Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
After that long wrangle we had in which I argued that we should individualize education and you decried it, you're going to claim that I think all students have the same abilities?
No, Ivory - I just think there are students of all ability levels at all schools.
And you don't.
And I think that some of the students of higher ability have been dealt a crappy hand prior to high school, and having a teacher who has given up on them and the whole school before she has walked into the building each day, is just "another brick in the wall."
Got it.
One more thing:
I'm not sure what crappy hand you think higher ability students have been dealt but I think they get cheated when 90% of the effort goes towards the borderline failing students in an attempt to get their test scores up so the school looks good though so I guess we agree here, however, I don't see teachers giving up on this group. What I see is frustration that there's nothing left over for them. I feel sad for them when their hard work results in them being ignored because they are not at risk of not passing the state tests.
LOL, I'm not the one pushing "Stand and Deliver", lol.
I've also never claimed kids would be successful across the board. You're the one pushing "Stand and Deliver" as if it's attainable across the board not me.
I've never said there aren't students of all levels. Try reading this thread. I've talked several times of both high and low performing students,. Are you trying to be obtuse here? Show me one post where I even insinuated something (like Stand and Deliver in your case) will work across the board.
Stand and Deliver is not about "something that will work with all levels" of ability, Ivory.
If you took that message from it, then you missed the point. Even at its largest, the program was never involving every student - but it was involving a lot of students the school and system had ignored and concluded could not do AP level work.
I didn't claim you thought something would work across all levels.
I claimed that you are asserting that students in poverty are unlikely to be good students while students of affluence are likely to be good students.
I am suggesting your attitude smacks of classism.
I am claiming that your opinion of the environment in which the students are growing up blinds you to the potential of those students who might have shined.
Stand and Deliver is about providing opportunities and about encouraging and supporting students who have been cast to the wayside by people who've decided that "the good schools get the good students."
Oh - one last point. The irony of your making this point is too rich for words:
But no one ever said life was fair. Unfairness in life is one of the things we need to prepare our children to deal with.[/quote]
You've been doing little but complaining that life is unfair to you, while you are doing your best to insure it remains so for your students.
I'm not sure what crappy hand you think higher ability students have been dealt but I think they get cheated when 90% of the effort goes towards the borderline failing students in an attempt to get their test scores up so the school looks good though so I guess we agree here, however, I don't see teachers giving up on this group. What I see is frustration that there's nothing left over for them. I feel sad for them when their hard work results in them being ignored because they are not at risk of not passing the state tests.
The crappy hand they've been delivered in YOUR school is a teacher who believes they don't exist, by virtue of their financial circumstances.
I feel sad for them when their poverty results in their being ignored because they live in the wrong district to be thought of as "good students" by you.
I'm not sure what crappy hand you think higher ability students have been dealt but I think they get cheated when 90% of the effort goes towards the borderline failing students in an attempt to get their test scores up so the school looks good though so I guess we agree here, however, I don't see teachers giving up on this group. What I see is frustration that there's nothing left over for them. I feel sad for them when their hard work results in them being ignored because they are not at risk of not passing the state tests.
Maybe the definition of "giving up" varies. What I've seen locally is that teachers give short shrift to the perennial A students because "oh, they'll be fine"-- or they decide that the way to encourage their abilities is to pile on more seatwork/expect them to help the rest of the class. Either way, that's not so much "encouragement of able learners" as "keeping able learners out of the teacher's hair". There may be frustration involved, but it's not on the behalf of the more facile kids as on behalf of the norm that's disrupted by both the slower kids and the bright ones.
One thing you fail to see is that parents have the right to give their children any advantage they choose to. Is it fair that one set of parents does and one set doesn't? Nope. But no one ever said life was fair. Unfairness in life is one of the things we need to prepare our children to deal with.
Where was this opinion when you were posting in the homeschool thread about how the little public schoolers are unfairly deprived because bean, Charles and I dare to keep our kids out of the system?
At some point as state and local budgets continue to be weighted down by increasing demands we are going to need to be honest. Failing students are not giving society a fair return on our investments and yet we continue to tax and support! That is not political it is not cruel it is simply a facing of the reality that per pupil expenditures are not determined by pupil output nor is there a reasonable return on investment in many schools. If one wants to talk about the billions spent in Iraq that could have been used for health care you need to also talk about the billions wasted on students who don't care!
If one wants to talk about the billions spent in Iraq that could have been used for health care you need to also talk about the billions wasted on students who don't care!
So what's YOUR solution to students who don't care?
Labelling the schools and the teachers as failing doesn't seem to have increased the number of caring students one iota, and has placed a lot of additional stress on the schools and teachers to avoid a failing label when in fact they may be doing a very good job for the students that DO care.
Stand and Deliver is not about "something that will work with all levels" of ability, Ivory.
If you took that message from it, then you missed the point. Even at its largest, the program was never involving every student - but it was involving a lot of students the school and system had ignored and concluded could not do AP level work.
I didn't claim you thought something would work across all levels.
I claimed that you are asserting that students in poverty are unlikely to be good students while students of affluence are likely to be good students.
