On another post Anonymous wrote:
This should be a new thread.
Today the district pulled out
African American males from high schools and sent them to Greenway for
some kind of mentoring program. We were notified of this yesterday in
an e-mail. This program was called "We Promise" These students were
pulled out, when most teachers are reviewing for the God awful
CBA's/Midterms next week. These exams make up 20% of a students semester
grade. These are the students who need the most help, these students
make up the Achievement Gap. These students they took need these
reviews the most. Why would the Board do this a week before Midterms.
These CBA's count against our B.S. Vam scores. I know that the people
who run this district lack common sense but give me a break, they must
want kids to fail so they can blame the teachers. When these students
did return to school they came back to class and disrupted the review by
making fun of the things they did at Greenway. It was kind of sad
because the students were making fun of the stuff they did such as
addressing each other as Black Men. They kept saying "Hello Blackman"
"Hello Blackman" Then they starting using the N word to address each
other, to mock what ever they did actualy learn at Greenway.
Some
of the students did not even return to class once they got back to
school, hell basically I see the achievement gap running the halls of
our building and showing up for classes 15 minutes late constantly.
Its
is Crazy in the buildings this year, the kids do what ever want with no
real disipline. Start holding kids accountable for their behavior and
test scores might go up. Administrators would rather have one bad
students drag down the whole class then disipline anyone.
The
biggest joke was combining PSP and Main Stream classes. Now the
disruptive children are able to negatively affect other students
educations by constantly interupting classes and teachers. The Boards
rationale was the PSP students would lift up the strugling students, but
in truth all they did was lower the amount of learning that used to
occur in PSP classes. They must have waited to do this untill this year
because we are taking the Keystone Exams not the PSSA's. So inturn, we
will not beable to see the negative effects of combining PSP and
mainstream because their will be no drop in test scores because of the
new exams.
When will this reform end, it is killing our school
district, everthing is worse than it was 6 years ago and these people
are still running the show.
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10 comments:
The new reform called "Envisioning" was passed at last night's emergency Legislative Meeting (before the Agenda Review). A figure of 2.4 million was approved to commence this work!
Another $73,000 will be approved for Pitt's Institute for Learning (IFL) to extend their work in the District.
The Board passed by the experts in the Common Core State Standards in favor of IFL, whose strategies are weak and have not improved academic achievement in PPS over the last ten years.
The work with Black Males can be successful, even in these kinds of sessions, when and if is being led by people whom they respect and when they see the value of the sessions.
Timing is everything, ain't it. What the heck were "they" (admin)thinking? This is like a SNL skit.
What is Envisioning vs. Visioning?
"Envisioning" is "picturing in the mind" which seems to be a few steps short of "Visioning" which is "developing a clear sense of purpose and goals to focus and drive creative energy."
HOW ABOUT THAT!?
http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/local/neighborhoods-city/pittsburghs-black-male-students-urged-to-become-promise-ready-670917/
The link above is from today's PG. It is a pretty good bet that The Promise staff put the event together and very likely that many of the attendees got the message. It is also possible that even the kids who mocked the message had something sink in.
The original post does cause concern to spectators like me. It's like the upstairs doesn't have to tell the downstairs anything (pardon the Downton Abbey reference) why else would the email notice not have been more informative?
Everything I 've read sounds like this was a great program but the timing was way off- it sounds like it was timed for MLK etc.-- again nice thought-- but schools are on an academic schedule-- tight with testing etc. keep up the great ideas, but check with teachers, who really do want the students to get the message that if your friends are going down, it is bad news for you!
So I'm curious...why was this program only offered to African American men, why weren't the other races offered this same program???? Where is the equity?
While I'm not making any claims for THIS program being good or bad, "equity" doesn't mean everyone gets exactly the same thing.
Is it equitable to provide extra help to a child with speech delays and not provide extra help to a child without them?
Is it equitable for a doctor to write up a plan for diet and exercise aimed at weight loss for one patient and not for another?
Equity has to have some eye on what kids come in with and what we hope they gain over their education.
It's also not equitable to make a very bright, quick learning kid sit through years of boredom in classrooms. (Just in case you wanted a less heard example.)
I agree with you anon 5:24 as far as the definition about equity, but WHY wasn't the program offered to all students. PPS is trying to lessen the achievement gap with african americans, why would they be the only ones excused to hear the presentation . I'm sure that there are other men in the other races that would benefit from the program as well.
It ALMOST seems like the District "gets" what it should be doing for African American young men. However, one good day of involvement in one good program does not a system change!
These young men need a Pedro Noguera every day in every class to make a difference, to essentially address the inequities that permeate classes and schools in the majority of our schools.
ONE DAY?! Really?! Not close to being enough!
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