Welcome to City-Data.com Forum!
U.S. CitiesCity-Data Forum Index
Go Back   City-Data Forum > General Forums > Education
 [Register]
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.
View detailed profile (Advanced) or search
site with Google Custom Search

Search Forums  (Advanced)
 
Old 03-26-2013, 09:09 AM
 
Location: Woodbridge, va
924 posts, read 2,593,833 times
Reputation: 451

Advertisements

I was actually very satisfied with what I took away from high school. That being said, I was in one of the better school systems in the country.

High school definitely prepared me for my trade. I graduated in 2005 and got my first programming job 4 days after graduating high school. I took a number of programming classes in high school, including 2 levels of AP computer science and competed in a tri-county programming competition during my junior and senior year. I also did NJROTC and high school and those were some of the best memories of my life. My unit was ranked 3rd in the nation at one point.

Not trying to turn this into a homeschool vs. public debate but I found most of the homeschooled kids I interacted with to be lacking in social skills. I realize that is a stereotype but that is my personal experience. My public school system was very challenging and you had a myriad of options as to the kind of classes you could take.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message

 
Old 03-26-2013, 09:47 AM
 
Location: Paradise
3,663 posts, read 5,647,151 times
Reputation: 4865
Quote:
Originally Posted by longnecker View Post
High School sports and JROTC develop leadership qualities. How do you get this at home school ?
I am a huge proponent of homeschooling. Homeschooled children have plenty of opportunities to become well rounded individual including playing sports or developing leadership skills. It is a huge commitment by very dedicated people.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 03-26-2013, 09:24 PM
 
16,825 posts, read 17,629,092 times
Reputation: 20851
Quote:
Originally Posted by Everdeen View Post
What I found regarding Lincroft:

And Freehold:

These schools look like competitive magnet or charter schools that exclude students at the lower end of the achievement bell curve. And I could not find anything on their demographics although one did say they had a commitment to diversity. I would like to know their FRL, IEP, and LEP percentages.

Are either one of these schools where you work? How do they handle students that are constantly disruptive? Are they allowed to stay? What are the class sizes? What is the per pupil funding? I could not find any classes that had the tracking that you referred to; at least, in mathematics.

Although these schools sound very nice, they do not appear to be regular public schools. Am I wrong?
I work in that district and yes, the academies (there are 5) are tracked for the gifted students. Our vo-tech and alternative education schools (there are far more than 5 of those) are geared towards other populations. So what? They are just as successful in value added.

It appears you are trying to dismiss our success. Why? Anyway you slice it, tracking WORKS. Our district (not just the academies) is proof that it does.

Again, what does it matter what our IEP levels, are (and while they are lower than a typical district at the academies, there are more than our fair share at the voc/alt programs) and our schools are diverse in terms of SES and race. Once more, so what? If you track as heavily as we do, at all levels, the way we do, it allows you to precisely tune curricula and programs to your specific population. If that population includes IEPs those children in particular are going to benefit from specialized instruction, meanwhile kids at different levels are in different classes and are not being held back or held to an unreachable standard.

Again, we spend slightly more than the state average. So what? Our salaries and administrative costs are actually lower than the state average. Where we cost slightly more are things like busing, buildings, etc. If we were a true county system instead of just the top and the bottom schools we would be able to share services and bring those costs down as well.

And we are public schools. We are not charter schools.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 03-27-2013, 10:39 AM
 
Location: Paradise
3,663 posts, read 5,647,151 times
Reputation: 4865
Quote:
Originally Posted by lkb0714 View Post
By any measure you want, some schools are wildly successful. Want to know our college acceptance rate? College graduation rate? Graduate school rate? Whatever you like it will be above and beyond the norm. Because we are able to offer a style of education much more on par with that found elsewhere, like Singapore.

Want to know how to improve education? Start by looking at the schools that are working, well.
Quote:
Originally Posted by lkb0714 View Post
I work in that district and yes, the academies (there are 5) are tracked for the gifted students. Our vo-tech and alternative education schools (there are far more than 5 of those) are geared towards other populations. So what? They are just as successful in value added.

It appears you are trying to dismiss our success. Why? Anyway you slice it, tracking WORKS. Our district (not just the academies) is proof that it does.
You misunderstand. I am not trying to dismiss your success. I want to know what you are doing so that, if possible, it can be emulated here. An important part of that is understanding the demographics which is an important variable.

