<p>Yes, most of her parents have phones that work some of the time – when they are not disconnected. At her first non-charter school, she had one class of remedial kids where every child had lost a father or uncle to gang violence and where every child had been kicked out of a previous school and she sometimes went to homes in that neighborhood to find parents who didn’t have a phone. This thread reminds me of women sharing childbirth stories, “Oh, you only had 12 hours of labor, I had 20. Try that.”</p>
<p>“The study suggests that teachers already were working so hard that the lure of extra money failed to induce them to intensify their effort or change methods of instruction.” Gee, really?</p>
<p>This thread contains many thoughtful comments. I believe that this is a very important discussion to have, so thanks everyone!
I read “Whatever It Takes” and am especially intrigued by Geoffrey Canada’s “Baby College”. I hope that the movie delves into this. Outreach workers recruit pregnant women, or parents with infants, to attend parenting classes (8 classes per session). In these classes, parents are taught things like how to talk to their infants and toddlers, how to discipline, how to limit TV time, etc… Geoffrey Canada apparently hopes to build enough support for these parenting practices in his Children’s Zone so that these practices, already common among middle-class families, are the norm.
I work in medically underserved communities which generally have the worst school performance in the state. Occasionally, I see parents speaking to their infants and toddlers in a way that stimulates them and encourages them to learn. I have known some of these families for 10 years and I see their children doing well in school (and some of their older children, raised the same way, going off to college!) Way, way more often, I see parents who say nothing to their infants and toddlers but (harsh tone here): GIT over here! SIT down! SHUT up! etc. etc. The kids watch TV for at least 8 hours a day, starting in infancy. How can we possibly close the achievement gap when we have such an “infancy gap”? When I try to discuss this with the parents, they do not believe me ("But my child LEARNS from TV! But my child does not listen unless I ‘pop him one’. My favorite: When I tried to explain that hitting a toddler teaches a child that it is OK to hurt others, the parent says “But I want my child to be able to fight. When he gets to school he will need to know how”. More comments too numerous to mention.) I’m not saying that this is an excuse for poor teachers, lack of meaningful evaluation of teachers, or accountability on the part of schools. But it makes the job of the teachers and schools so, so much harder. And, as other posters have pointed out, charters and magnets are already self-selecting because the parents had to care enough about education and they had to do something to get their kids in.
So, keep the comments coming everyone, and for an alternative view read Diane Ravitch’s book “The Death and Life of the Great American School System”. I really believe on reading (and watching movies, I suppose). and discussing, all sides of this issue.</p>
<p>Financial incentives for testing can backfire, as is illustrated in the Book “Freakanomics”. It’s interesting how with the higher incentives for better test scores, some teachers in the Chicago school system…cheated, were caught, and fired.</p>
<p>I agree with most of what you say, but I think that it should be recognized that no one solution will work for ALL students. Some students need excellent vocational schools, some students need gifted schools, some students need unusual challenge in the humanities, some in science and math, some in music or athletics or art, some in all of the above. Some students may respond to a very structured environment, some not. Ideally, I think, students in a region would have access to a variety of learning environments.</p>
<p>BTW, I heard the director of the film interviewed on NPR yesterday. He seems to admire the Kipp schools, but says that he does not view charters in general as a silver bullet. He also said that he would like to be able to take his child–who are/is apparently not in K yet–and walk to a neighborhood school. He said that he and his wife have started volunteering in their local schools.</p>
<p>The director, Guggenheim, has three children (who may not all be schoolage) and commented that he drives by three public schools while driving his kids to private school.</p>
<p>The Oprah show was taped before Mayor Fenty, Michelle Rhee’s biggest supporter lost the DC Mayoral primary. She is on her way out.</p>
<p>Charter schools are great - but they need to have a failing public school to work. I love all the ‘rules’ and discipline that come with charters. Love the academic standards. But what happens if the rules are not obeyed? if parents don’t cooperate? if the kid get D’s?
They are sent out to their public school.</p>
<p>Public schools are charged with educating every child - not just the ‘smart’ ones or the ‘well behaved’ ones.
