Tom Swift wrote in response to Doug Grow's column: "So, if you're poor, you are less likely to be educatable even given the excellent system in the twin cities. Do I have this right? Well I am sure that the present day stastistics would bear Doug out. However as an anctedotal bit of information I submit that I qualified for free or reduced meals as a student, so did my four brothers and sisters, so did most of our close friends. . . Everyone I grew up with that didn't get killed or get sent to jail graduated high school, and many of us went on to college. What is different today? What happened?"
These two questions are pivotable! What is different? What has happened? If we are using anecdotal evidence, I would like to see the statistics on mobility within Mpls/St Paul, more specifically comparing the mobility rates of students now versus 20 years ago. I teach in the IB program at a Mpls school. This is supposed to be a fairly stable program. In this stable program, we have lost almost ten percent of our ninth graders this year (down 10 students from the 110 we started with in Sept). Every family we lost that we spoke with (8 out of the 10) did not want to take their kid out of our program or our school. They felt, however, that they had to because of being unable to live in the area due to cost and transportation to the school being too much a burden. When I taught in the comprehensive program, I had a better than sixty percent turnover in one year - with one student beginning the school year with us then leaving and returning twice before the end of the year. For children dealing with transciency, education will most certainly suffer.
TS: "No one is going to argue that it's pretty well damn near impossible to teach kids in english who don't speak english. . .So what do the public schools do with immigrant kids? Assign them an ELL class and then "mainstream" them with rest of the student body for everything else. And guess what? It don't work very well does it?"
Good point here. . . but I've seen ELL and Bi-lingual programs being cut and/or losing money. Again, at my school our English Language Learning population has grown since I've been there but we have gone from 4 FTE in ELL and 1 Bi-lingual instructor to 2 FTE and no bi-lingual instructor. So what do we do? Also, I could be making an assumption here, but I believe many mainstream teachers have taken coursework (or professional development classes) related to ELL kids in mainstream classes. I have seen ELL kids succeed in my class and I try to make sure they understand the content even if that means spending time with them outside of class for tutorial help. I know I am not the only teacher who does this.
TS: "Why not try teaching them english *first*, before anything else? If it takes two years for a kid to be able to understand his teachers so be it! The alternative is to let them float along for eight or
ten years learning nothing."
Does this then mean that it will take longer for these kids to graduate? What will happen when the families of these students make noise their students being excluded from opportunities given to other students?
(As a side note, the MBSTs are increasingly irrelevant as it will be the MCAs that schools will be accountable to according to the No Child Left Behind federal requirements. Could this pose a problem for schools as the MCAs are modeled after the Profiles, a system we no longer use?)
TS: ". . .(A) public school would have the same expectations for every kid irregardless of skin color."
I believe this is so. However, the power of the influences outside of the school walls can make or break a student in so many instances. I think Tom alludes to this in his statement, " it's the lack of
responsible fathers in way too many black kids lives." But it goes further. . . can the student's family exist without the fear of an unlawful detainer? Can the student get help from their family members with homework? Can the student get support from home when they walk away from a fight instead of throwing punches? Can a student learn from home that respect and civil is non-negotiable? For many kids, the answer to these questions and many more is no.
I agree with Tim in saying that blanket condemnations reveal a lack of understanding. I also believe that comparisons between Owatonna and Mpls/St Paul is ineffective. Statistics can mean anything if they are spun right. But, I have said this before. . . I believe that public education is at a crossroads and the direction it takes in the coming years will either reinvigorate the system (through whole-system reform) or destroy itself (through continuing the kind of band-aid fixes and reforms currently implemented).
Public ed is an emotional and controversial topic. . . so the questions should be: what is the purpose of public ed? (I believe this needs to be redefined and committed to anew) Who are the stakeholders and what rights do they have in the system of public ed? To what ends are we fighting and are we being counter-productive through our means? And, how can we, with our varied beliefs, work together to make all schools work and all students succeed?
Brionna Harder Ward One
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