Where you work sounds like what we call here, a magnet school. Ours have an application and selection process and are wildly successful just like the schools you posted earlier in this thread. If I am understanding the admissions process correctly, that is what contributes to the success; not nearly as much as the tracking - which, btw, I could not find evidence of any type of remediation tracking. I don't think, based on what I saw on the websites, that the schools you showed us have the widely variable demographics that a regular public school has. For example, what percentage of the students are unwed mothers and require your school to provide child care? What percentage of the students have a tracking device on their ankles because they are criminals? What happens to students when they are repetitive discipline issues? All of the staff at my school are going to be trained next year on how to properly take down an aggressive student. Are you guys going through the same training? How many fights were at these schools in the last year? How many weapons and drugs were seized? How many of the students admitted to these schools have straight D's and F's? Do you have a Severely Emotionally Disturbed Program? How many self-contained classrooms do these academies have? How many of your collective students do not speak English?

Quote:
Again, what does it matter what our IEP levels, are (and while they are lower than a typical district at the academies, there are more than our fair share at the voc/alt programs) and our schools are diverse in terms of SES and race. Once more, so what? If you track as heavily as we do, at all levels, the way we do, it allows you to precisely tune curricula and programs to your specific population. If that population includes IEPs those children in particular are going to benefit from specialized instruction, meanwhile kids at different levels are in different classes and are not being held back or held to an unreachable standard.
I agree that tracking, done properly, can be quite beneficial. One of the problems in a regular public school setting, however, is that there is disproportional amount of discipline issues in the classes where students are tracked that are substantially below grade level. These students have attendance issues as well.

It is one thing to have an IEP because you have a touch of Asperger's, but have an aptitude in science and math, or a very mild disability. The rest of us who do not teach in selective academies have students who cannot remember the four steps of the long division algorithm no matter how many times and ways it is presented. We have to deal with and are held responsible for the education of the students that would never be allowed in a school that has a magnet component.

Here in Las Vegas, we have the Andre Aggassi charter school. They only accept FRL and minority students. They are very successful. There is an application and selection process. But what is equally important in their success is that the parents have to care enough about the child's education to seek out something better which is a selection process in and of itself. Not only that, but it is a privilege to go there and that attitude translates to appreciation on the student's part. So, no, lower SES can be overcome when negative factors are screened out.

Quote:
Again, we spend slightly more than the state average. So what? Our salaries and administrative costs are actually lower than the state average. Where we cost slightly more are things like busing, buildings, etc. If we were a true county system instead of just the top and the bottom schools we would be able to share services and bring those costs down as well.

And we are public schools. We are not charter schools.
It sounds to me like you have a wonderful school and I am fully supportive of what you have to offer. The problem I have is the over simplification of what is wrong with my school and what is right with yours. Saying that the reason why you are wildly successful is because you heavily track and you do something on par with Singapore is inaccurate. If you tried to implement the same systems at any random inner city school where you had accept the same students that we must embrace, your wildly successful school would not be so successful.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 03-27-2013, 04:09 PM
 
16,825 posts, read 17,629,092 times
Reputation: 20851
Quote:
Originally Posted by Everdeen View Post
You misunderstand. I am not trying to dismiss your success. I want to know what you are doing so that, if possible, it can be emulated here. An important part of that is understanding the demographics which is an important variable.

Where you work sounds like what we call here, a magnet school. Ours have an application and selection process and are wildly successful just like the schools you posted earlier in this thread. If I am understanding the admissions process correctly, that is what contributes to the success; not nearly as much as the tracking - which, btw, I could not find evidence of any type of remediation tracking.
Where did I ever say the words "remediation tracking"?

You are moving the goal posts.

If a school is built upon everyone being the same level, that IS tracking. I have no idea what "remediation" tracking even refers to. But its irrelevant. As I have stated over and over again, if you put all the kids with the same level and skill set in the same classroom/school you can specialize instruction to an unheard of degree.

