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I think those of you who get so offended at the negative impressions of SA from those of us who lived here and chose to move, should realize we HAVE lived in and visited other American cities. Just saying there are worse cities doesn't help your case. I hear about all of this so-called "pride" here, but where is the walk- not just the talk? Clean up the city and stop accepting everythings as "cultural". Go visit Portland, Seattle, Colorado Springs, Nashville, Orlando... do you need more?
Like I said, if you don't like San Antonio: leave.
We are never going to be an Orlando, or Portland, or Seattle, or Nashville. We are San Antonio, Texas!
You can't make carbon-copies of cities and boom everything is perfect either. Even if you were able to drastically improve San Antonio, it would take tons and tons of cash to completely change a city through public campaigns (awareness) and local investment, etc.
San Antonio is not worth it to you to spend money and time on improving the city? I see nothing wrong with lowering dropout rates and attracting higher paying industries in order to increase the quality of life here.
San Antonio is not worth it to you to spend money and time on improving the city? I see nothing wrong with lowering dropout rates and attracting higher paying industries in order to increase the quality of life here.
You need to see the bigger picture. The educational system needs to be reformed on a national level.
Our high dropout rate, is not "unique" to San Antonio. According to the documentary, "Waiting for Superman," a kid drops out of high school every 26 seconds, which equates to 1.2 million a year in our country.
Want to lower dropout rates in San Antonio? Reform the educational system.
Want to create "higher paying industries in order to increase the quality of life here" in San Antonio? Reform the educational system.
As the documentary mentions, nationally, our current educational system is creating "dropout factories." In one school in Los Angeles, over the course of 50 years, 40,000 of the 60,000 students who attended a high school during those years, dropped out.
We are spending double, triple on education than we did decades ago, yet test scores of reading, math and other subjects are flatlining. So, it can't be a "lack" of money being spent.
Essentially the documentary says that the system is failing because of lousy teachers (I agree). Good teachers, can help a student learn more and progress to a level where they will be ready for college. Also, "teacher unions" are an "impediment" to the students because it's nearly impossible to fire a teacher as it's a long complicated process to get one of them fired.
The other reason our system is failing is "tenure." Once a teacher gains tenure (essentially a "you're hired" for life free pass), he/she can have underperforming students and be a really bad teacher but they will never be fired since they now have tenure. A parent can't do anything about it nor any administration officials either.
In one example in the documentary, teachers get paid full salaries plus benefits to sit in a cramped room 7 hours a day (with other teachers) awaiting the outcome of complaints and cases over the course of several years typically, and it costs New York alone, 100 million a year.
I didn't plan to watch this documentary but I'm glad I did.
You need to see the bigger picture. The educational system needs to be reformed on a national level.
Our high dropout rate, is not "unique" to San Antonio. According to the documentary, "Waiting for Superman," a kid drops out of high school every 26 seconds, which equates to 1.2 million a year in our country.
Want to lower dropout rates in San Antonio? Reform the educational system.
Want to create "higher paying industries in order to increase the quality of life here" in San Antonio? Reform the educational system.
As the documentary mentions, nationally, our current educational system is creating "dropout factories." In one school in Los Angeles, over the course of 50 years, 40,000 of the 60,000 students who attended a high school during those years, dropped out.
We are spending double, triple on education than we did decades ago, yet test scores of reading, math and other subjects are flatlining. So, it can't be a "lack" of money being spent.
Essentially the documentary says that the system is failing because of lousy teachers (I agree). Good teachers, can help a student learn more and progress to a level where they will be ready for college. Also, "teacher unions" are an "impediment" to the students because it's nearly impossible to fire a teacher as it's a long complicated process to get one of them fired.
The other reason our system is failing is "tenure." Once a teacher gains tenure (essentially a "you're hired" for life free pass), he/she can have underperforming students and be a really bad teacher but they will never be fired since they now have tenure. A parent can't do anything about it nor any administration officials either.