I am suggesting your attitude smacks of classism.
I am claiming that your opinion of the environment in which the students are growing up blinds you to the potential of those students who might have shined.
Stand and Deliver is about providing opportunities and about encouraging and supporting students who have been cast to the wayside by people who've decided that "the good schools get the good students."
Oh - one last point. The irony of your making this point is too rich for words:
But no one ever said life was fair. Unfairness in life is one of the things we need to prepare our children to deal with.
You've been doing little but complaining that life is unfair to you, while you are doing your best to insure it remains so for your students.[/quote]
You do love to put words in my mouth. I have never said there are no kids who can shine in poor schools or no kids from bad backgrounds who can shine. They are simply not the norm.
You don't seem to know how things work in schools. The focus is the child who is almost passing not the few who can shine here. 90% of our effort goes to getting passing scores up so the school looks good. I haved to laugh at your posts. You are so far from my reality it's not even funny. I WISH I had time for the few who can shine.
Actually, what I really want is a job where shining is the norm. In struggling schools, the focus is the struggling child. No heros in leotards here. There's no time for that. We're too busy teaching to the test and bringing up test scores.
You really should try actually visiting a struggling school. I'd LOVE to single out the kids who can shine and work with them but I can't. They're mixed in with kids who are borderline failing and getting those kids to pass is the objective of the adminstrators.
And no, my attitude doesn't smack of classism. It smacks of reality. Kids who grow up in better districts always will get better educations because background matters. The student matters. It's not just about the teacher. Take two equally qualified teachers and put one in a privilidged district and one in a struggling area and you'll see more success in the privilidged district. You may not like that but it is reality. All things being equal, more kids will succeed when kids have better demographics. Taking the good teachers away from the good areas only lowers the quality of education available to those kids. It does not guarantee raising the education of the kids in the struggling school. The qualifications of the teacher need to be totally different in the struggling school because the issues the teacher will have to deal with in the classroom will be different.
Like it or not, kids from good districts deserve good teachers too. I worked very hard to get where I am in life and I have the right to pass those adantages to my kids. My children's district pays teachers about 20% more than state averages for teachers and it shows. Are you saying my kids don't deserve the advantages I've worked to give them? That it's classist of me to think my kids deserve what I've worked for? I've got news for you, that's the American dream. That we leave better for our kids than we have. If that means we pay teachers $85K, so be it. It gets the job done.
Life will always be unfair. Where did you ever get the notion it was fair? Yes, I consider my wage situation unfair and I am working to change it. I'm also warning others to not make the mistake I made. I am not accepting this level of existence for my family. Why would you consider it fair that I do so since you're so into fairness. You're not interested in fairness at all. You're interested in the reverse. You want to play robin hood. That's been tried before and it doesn't work.
You want teachers to accept low wages and teach in bad districts as opposed to working to get ahead. You're trying to make working to better our own family's lives some kind of sin. You don't seem to realize that we can make decent wages and teach and it's ok to go for that. Where's your fairness for the teacher here since you're so into fairness? Or does teh teacher simply not deserve a fair wage.
You may not like it but it's the American way to work to get ahead. And it's not wrong. In fact, doing so serves as an example for others to follow.
Last edited by Ivorytickler; 09-15-2009 at 12:39 PM..
At some point as state and local budgets continue to be weighted down by increasing demands we are going to need to be honest. Failing students are not giving society a fair return on our investments and yet we continue to tax and support! That is not political it is not cruel it is simply a facing of the reality that per pupil expenditures are not determined by pupil output nor is there a reasonable return on investment in many schools. If one wants to talk about the billions spent in Iraq that could have been used for health care you need to also talk about the billions wasted on students who don't care!
I still can't rep you!!! I owe you two.
Our entire emphasis is the borderline failing student. If they pass, our scores go up and the school looks good. With all I am required to do (7 levels of intervention, all documented, before I'm allowed to ask for help from administrators), I have little left for the students who could really shine. The kids I could really make a difference for.
I feel like we're putting 90% of our effort into 30% of the kids and gettinlg 5% to pass who wouldn't have otherwise for our investment. The reason it's only 5% is the rest just don't care. And what will barely passing get you? Is barely passing really better than borderline failing? Did we really accomplish anything?
So what's YOUR solution to students who don't care?
Labelling the schools and the teachers as failing doesn't seem to have increased the number of caring students one iota, and has placed a lot of additional stress on the schools and teachers to avoid a failing label when in fact they may be doing a very good job for the students that DO care.
Mine would be a society that values education. Kids don't care because we don't value education. We teach our kids how special they are but we don't teach them to work hard to get ahead. We don't teach theml that an education is needed and valuable to get ahead. We give them rock star and sports hero role models who didn't need educations to get where they are. We pay sports figures millions of dollars per year to play. What you will pay for says a lot about what you value.
The problem is our value system is broken. We have kids who grew up witn mommy telling them how special they are who think everything should be easy for them and who get mad when it's not. How many of them do you think it takes in a classroom to really disrupt the learning process for the kids who want to be there?
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I have never said there are no kids who can shine in poor schools or no kids from bad backgrounds who can shine. 