Quote:
I don't think, based on what I saw on the websites, that the schools you showed us have the widely variable demographics that a regular public school has. For example, what percentage of the students are unwed mothers and require your school to provide child care? What percentage of the students have a tracking device on their ankles because they are criminals? What happens to students when they are repetitive discipline issues? All of the staff at my school are going to be trained next year on how to properly take down an aggressive student. Are you guys going through the same training? How many fights were at these schools in the last year? How many weapons and drugs were seized? How many of the students admitted to these schools have straight D's and F's? Do you have a Severely Emotionally Disturbed Program? How many self-contained classrooms do these academies have? How many of your collective students do not speak English?
You seem to be hyper focused on the academies and ignoring (again) that we are a district that also services a vo-tech population. Those students are also incredibly successful with a larger than normal graduation rate based on both their home districts and their SES. The vocs have a HIGHER than normal percentage of any of the things above.

And yes you are being dismissive. And yes even the academies have students from low SES, on free lunch, from horrible home situations (many of which are hugely aggravated by hurricane sandy). Again, SO WHAT? ALL students benefit from tracking as evidenced by the academic courses our vo-tech students do so well in.

Quote:
I agree that tracking, done properly, can be quite beneficial. One of the problems in a regular public school setting, however, is that there is disproportional amount of discipline issues in the classes where students are tracked that are substantially below grade level. These students have attendance issues as well.
Belied by the success of our many students in our alternative and vo-tech programs. Just as gifted students benefit from the flexibility and specialized instruction tracking gives so do so called "problem" students.

One of our schools is specifically for students who are dealing with drug issues, another one of our schools is actually in the local juvenile detention facility. Those students are doing better than their peers in a typical high school as well.

Quote:
It is one thing to have an IEP because you have a touch of Asperger's, but have an aptitude in science and math, or a very mild disability. The rest of us who do not teach in selective academies have students who cannot remember the four steps of the long division algorithm no matter how many times and ways it is presented. We have to deal with and are held responsible for the education of the students that would never be allowed in a school that has a magnet component.
I taught in an Abbot district (lowest SES highly urbanized school) for years before I came to the school I am at now. If anything it reinforces the fact that tracking is successful.

Again, dismissive. You want to claim the students in my district are only the cream of the crop while completely ignoring the FACT that we serve a diverse population of students including those with all of the problems you have.

Quote:
Here in Las Vegas, we have the Andre Aggassi charter school. They only accept FRL and minority students. They are very successful. There is an application and selection process. But what is equally important in their success is that the parents have to care enough about the child's education to seek out something better which is a selection process in and of itself. Not only that, but it is a privilege to go there and that attitude translates to appreciation on the student's part. So, no, lower SES can be overcome when negative factors are screened out.
Ah, more of the same. How refreshing.

And how about getting the students to be invested in the process? If every 8th grader got to pick which high school they applied to based on both their ability and interest, and had to work towards that admission, than they are much more engaged in their education. You can complain about parents until the cows come home but the kids who make it out of their bad situations are the ones who find a way to care themselves. Tracking into theme based schools can help that process.

Quote:
It sounds to me like you have a wonderful school and I am fully supportive of what you have to offer. The problem I have is the over simplification of what is wrong with my school and what is right with yours. Saying that the reason why you are wildly successful is because you heavily track and you do something on par with Singapore is inaccurate. If you tried to implement the same systems at any random inner city school where you had accept the same students that we must embrace, your wildly successful school would not be so successful.
Again ignoring our success with students with drug problems, ED, LD, and any other issue you can imagine. Other schools in my district include Class Academy and Kiva as well as more vo-tech than you can shake a stick at.

People who want to explain away our successes with all of our students, like you clearly do, are a dime a dozen. The proof is in the pudding, our students, all of them, are more successful than their peers in a traditional school. If the best and the brightest as well as those with challenges are doing so much better when tracked, why wouldn't it work for all students? Just because YOU say so? I think not.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 03-27-2013, 06:28 PM
 
Location: Paradise
3,663 posts, read 5,647,151 times
Reputation: 4865
Quote:
Originally Posted by lkb0714 View Post
Where did I ever say the words "remediation tracking"?
You didn't. I did.
Quote:

You are moving the goal posts.

If a school is built upon everyone being the same level, that IS tracking. I have no idea what "remediation" tracking even refers to. But its irrelevant. As I have stated over and over again, if you put all the kids with the same level and skill set in the same classroom/school you can specialize instruction to an unheard of degree.
Remediation tracking would be math class specifically designed to track students who need remediation. Why would that be irrelevant? I bolded where you said pretty much the same thing. Did you notice in my last response where I agreed that tracking, done correctly, can be quite beneficial?

