I have a good friend in Seattle area who is one of the wisest people I know. He worked as a carpenter out of high school, got a college degree and became a computer programmer, switched to marketing and earned an MBA at night and now has switched and become a high school teacher. We were discussing our Carbondale based education problem this Summer and he said some things I thought I would share with you.
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He pointed out that elementary education as it exists today has only been used for around 140 years. There is no history behind decisions that are made to teach new trends and the education professionals have no idea what will work and what will not.
When talking about poor and minority education (remember there are almost no minorities in most of Seattle) he said that if you look at the Jewish culture, almost no one stays poor through the generations because every child can read by the age of 5. Imagine, every child can read by the age of 5 as a basic part of the religion.
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A couple of observations about District 95 and moving your child to a new school district -
District 95 conducted an experiment and then stopped it 30 years ago. The experiment was tracked classes. Clearly it isn't the only reason, but the fall of District 95 from being one of the best in the state to the current bad state clearly can be traced to the end of tracked classes.
I know, I know, what would this do for the self esteem of the poor and minority students? Imagine dropping your normal Southern Illinois poor and/or minority child into a group of 5 year olds who are Jewish or children of college professors (for example). The poor kids have no chance, every Jewish 5 yo can read already, then can count to 100, know the colors, etc. It is possible that the kids who are drilled at home can read better than the parents of the poor kids. It is possible for a student to rationalize when they are in a group of others at their level of education they are smart, but dropping a bunch of poor kids into a group of high drilled kids proves to everyone who is smart. The good news for the poor kids is their parents are drilling them on playing basketball and other sports, so they will dominate high school athletics.
Side note - I don't believe Jewish/professor kids are smarter when they are born than poor kids, but they almost always turn out that way. It must be the parents.
The results are clear, not tracking the classes doesn't work at District 95. I don't know that it will end the educated flight from District 95, there are still bigger houses and better test scores in the other school districts, but it is a logical place to start.
2 comments:
Peter,
You worry to much about the test scores that do not accurately reflect the amount of learning a child is experiencing. The tests are just waste of students learning time and teachers teaching time. They are a watered down method created by politician, so that they can say they are keeping an eye on how well schools teach. Unfortunately, funding for schools are also tied to the tests, so the schools cannot ecnore them as I think they should.
Tracking is not a solution to better learning. Tracking is a form of segregation and a way of dumping kids that teachers find to challenging to help. Much like the Special Education programs are used to dump kids with special needs many who do not belong in Special Education Classes.
I am for complete inclusion in all classes. That's the way it is in the real world. We must all know how to work together and get along.
Wealthy parents can and should pay for their childs gifted programming. Their kids will do just fine in life.
By the way being able to read by five years old is only a good thing for kids who are ready to read. Google Developmentally Appropriate Education.
Also, Unity Point families do not consider themselves racist. In fact we brag about the diverse student body and are thrilled our children have friends of many races and nationalities.
I do agree one or two strong parents at home a key to a childs success.
Unity Point Graduate & Parent.
No, you don't get it. The test scores don't tell you about only one kid, but when you give the same defective tests to many there is a valid result. Are UP and GC better than D95 today, yes. Test scores and reality are one in this case and this works pretty well everywhere. Does this mean the school is the reason for the better test results? Well no.
There is so much stuff to riff on here it is hard to get a handle on it.
Child testing is a good thing, but like most programs implemented by "W" it is being stupidly done. Is there data to be drawn from the scores both for each student and for a school? Sure there is.
You are right, not all kids are ready to read at 5. But unless the parents address the problem, none is ready then. The ones who aren't ready just leap into it when they are ready. When you get into test scores for college admission, you start seeing the results from this Jewish students are #2 of any religious group, with Unitarians leading the way at #1. Smart parents with more drive for education really works.
Tracking is a form of segregation? Tracking is sorting by merit. Are you suggesting that a black student who can make the grade would be put into a lower track because of skin color? I'm calling BS on this, total and complete BS.
What I like about your tracking remarks is that you follow it up with no data. I'm just saying that attracting better parents would increase test scores. Factually, with tracking there are better reading scores and graduation rates in District 95. As I wrote here, our educators are in the dark about cause and effect as I am. But if you stick to facts all the time you have a boring blog.
I certainly never said anyone was racist because of where they send their kids to school, actually if you read a post or two back I say they are not (unless they are).
Parents all over this great land of ours are dumping their children into our schools without the proper background or training. This special ed class stuff is just smoke for a different thing schools do when the parents aren't involved and it is the easy way out. When you are dealing with kids who have been well trained by their parents, the dumpee kids are screwed from day one and in general never catch up. This is causing a large stratification of our society be education, but we can blog on that another day.
Let me suggest to you that UP is in an interesting position. The "minority" population is largely from college students children (Evergreen Terrace) and of course those parents are shining examples of hardwork and education. You are also seeing the minority flight from District 95. I think that maybe District 95 has a different mix of parents than UP and GC, don't you?
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