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I thought it was interesting that even though the student featured
in the article pretty-much new she was unprepared, she decided
not to take the remedial courses necessary to prepare her for the
accelerated pace of college work.
At home, you have food and freedom as carrots and sticks.
At school, you can just not show up if it gets to be a hassle. Or go at it half-assed.
I'm all for taking away a parents/child's rights if the kid does not show up to school. How about doing away with NCLB and forcing the kids who do not want to try to actually keep repeating.
I read the Journal article yesterday and was going to post about it today. A lot of folks beat me to it.
What a scandal, tragedy, CRIME it is that the State and the local schools have let New Mexico children down. Social promotion (much in evidence at the featured school, but widespread throughout the system) is bad enough, but when school and state don't demand that standards are met (or, worse, lower the standards) by students that is far worse, IMHO.
This encourages and nourishes a culture of poverty and ignorance, and every resident of NM suffers for it, but none so much as the students themselves. This girl actually thought she was educated....sheesh! Now, confronted with the real world, she realizes how misguided or deluded she was. Of course, she points at teachers or school administrators for not cluing her in on what the real world would expect, which is a bit pathetic and sad.
In many ways, her situation is her own fault, of course. But, she's a kid. The real decisions about what was acceptable in her school were made by adults who should know better, and this includes her parents as well as teachers, etc.
Last year at Dona Ana Community College there was a group of nursing students who pretty much failed the exams required to move into the profession. There was some outcry, some outrage, but an alarming amount of it was aimed at the school for giving those darn tough tests, and not warning the students that they'd need to pass in order to get ahead. Amazing...and outrageous. The students got what they deserved: failure. Apparently they weren't used to being held accountable for their own education and they paid the price for that deliberate ignorance.
But the larger question in my mind was: how did they get as far as they did without being nailed for poor preparation and performance?
How about a comprehensive analysis of each student in 8th grade. Those students who demonstrate apptitude and initiative go to college prep "High School". The rest? The world needs ditch diggers too.
How about a comprehensive analysis of each student in 8th grade. Those students who demonstrate apptitude and initiative go to college prep "High School". The rest? The world needs ditch diggers too.
Current AYP scores might suggest that NM would push out ditch diggers over doctors at a ratio of about 10 to 1.
The more I read articles such as these, as a parent, and therefore a stakeholder in the educational system, it makes me seriously consider bailing out of here, and relocating to an area where education is more valued. I am not so sure this mediocrity can be reversed in one or two generations. At some point, one must question the overall culture, as it pertains to valuing education, and the ability for children to rise above it, if such an overwhelming majority of families and households seem to have such little regard for learning. Someone mentioned the ditchdigger to doctor ratio. And that's a very poignant observation to be made, if you apply that standard to New Mexico versus other states. I'd venture to say that ratio is higher here than just about any other state, nationally.
How old are your children? If they are in school, is it public or private?
They are 6 and 5, though my 6 year old will become 7 this Saturday, and they are in a public school. I will say it's in probably the highest rated elementary school in the school district. However, looking long term, what I hear from other parents is that when these kids enter into middle school, the expanse of the district covered is greater, and therefore, neighborhoods of lower income and educational achievement are combined into our area. And that's where the big concerns begin to envelope.
mike, your kids can rise above it, and likely will thanks to you, though they might be in danger of being categorized as smarty-pants eggheads by some of their classmates.
Nobody likes to acknowledge that the system that educated them and now educates their kids is a deficient one, whether in NM or MA or FLA, so it's not surprising (though it IS disappointing) that there is not a full-blown riot of parents showing up at school board meetings.
Parents have to demand more...certainly of the schools, but primarily of their offspring. The culture of indulgence, feel-good and misguided "self-esteem" mediocrity affects schools everywhere.
Poverty is an education issue, and low income is a factor in New Mexico's particular case. There is a vicious and tragic circle of low income, low expectations, low achievement, low results in places where incomes are also low, and the results of this circle are what we see now in the newspapers very enlightening story.
Note that Los Alamos has high achievement and high graduation rates compared to most of NM. Is that because of the relatively high income/education of parents? Probably, IMHO.
The polar opposite, at least in some ways, is the school in Las Vegas. Low achievement, high graduation rate = educational fraud. Whoever is allowing that to happen should be flogged, then fired.
It's discouraging to look at the charts and see low graduation rates in so many schools, but at least the schools who report low grad rates to go with their subpar achievement scores are honest about it.
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