunches. This at least suggests that poverty may be a factor.
However, critics of public
education have accused teachers’ unions of “bullying” state legislators
while “protecting” incompetent teachers in order to resist efforts
at reform. The implication is that teachers unions don’t care
about students; they only care about themselves. That’s just outright
dishonest.
The dishonesty of these criticisms
becomes evident upon comparison of the governance models and union presence
in the school districts recognized as successful. Pittsford, Brighton,
and West Irondequoit all have similar governing structures, with the
same kinds of teachers, with the same kinds of teacher training, and
the same unions with the same core contracts. Why is it, then, that
some districts are successful, while others “fail”?
At the very least, these college
presidents, Mayor Duffy and other disinterested critics should be offering
a testable hypothesis as to the “cause” of lack of student success
BEFORE a solution is offered. The solution should be directly,
operationally linked to the cause.
(By the way, what is the percentage
of college students who graduate within 4 years? What percent of students
drop out of college within the first 4 semesters?)
Colleges “cherry
pick” students, but still “blame” public schools for the ill preparation
of unsuccessful ones. Public schools attempt to educate all students,
whether “ill prepared” or not.
Unfortunately, too many of
those interested in educational reform have a political ax to grind.
The Op-Ed piece mentioned makes my point.
One of our initiatives this
year involves our efforts, from the AFT right down to our own local,
to reframe the public discussion about education reform. This is why
your local union has decided to attempt to engage our own administration
in developing a joint oversight structure to try and ensure that the
actual CAUSES of poor student achievement are accurately, scientifically
identified BEFORE any politically expedient remedies are enacted. In
the upcoming months, union identified teachers will have increasing
opportunities to directly affect policies and strategies to address
achievement concerns for our district’s children.
Let’s not let our collective
attempt to achieve fair compensation and stable careers serve as the
“fall guy” for whatever reform efforts may be needed for our district.
Instead, let’s prepare ourselves to be involved in the analysis of
our district’s problems as well as in the formulation and articulation
of needed prescriptive efforts.
An initiative is underway to
increase the participation of union sponsored teachers in all analysis
and planning efforts for the district. At least within our school
district, our union brothers and sisters will have the opportunity to
avoid the politically inspired finger pointing that too often serves
as “reform dialogue” on the larger political field of play. A labor/management
oversight structure is being created/refined for the district and for
each building. Stay tuned.
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