Public schools don’t create income. They are given a pot of money each year and told to make due. If enrollment skyrockets, they don’t get more money; if a special education kid moves in costing $20,000 each year - they don’t get more money.</p>
<p>I would like to see the stat that teachers graduate in the bottom third. What does that mean? Colleges don’t usually rank and most/many/some? colleges require a 3.0 to move into the teaching program as a junior.</p>
<p>“I love all the ‘rules’ and discipline that come with charters. Love the academic standards. But what happens if the rules are not obeyed? if parents don’t cooperate? if the kid get D’s? They are sent out to their public school.”</p>
<p>you’re totally on target. That’s what happens at my kid’s acclaimed charter. Though usually the kids leave on their own… about the time they’re told they have to repeat the year. And off they go to the public… their Ds and Fs in tow.</p>
<p>I don’t understand why they need to have a failing public school to work. Why can’t there be good traditional public schools and good charter schools? Up in my part of the city we have both. We have some successful sought-after public schools and some successful sought-after charters. </p>
<p>While some charters do allow kids to leave too easily, some move heaven and earth to keep them. The school that I am familiar with goest to lengths that no traditional public school would go to when a kid is in trouble because they truly believe that if the student leaves they may slip through the cracks forever. Id’ also add that public schools have a huge drop-out rate. Occasionally they get rid of students as well but, more often, students just leave. The drop-out rate in many public schools, particularly urban ones, is staggering. It’s not like charter schools lose students and traditional public schools keep them all successfully.</p>
<p>Reading this with interest. I certainly don’t have the answers. We’re fortunate and have good public, good charters and good parochials in our little and they co-exhist. More a different strokes for different folks type situation. We also have failing systems right at the fringe of our region. It’s interesting how the schools can be so very different 30+ miles away.</p>
<p>I work with kinder kids in one of those almost low-performing (almost technically failing) schools, and I am always amazed at the depth of dedication and service and effort that our staff puts in to making the school a success. Even if our test scores do not make the mark, our school is NOT a failure, and our kids are not failures!!! They are growing as learners each day.</p>
<p>I just saw the movie at a screening tonight. It really is worth seeing. The personal stories of several families profiled had the audience around me in tears.
In California, the initiative process is the way to work around politicians who are beholden to special interests…it’s time to explore the possibilities.</p>
<p>The charter schools are shown in the movie to be randomly accepting kids from the same neighborhood that fail in public school. The whole point of the movie is that the students perform at a demonstrably higher rate when 1) the school day is longer 2) the teachers are better and 3) the expectations are higher.</p>
Saying they left to “dodge high academic standards” is an interesting way of putting it. Think about it. What it means is that if those kids had stayed, they would have done poorly, perhaps flunked out. So if the district schools became more like the charter schools, they’d have more kids failing academically–and this would be termed evidence of the failures and inadequacies of the system and (of course) the unions. Yet when the same thing happens at a charter school, it just makes the charter schools look better, because the failing kids leave and go back to the district schools, leaving the charter school population purged of its lowest-achieving students.</p>
<p>Can you say “shell game”? I thought you could.</p>
<p>I think longer school days are critical in neighborhoods where many families are failing to provide what middle class families are able to provide without thinking. (Books, activities etc.) In the early days of NYS school testing a neighboring school district did very well by adding a Saturday academy. Unfortunately while they made huge strides in bringing up the scores of elementary school aged kids, fixing middle schools and high schools seems to be much harder. (At least if you use testing as a metric.)</p>
<p>my feelings about charters are mixed- our state doesn’t allow charters & our urban district doesn’t believe in " alternative" education or in choices.</p>
<p>I understand that " public schools are supposed to serve all students", but the fact is THEY DON’T.
They don’t serve those who learn ( in our area) in a non linear fashion, or those who have learning or physical differences, or those students who are lopsided in their strenghts ( often the same students).
The district doesn’t allow principals to stay at a school for more than a few years in many cases, they make it difficult to take college prep classes and they throw money at schools without stopping to review if they are seeing results ( and they do the same at the administration level)</p>
<p>Kids whose parents are educated/ middle income, will generally find the resources they need for their children regardless of what the public school offers, but those whose parents can’t/wont do that , are likely to have at least one or two * really bad* years that they can’t recover from academically.
( Mine had a couple somewhat bad years in elementary & as a sophomore in college, she is still trying to catch up in some areas- our district has also fallen prey to the " reform" bug in the two years since she graduated & it is even worse now- the drug & alcohol counselor at a local high school just was convicted of selling drugs and the the legal asst for students with 504s at the district level, was just arrested for selling crack- 3X to a cop ! & those are just things I see on the news)</p>