In one example in the documentary, teachers get paid full salaries plus benefits to sit in a cramped room 7 hours a day (with other teachers) awaiting the outcome of complaints and cases over the course of several years typically, and it costs New York alone, 100 million a year.
I didn't plan to watch this documentary but I'm glad I did.
I've watched Waiting for Superman and everyone who watches it should look at the other side of the argument to get a balanced view because the documentary doesn't give it. I think it's a poor way to give an argument if you're afraid of letting the other side speak. The documentary praises charter schools so much when most of them are just as bad as regular public schools, but they don't mention that. They also don't mention the cultural differences and different attitudes toward education that other countries have. The documentary blasted the tracking system, but it's used in Europe. Kids who aren't college material are diverted to a different set of classes in some European countries. In addition, the countries being used for comparison have much lower child poverty rates and spend a lot more on social services. By the way, charter schools tend to spend more money per student.
The documentary doesn't even take a look at parental involvement; the film only focuses on parents who care about their children's education. The fact is that in many neighborhoods, the lack of parental involvement in such a large percentage of the population can drag down the whole school, even for those kids and parents who do care about education. There is one member on this forum who often tells the story of parents at an SAISD school starting to get involved and turning the school around.
Other than that, I think tenure should be reserved for professors and that's what it was meant for so they couldn't be politically pressured into teaching a certain way. Most Texas school districts have term contracts so dropping tenure nationwide won't make much of a difference here.
I've watched Waiting for Superman and everyone who watches it should look at the other side of the argument to get a balanced view because the documentary doesn't give it.
The "other side" of the argument for far too long has been from the teachers unions and the teachers who are rarely fired if at all, at the expense of children in the public education system. This documentary is biased in its own way, but so is the point of view from all the teachers unions and their supposed needs for which have come first, before the students, for far too long.
Quote:
Originally Posted by L210
The documentary praises charter schools so much when most of them are just as bad as regular public schools, but they don't mention that.
The documentary specifically mentions the KIPP charter schools and they have done extremely well (KIPP Charter Schools Close Achievement Gaps - by By Joy Pavelski - School Reform News), much better than MOST other charter schools. KIPP started at one school and has grown increasingly nationwide due to its program's effectiveness. That's more positive news coming from a charter school program concept than I can say about our current public education system in many failing communities.
Quote:
Originally Posted by L210
By the way, charter schools tend to spend more money per student.
Well, the system is broken. I think most people know that. Until there is real reform there will be waste and inefficiency.
Don't forget an important point made in the documentary: many of the millions of high school dropouts are more likely (statistically) to end up in prison or on federal assistance. What about THAT cost?
35,000 a year (for who knows how many years) to incarcerate an individual in prison versus 35,000 for a college education?.....Hmmmmm.
Quote:
Originally Posted by L210
The documentary doesn't even take a look at parental involvement; the film only focuses on parents who care about their children's education. The fact is that in many neighborhoods, the lack of parental involvement in such a large percentage of the population can drag down the whole school, even for those kids and parents who do care about education. There is one member on this forum who often tells the story of parents at an SAISD school starting to get involved and turning the school around.
Parental involvement is important. There is no question about that. I do agree that the documentary could have touched on this.
However, parental involvement can only do so much if the system itself is broken. And truth be told, you have many working families who work two or even three jobs to support a family. How can anyone (of us) presume that a family member living in a impoverished situation has the time to "get involved" let alone go to the movies or to take a mini-vacation at some point?
The reality is that many working families who are not involved don't do so out of a choice...but rather they do not get involved because there is simply no time to do so. Not every parent is fortunate enough to have a job with benefits, be in good health, live in a good neighborhood; not every parent can be the quintessential "soccer mom" or "baseball dad" who goes to every PTA meeting. It's just not realistic to expect it from every parent. It would be nice though.
What we KNOW we can do, is fix the very system that we pay our taxpayer dollars into. That much we know.
I believe, as a whole, the documentary got most of the great points across.
