Thursday, October 16, 2008

Westinghouse Plans

On another post Anonymous wrote:

The plan for Westinghouse is for it to specialize in sports science. That's science of sports, not sports and science. The thought is that since families in Homewood will go to sporting events they will naturally send their children to a school that specializes in sports. I can tell you that families in Homewood will also go to fashion shows, church, and restaurants. So maybe the district would be better off creating a religious fashion institute with a great cafeteria. What children need is a straightforward education. Everyone knows that small class size is a strong factor in a student's academic success. Give the children what they need and they will thrive. I don't think they need to decide the course of the rest of their lives at age 11.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Westinghouse High School gets a bad rap. They have small class sizes which is beneficial to the students because they get a lot of individualized attention from teachers. They made AYP. If progress is being made then why do they want to turn it into a Science of Sports magnet? In my opinion, that is rather offensive to the community. The problem is not with Westinghouse, but the drugs and gun violence in the community caused by adults.

Questioner said...

Couldn't sports be a hook to draw kids into academic subjects- for example, by learning the same algebra or geometry but with problems based on facts and figures from various spots matches and strategies? Kind of like college courses that seriously study and critique South Park or comic strips for example. (It's not clear however how the "standard curriculum" would fit into this or any of the other themed schools; it seems like it would take a good amount of work and creativity to properly develop this curriculum and it certainly wouldn't be standard).

Questioner said...

PURE Reform's report from this meeting is posted on the Announcements Page under the October 8 announcement of this meeting- click on "REPORT OF PURE Reform REPRESENTATIVE."