Anonymous wrote:
"New Posting: " The cries for change should be deafening."
http://www.post-gazette.com/opinion/Op-Ed/2017/06/11/Pittsburgh-Public-Schools-are-still-flunking-after-all-these-years/stories/201706110130 https://penncan.org/research-showcase/opportunities-lost-the-urgent-need-to-improve-pittsburghs-schools/"
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17 comments:
Would the PG printing an op ed like this have been imaginable under Roosevelt or Lane?
Instead, everything that should have been said during their decade long tenure is being put out as a new superintendent is implementing his changes, without acknowledgment of the "change in management" and approach.
Related post from Anonymous:
"
New Posting:https://penncan.org/research-showcase/opportunities-lost-the-urgent-need-to-improve-pittsburghs-schools/ "
Have the Advocates for African American Students collaborated with Rachel Amankular who is director of policy for PennCan, a statewide educational advocacy organization?
If not - why not?
Why did Penncan wait until last month to issue a report- what was it doing during the years and years that Roosevelt, Lane, foundation heads, the PG, and board president Isler were claiming great progress, advising us to stay the course, enthusing over the phenomenal job those superintendents were doing, etc?
Can't answer your questions, questioner, but what is clear is that relentless pressure must be brought to bear on this administration to be held accountable in every step of the way moving forward. If Rachel Amankular's op-ed provides renewed urgency for change and accountability - bring it on.
The problem will. E if this administration is held accountable for the failures of prior administrations, interfering with current efforts for change.
Questioner,
Google "50can"
PennCan is a offshoot of this so called "nonprofit advocate" that is funded by Eli Broads and Bill Gates. Do you remember Michelle Rhee from Washington D.C.? That is 50Can/ PennCan. They are fake "watchdog" and pro charter school advocates funded by billionaire privatizers. They had no need to write scathing reports when their people (Roosevelt & Lane) were in power. Now that one of their approved superintendents didn't make it through the front door, they are trying the back door. Cate Reed and her new group "Campaign for Quality Schools" is trying a similar approach. I wouldn't be surprised to find her in collusion with PennCan.
Please google Michelle Rhee/ 50Can to get an idea of what these _____Can groups are capable of. It's not a good sign that they are coming out of the woodwork and setting the stage for another power grab.
Please read. PennCan /50Can is not a true education advocate. They are an enemy of public schools. They didn't speak out before because they were in cahoot with the the same billionaires who chose our Eli Broads trained superintendents. PennCan /50Can is an Eli Broads funded group.
Governing Outside the Public Sphere? Here’s Another Gates Funded Anti-Public Education Billionaire Front Group
http://www.markgarrison.net/archives/2546
They do not really want to help that is why they are releasing this report now when we have a new superintendent. None of these problems are new, they just want to make the new leadership look bad because he is not down with their agenda.
If we read closely we learn in the first paragraph of the op-ed that Ms. Amankular and family moved here just 5 yrs. ago. I would say that is a fairly short amount of time to have organized an advocacy group for our children and to have published such a devastating report on our failing schools.
We need more advocates like her.
Too short of a time to learn what is really going on. Or, willing to be a figurehead for Broad Gates interference.
12:43
She is not an advocate of public schools. She is affiliated with PennCan which a fake Broad/Gates watchdog. Google the words PennCan and 50Can for an idea if you really don't know who this group is.
Questioner likely has it right. She's a shill.
Regardless of all the other factors, leaning cannot occur - and scores will not improve - when classrooms are out of control. And no, I'm not blaming the teachers here. A teacher can either be a teacher, or be a police officer. There is not time enough in a class period to do both effectively. It is the job of the administration to handle chronic disruptors.
Unfortunately, Superintendent Hamlet is a big fan of the corrosive approach to discipline known as "restorative justice". That approach sounds so very nice, but it actually empowers the disruptors. So the chaos will continue, and the scores will not improve.
Restorative Justice can't work if disruptions are allowed to continue in a classroom, I agree.
However, setting up systems WITHIN the school that can take the place of suspension and help chronically disruptive students either learn to be in a classroom OR learn in a separate in school classroom could work in conjunction with RJ practices.
Then shorter periods of time would be spent on trust-building activities as well, because both students and teachers would see classrooms as safe spaces for learning and trust that behavior issues will be handled without affecting the education of the other kids in the class.
3:42 said:
"setting up systems WITHIN the school that can take the place of suspension and help chronically disruptive students either learn to be in a classroom OR learn in a separate in school classroom could work in conjunction with RJ practices"
I'm a PPS teacher, and I wholeheartedly agree with most of what 3:42 said there. Replacing suspensions with separate classrooms for disruptive students can work. The key is get those disruptive kids out of regular classrooms, so learning can actually occur there.
But I am very leery of the Restorative Justice part. I've seen that in action. The disruptive kids are counselled about their behavior in small-group settings. Talk it out.
That sounds good, but in my experience the huge majority of those kids just see it as a way to get attention. I suppose they need that attention. But - again, in my experience - it becomes sort of a reward for bad behavior. Very little changes behavior-wise, long term.
I wish I could be more optimistic, but I'm just calling it as I see it.
2:52 and 3:42, 6:24 agrees with you to some extent. Putting the disruptive students in a classroom, segregated from the more well behaved learners would be great. We used to utilize in-school suspension. That was ok for the occasional disrupter. But not for the die-hard attention deprived youngster that is a bigger problem today.
Would any of you want to be confined into a 950 sq. foot space with any of these miscreants? No support from administration, performance evaluation hanging by a thread, for the same pay as those in a quiet, orderly classroom! I don't think so. In the past 15 years, I have had three murderers in my class. No special class would have changed them.
Point is, we have to take them all. Not easy, not fun. Maybe the smart ones are seen in the resignation line of the board minutes.
Joke, of sorts because I liked this line in the original article:
".... (the student) is acutely aware that he has to swim upstream to reach his goals."
I hope that kid gets onto the swim team at his school!
You could transfer the greatest minds of the present and the past into these schools and it wouldn't help. Does the article mention how a dozen parents show up on parent night,but hundreds show up on lineup night for prom? Does the article reveal how many African American parents do not want their children going to these schools because of the repulsive students that do? Another racist article slanted against whites? Well, segregate the schools, the faculty, the administration, and then ask the African American students who study, prepare, set goals, and have parents or grandparents that put the children above themselves whose fault was it in the other school, the students or the white teachers? I guarantee you these authentic students will tell you that the fault lies with the the same students who force our African American students to charter schools or out of the district entirely.
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