From the PG:
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10007/1026518-100.stm
Many recommendations are in line with measures PURE has been urging, including "supports tailored for students at risk of academic failure and encouragement of parental involvement" and piloting "a small number of schools as community learning centers which would not only provide classes but also would provide after-school social services."
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33 comments:
The report called initiatives such as merit pay, vouchers and reconstituting schools by replacing existing staff
"false promises."
Scary, Very Scarry
Paranoid, and I have had nothing but great observations my whole career and I have never had a parent complait
Hell, if I said wrong thing in front of the wrong person like critize the Core Curriculum, I will be focused and put on a corrective action plan, If I didn't have tenure I would be fired.
It is happening right now!
Fear & Intimidation
Merit pay, to me thats an insult, I teach, and teach my but off for the kids. Thats what separates me from the adminstration, the union, and unfortunately some teachers.
Its about the kids! And they are not recieving the best education possible because of Roosevelt, and his cronies and they have no clue.
Irish
I'm sure the administration is doing what they think will bring the best PSSA scores. The results haven't been great, but that's the goal.
Whether this is the best education is another matter.
Irish again
You are 100% correct Anonymous, I am teaching reading not my subject
My fear is these kids will struggle after High School, I have always had students visit me on their breaks and tell me they remembered what I had taught them and it helped them at the university level 1 to 2 years later. I got a feeling this will end.
Irish
Anonymous 4:45 --
That's the problem -- it's not an education AND they're not even succeeding at the PSSA thing! If you provide a good education, the PSSA falls into place.
For all their efforts to prove their worth through one test that means a lot more to administrators and teachers than it does to students they're not even catching up to the state -- everyone's doing a little better on the test -- as happens with this sort of test.
"What's the gist?"
"How do you know?"
"What are three significant moments?"
These are the three lone questions that appear at each level of the English curriculum, used after various passages and chapters of reading.
I am not sure which is more humorous, politically correct pseudo-intellectuals posing as department supervisors who push this baloney, or the naivete that goes into writing: "I'm sure the administration is doing what they think will bring the best PSSA scores. The results haven't been great, but that's the goal."
Are you joking?
Any teacher whose kids are facing PSSA tests this spring and who understands the importance of doing well on those tests understands that relying upon the core curriculum--at least in reading--is the strategy of a fool. Any teacher who REALLY cares about his kids doing well on PSSA's for not only the students' sakes but for the sake of the school, and indeed, any teacher who truly cares about his kids gaining a deeper comprehension of texts will look at this curriculum and laugh. He'll augment what he has been presented. True, he may have to do this via the homework angle because core curriculum also provides teachers a losing strategy via its asinine pacing, but he'll augment.
It's all he can do.
No, administration is NOT doing what it thinks will bring the best PSSA scores. Instead, it is too busy ensuring its strangehold around the necks of teachers.
Anon at 4:45, your posting can only be called scary. I didn't there was anyone left as blind as you.
Observer
The general public has no clue on whats going on in our school system, the majority do not care as long as their taxes do not go up.
Or maybe your right about people being blind. Thats why I do teach my kids to question everything & think for themselves.
I'll probably get focused for that some day.
Irish
I used to love my job
About the emphasis on PSSA's: the traditional spring trip to traditionally black colleges was changed to the end of June so kids can focus on PSSA prep. But then they don't get to see the colleges in full swing. Plus a June trip will interfere with summer programs and work.
What's best for the kids here?
It doesn't seem like any commentators here are blind. Everyone has the same basic complaints. Parents and families aren't blind either- they will vote with their feet if they have to.
Questioner, please understand. There is an effort to obfuscate the truth afoot in this district and it extends to many of our teachers. Oddly enough, that effort doesn't simply begin with the public relations arm of PPS. Our own PFT is quite good at telling our rank and file that "All is well" when in fact, forces are aligning against them. It's easy to call such thinking knee jerk in nature and yet, the commentaries here represent a true rendering of what is currently going on.
Since their vote is apparently so important in this process, it's important that teachers are cognizant of what is going on in their own district.