Quote:
You seem to be hyper focused on the academies and ignoring (again) that we are a district that also services a vo-tech population. Those students are also incredibly successful with a larger than normal graduation rate based on both their home districts and their SES. The vocs have a HIGHER than normal percentage of any of the things above.
We have vo-tech schools too. Those students do quite well also with a larger than normal graduation rate too. This is nothing new in academies and vo-tech schools.

Quote:
And yes you are being dismissive. And yes even the academies have students from low SES, on free lunch, from horrible home situations (many of which are hugely aggravated by hurricane sandy). Again, SO WHAT? ALL students benefit from tracking as evidenced by the academic courses our vo-tech students do so well in.
Our analogous academies have some students from low SES, FRL, and from horrible home situations, however, not nearly to the degree that regular public schools face. If you have a different situation, then bully for you. I don't know, though, because I could not find that information anywhere and cannot make an apples to apples comparison.

Quote:
Belied by the success of our many students in our alternative and vo-tech programs. Just as gifted students benefit from the flexibility and specialized instruction tracking gives so do so called "problem" students.

One of our schools is specifically for students who are dealing with drug issues, another one of our schools is actually in the local juvenile detention facility. Those students are doing better than their peers in a typical high school as well.
I think that is a wonderful idea, but those are not the schools you gave me when I asked for examples. Again, I would like to make apples to apples comparison.



Quote:
I taught in an Abbot district (lowest SES highly urbanized school) for years before I came to the school I am at now. If anything it reinforces the fact that tracking is successful.
How? I'm not saying that it doesn't reinforce the fact that tracking is successful. I am curious at to your take on it. Did they track or not?

Quote:
Again, dismissive. You want to claim the students in my district are only the cream of the crop while completely ignoring the FACT that we serve a diverse population of students including those with all of the problems you have.
The two examples that you provided stated that. Did you give me incomplete information? The only facts that I have are the ones that you provided.

Here is the data, with the demographics broken down, for my district:

*- 2011-2012 Results - Clark County

Where is yours?

And why are you blatantly ignoring my other questions?

Quote:
Ah, more of the same. How refreshing.
I tell you about a success story in my district and you get pissy? Good grief.

Quote:
And how about getting the students to be invested in the process? If every 8th grader got to pick which high school they applied to based on both their ability and interest, and had to work towards that admission, than they are much more engaged in their education.
I think that is a wonderful idea

Quote:
You can complain about parents until the cows come home but the kids who make it out of their bad situations are the ones who find a way to care themselves. Tracking into theme based schools can help that process.
So, parents are not a component?


Quote:
Again ignoring our success with students with drug problems, ED, LD, and any other issue you can imagine. Other schools in my district include Class Academy and Kiva as well as more vo-tech than you can shake a stick at.
I work in one of the largest districts in the US (see link above). If anyone's arm will tire from stick shaking, it shall be yours.

Quote:
People who want to explain away our successes with all of our students, like you clearly do, are a dime a dozen. The proof is in the pudding, our students, all of them, are more successful than their peers in a traditional school. If the best and the brightest as well as those with challenges are doing so much better when tracked, why wouldn't it work for all students? Just because YOU say so? I think not.
Again, for your benefit, I will state that tracking can be beneficial. There is not proof and no pudding. If you have data, then, please, by all means post it. If you can answer my other questions, by all means, do. I would love nothing more than to be wrong, but I think there is more to the story here.

Since you did not supply it, I did some digging.

Monmouth Vocational School District, the district to which High Tech HS and Biotech are in, has a Program called CLASS Academy. It sounds like a wonderful program and as they have put it, "has helped hundreds of students" that are severely at-risk. There is an application process, so there must be selection criteria, right? From there page, I see that they have closed enrollment for Spring 2013. We cannot close enrollment at my school. A kid moves in, they are enrolled.

I looked at KIVA. Vo-tech, right? It's probably out performs regular public schools just like our vo-tech schools do.

I think you and I have more in common in our thinking than differences. I am not being dismissive and if anything I said was worded improperly to lead you to believe that, then I accept responsibility for that and will be extra careful in what I write so that I do not come across that way. The reason I am explicating everything you have said is that if I want the same success that you claim to be having- not that it is not true, then I have to have all the information. I cannot present something to the powers that be and say, "Well, someone on the internet said so." Others in this thread were equally interested and asked you to start a thread on it so that we discuss it. We all went into this to make a difference and if you've got the magic beans, then share.