The documentary specifically mentions the KIPP charter schools and they have done extremely well (KIPP Charter Schools Close Achievement Gaps - by By Joy Pavelski - School Reform News), much better than MOST other charter schools. KIPP started at one school and has grown increasingly nationwide due to its program's effectiveness. That's more positive news coming from a charter school program concept than I can say about our current public education system in many failing communities.
KIPP is one example and there are public schools performing just as well as KIPP, so how does that make charter schools better overall? Charter schools are spending extra money on areas that are lacking in the home which takes us back to the social issues involved. Other industrialized nations are spending less per student because they are addressing the socioeconomic issues outside of the education system. So it's not as if KIPP has a better educational model, it's just providing more for the social and economic needs of the students that need to be addressed for them to perform better in school. If the parent is not involved in the child's education, the child cannot stay in the school. So while KIPP gets to weed out children based on this factor, public schools can't. Public schools have to accept everyone and can't skew their achievement numbers by kicking poor performing students out or turn these students away from the beginning through selective admissions. By default KIPP and other charter schools get to pick from better families because the families with parents that care are more likely to seek out alternative schools.
Don't forget an important point made in the documentary: many of the millions of high school dropouts are more likely (statistically) to end up in prison or on federal assistance. What about THAT cost?
35,000 a year (for who knows how many years) to incarcerate an individual in prison versus 35,000 for a college education?.....Hmmmmm.
I wasn't arguing that; I was actually arguing the opposite. You mentioned that it would cost a lot of money to improve San Antonio and I asked you whether or not you thought it was worth it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by xsa210tx
However, parental involvement can only do so much if the system itself is broken. And truth be told, you have many working families who work two or even three jobs to support a family. How can anyone (of us) presume that a family member living in a impoverished situation has the time to "get involved" let alone go to the movies or to take a mini-vacation at some point?
The reality is that many working families who are not involved don't do so out of a choice...but rather they do not get involved because there is simply no time to do so. Not every parent is fortunate enough to have a job with benefits, be in good health, live in a good neighborhood; not every parent can be the quintessential "soccer mom" or "baseball dad" who goes to every PTA meeting. It's just not realistic to expect it from every parent. It would be nice though.
That is a social issue that needs to be fixed at the source. Since other industrialized nations are dealing with much lower poverty rates, they don't have these issues.
Here is an article saying that although charter schools tend to get less public funding, KIPP gets more than regular, public schools on top of the extra private funding they bring in.
Some public schools have to share space with charter schools. One school is holding classes in the basement because of this and one has to share its library with three other charter schools.
Here is the full KIPP study of how charter schools can lose low performing students and not replace them. When public schools lose students, they are replaced by more and they have to take in the students who dropout of charter schools.
Here is more information on how charter schools can drop students who don't comply or bully the parents into making them pull their children out. There are several pages to this article.
At Harlem Success, disability is a dirty word. “I’m not a big believer in special ed,” Fucaloro says. For many children who arrive with individualized education programs, or IEPs, he goes on, the real issues are “maturity and undoing what the parents allow the kids to do in the house—usually mama—and I reverse that right away.” When remediation falls short, according to sources in and around the network, families are counseled out. “Eva told us that the school is not a social-service agency,” says the Harlem Success teacher. “That was an actual quote.”
In one case, says a teacher at P.S. 241, a set of twins started kindergarten at the co-located HSA 4 last fall. One of them proved difficult and was placed on a part-time schedule, “so the mom took both of them out and put them in our school. She has since put the calm sister twin back in Harlem Success, but they wouldn’t take the boy back. We have the harder, troubled one; they have the easier one.”
I admire the film's creators for actually bringing awareness to this national crisis. Criticize it all you want as bias and this and that...but I don't see very many people creating a movement like this documentary is creating nationwide. Everyone is talking about it!
I'm glad it's getting some discussion going about our current system. Not all charter schools are perfectly made and administered and not all public schools are performing to the level that they are. We all know that. But, by in large, KIPP is definitely working. We KNOW that much.
The system is broken and if we don't change it...it's NOT going to get any better, that much we know!
Bravo to the film's creators and those involved!
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