Note to Irish,
Indeed. We have embarked down a road that entails teaching our students what to think instead of how to think for themselves. In the modern era, one often forgets that the idea of questioning authority is one of the tenets this country was built upon. To read our curriculum these days, it would appear that the effort to question is well placed within a narrow scope.
What we see is authority that all too often acts as though it is above being questioned, except by wealthy foundations.
Agreed Questioner.
I have a supreme dislike for arrogance and within this district at present is an overpowering cavalier mentality by those in charge. They answer to no one and hold nothing but disdain for common sense approaches to instruction that don't come from their own.
And most amazingly is the fact that even though we are talking about a SCHOOL DISTRICT, the idea is to hire more people in administrative capacities to espouse the same mentality. More people NOT in the classroom.
Well, if administrators hire more administrators it lessens their own workload. It's only human nature.
Yeah, Bernie Madoff employed the same strategy.
I am not literate in facebook, but it seems to be a tool worth using to reach out to recent grads to see how the curriculum served them in prep for college. My guess is the parents posting here sent high achieving students to college but facebook might be a way to reach out to a more representative sampling of grads from the past two years. I have the will but not the skill to pull this off.
Does anybody's student need a Grad Project? One survey question could be "How many times has a professor asked about gist?"
Observer,
No offense, but you are scaring me more, because this is going to sound real paranoid, but it is my Liberal Arts education. These foundations want to controll education as a way to manipulate the middle and lower classes. Eli Broad started the Broad Foundation with 500 Million. They have Superintentdents all over the country peddling the same crap. I am not Karl Marx but I am sick of elite trying controll education and our school district. The shame is none of this money through grants is reaching our students. I call it "Trickle down education".
deegazette, That would be a wonderful graduation project. I was asked by a parent recently to speak out against the core curriculum. I taught 3 of her children & she works with my wife. I taught two of her children before the core curriculum and one after. She was upset about the core curriculums across the board. I had to say no because I would fear for my Job.
Irish
Parents- Demand more transperancy from Roosevelt. But on the other hand I as a educator do not have trasperancy with my own union. In my hummble opinion they are no better the Board.
Irish
How said that those on the front lines cannot share their concerns about curriculums. How can concerns be addressed if they cannot be spoken? And, do we really want our children's teachers to consist only of people who unquestioningly accept whatever is handed to them?
If we can't go to Roosevelt, can't go to the Board and can't go to the union then maybe we should go to the Foundations. Not necessarily Broad, where one person is running the show, but to our local foundations so that they are aware just how many people from different backgrounds are worried about what is happening in this district.
Questioner, you are right
It is unamerican, but I know teachers who questioned the curiculum and are being focused, which part of a corrective action plan before termination.
Irish
No one in this city knows why Roosevelts first Ass. sup. was released with a 250,000 buy out. The public should know, it is their tax dollars. She got that for writting a 30 page paper, hell I used to do that as a undergrad.
You certainly can question the curriculum and you do so at your own peril. On one hand, you put a bull's eye on your back. I know of one high school where an ITL is observed every other day because he had the audacity to question. Where department supervisors are concerned, your comments are either ignored, given short shrift or shouted down. These people know only how to march in lockstep with an assistant superintendent who is so heavy handed in her approach that one must question if she actually knows what form of government she is working under.
I envision the idea of academic integrity where both teachers and students are concerned. I envision the idea of educated staff truly wishing to impart knowledge upon young people, and not the drivel which is coming down the pike these days. The politically correct crap that our kids are forced to read is meant to impress you, dear parent. It's meant to provide the appearance of a culturally sensitive school district when in fact, it's more indicative of individuals who understand how to placate citizens. These people count on parents either being apathetic or just plain ignorant.
True educators know how to teach, from selection of materials to actual technique. They value worthwhile materials that will give students insight into their areas of instruction. They embrace materials that will allow students to take what they learn and apply it---to do some thinking for themselves.
REAL educators know the territory. They are on the front lines. They are valued by students, parents and school administration alike. And to be truthful, real education takes place when you don't have TOO MANY chiefs and not enough indians.