ETA: Would you have an objection to having a moderator take our discussion and start its own thread? I think you have some very valuable suggestions and think they deserve not to be buried in a tangential discussion in another thread.

Last edited by Everdeen; 03-27-2013 at 07:09 PM..
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 03-27-2013, 08:50 PM
 
Location: Paradise
3,663 posts, read 5,647,151 times
Reputation: 4865
Holy crap on a cracker.

Here is the demographic data for Monmouth County Vocational School District:

Search for Public Schools - Search Results

Some very, very interesting information on the demographics for this school district.

Definitely not apples and oranges.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 03-27-2013, 09:08 PM
 
Location: Paradise
3,663 posts, read 5,647,151 times
Reputation: 4865
And even some more information. According to the NJ DOE, Class Academy has no students with IEP's, no LEP students, and only 29% of the students were proficient in mathematics.

New Jersey Department of Education | Report Card

And Kiva:

New Jersey Department of Education | Report Card

Academy for Allied Health Sciences:

New Jersey Department of Education | Report Card

BioTech:

New Jersey Department of Education | Report Card

And there is not much difference in the other schools

New Jersey Department of Education | Report Card

Oh, my.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 03-27-2013, 10:46 PM
 
16,825 posts, read 17,629,092 times
Reputation: 20851
Quote:
Originally Posted by Everdeen View Post
Holy crap on a cracker.

Here is the demographic data for Monmouth County Vocational School District:

Search for Public Schools - Search Results

Some very, very interesting information on the demographics for this school district.

Definitely not apples and oranges.

How is it any different than the rest of our county?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monmout...ty,_New_Jersey

Oh wait, you must mean how minorities are completely OVER REPRESENTED at the majority of our schools right?

Kiva has almost entirely low SES kids most of whom have LDs, ED,s and a variety of other acronyms. The career academies have kids at the other end of the spectrum. So what? Thats what tracking does, separate kids by skill level.

And what apples to oranges? Go ahead, compare your gifted kids to High Tech. Same for KIVA, not the norm in any traditional high school and it is not a voc program, it is an alternative education school. Go ahead compare your kids with the lowest SES, with the most behavior problems, kids placed outside of a traditional high school because they cannot function in a regular high school. I would bet they do not do as well as those kids do.

Last edited by lkb0714; 03-27-2013 at 10:58 PM..
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 03-27-2013, 10:56 PM
 
16,825 posts, read 17,629,092 times
Reputation: 20851
Quote:
Originally Posted by Everdeen View Post
And even some more information. According to the NJ DOE, Class Academy has no students with IEP's, no LEP students, and only 29% of the students were proficient in mathematics.

New Jersey Department of Education | Report Card

And Kiva:

New Jersey Department of Education | Report Card

Academy for Allied Health Sciences:

New Jersey Department of Education | Report Card

BioTech:

New Jersey Department of Education | Report Card

And there is not much difference in the other schools

New Jersey Department of Education | Report Card

Oh, my.
Those numbers are wrong.

Look at High Techs numbers for disabilities, says 9432% of them have IEPs.
New Jersey Department of Education | Report Card

To be in Kiva a student MUST have an IEP, so that ones wrong too.

"Upon completion of our program, students receive a standard NJ High School diploma, demonstrating that they have satisfied all the requirements outlined in their Individual Education Plans. "

And I know for a fact that it is wrong about my school. Of the 55 students I had 2010, I had to sign 4 IEPs and another handful of 504s.

CLASS academies numbers are just as wrong. Cherry pick all you like, but the fact remains that those sites you quoted clearly have some erroneous information, unless you think it is possible that 9432% of High Tech High Schools students have IEPs? You do understand that that is not physically possible right?
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
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.


Reply
Please update this thread with any new information or opinions. This open thread is still read by thousands of people, so we encourage all additional points of view.

Quick Reply
Message:


Over $104,000 in prizes was already given out to active posters on our forum and additional giveaways are planned!

Go Back   City-Data Forum > General Forums > Education

All times are GMT -6.

© 2005-2024, Advameg, Inc. · Please obey Forum Rules · Terms of Use and Privacy Policy · Bug Bounty

City-Data.com - Contact Us - Archive 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37 - Top