Questioner, the problem with your idea with foundations is that this is all P.R. I would bet that the average decision maker could care less about the details but the headline in the paper is the thing.
The solution lies only with you. Voting hairdressers and homemakers who have become bloated on their own public persona is the answer. The hope for any teacher is what took place in Jefferson Hills. It should be a hope for any parent, as well.
Until then, know this. Our employers have provided curriculum in a can to pass on to your students. The materials, the pacing, strategies....it's all included. This is what they want and from most of us, this is what they will get. The problem is, it emanates from a shared, corporate philosophy that has little to do with academic growth, and it's preparing your kids for nothing at the next level.
Voting isn't much of a solution. Even when a director comes up for a vote in 2 or 4 years- after schools are closed and sold and long term contracts signed- most of the city will not be voting in that district. Term limits might help a bit though- 4 years or maybe 8 years and out.
I would expect every board member who is up for election to have a teacher poised to run againat them. Why not start that initiative? Lots of work and time commitment involved to run for office, but thats the only way a majority of the board members could be teachers.
In PPS we will keep going along with these initiatives and newer ones coming along all the time until the achievement gap no longer exists. It is pretty clear that is the highest priority here and across the state. It is all about "cultural sensitivity." How much are our literacy selections influenced by the conciliation agreement handed down a few years ago? We should all thank God for The Pittsburgh Promise. It may not be enough to increase enrollment but it certainly could be the only thing keeping students from taking a walk to a private school.
http://www.pps.k12.pa.us/14311059122535553/blank/browse.asp?a=383&BMDRN=2000&BCOB=0&c=56788
following up on comment by Anonymous 6:36
Nominating petitions may be circulated beginning Feb 16.
Filing deadline March 9
Petitions and other info on running for office available from the Bureau of Elections, 542 Forbes Ave Rm 604
412-350-4500
The opportunity has passed. Board elections only take place in odd numbered years.
If narrowing the achievement gap is the goal as you say, anon, then perhaps you can explain the 50% grading policy. You see, the idea seems to be that while we have difficulty narrowing the gap on standardized tests, perhaps we can fool the average reader of papers and public relations pieces by trumpeting the grades of our black kids. Additionally, by inflating grades, we can have them use the Promise to get into college. Thank God? You mean after they flunk out of college in short order thanks to our giving them a false sense of achievement. This is one area that would make for great tracking.
Sorry friend, but your comments are a panacea.
Additionally, you ask this salient question: "How much are our literacy selections influenced by the conciliation agreement handed down a few years ago?"
I'd say a great deal of what you see is resultant of that accord. Unfortunately, a great deal of what has been chosen is complete trash and what has been dropped amount to a great deal of what one could consider "classics."
It's unfortunate that the geniuses in charge look at cultural sensitivity as equating only with civil war and civil rights pieces. Our kids are continually bombarded with works about or from this era to the point that black kids themselves wonder why.
What you have in charge is an amalgamation of university types and administrative types perhaps 10 years out of college who spent a few years in the classroom. They have little idea of the neighborhoods or of the kids and their families. Instead, they seek to be "sensitive." Bollocks. They should be choosing kindergarden books, and that's about it.
The district would probably be happy with even the appearance of a narrowed gap to take the heat off for a while. Then, the thinking goes, merit pay, literacy camp, small schools, gender based classes, 6-12 schools, theme based schools, and/or the Pittsburgh Promise will eventually narrow the gap for real.
Why any of these measures is a better investment than providing intense social services, building real parent engagement, making schools into community centers and avoiding concentrating low income students in certain schools has never been explained.
Observer, my "Thank God" was sarcasm. Part trouble with commenting, emotion is hard to convey.
Does anyone have an idea on how to get around the issue of clearances as the "Community center" concept is considered? Or, is it a non-issue?
It would probably be helpful to look to what is being done by at an organization like Hill House. It may be that "school" clearance rules apply during school hours, and that after hours rules applicable to other community centers like Hill House apply.
It would also be helpful to ask groups that do combine school and community work, like the Harlem Children's Zone, how they handle this issue. If NYS rules are different, that might suggest adjustments or different interpretations that could be made to PA rules.
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