On another post Anonymous wrote:
new post:
From today's Tribune Review
http://triblive.com/opinion/featuredcommentary/4364873-74/promise-pittsburgh-schools#axzz2ZT0LAjc7
Broken Promise: Pittsburgh Promise
This has some interesting statistics and suggestions. The Trib. seems to always tell it like it is unlike the Post-Gazette.
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8 comments:
It's not really a broken promise, it's just another Mark Roosevelt initiative that didn't produce the kind of results he expected. Much more effort was put into marketing his ideas than really thinking them through.
On another post Anonymous wrote:
new topic please: Promise Broken?
http://triblive.com/opinion/featuredcommentary/4364873-74/promise-pittsburgh-schools?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+alltribstories+%28TribLIVE+News%29#axzz2ZgmpnKRP
Note the difference between 6-12 schools and traditional high schools-- I personally think this is the problem especially for black youth-- the old middle schools/ junior highs WERE a promise of the future high school -activities,courses, electives,language survey courses, etc. Especially in athletics, this need is paramount for black males-- IT DID work-- and "chanting the promise" doesn't work even for little kids!
Transition to high school can be positive and incentivizing, if high school is set up to be a good experience for students.
I am sure next week's paper will carry Mr. Ghubril's response to Mr. Haulk's commentary on the Promise. Are enrollment numbers growing in early grades? The suggestion in the article of redirecting the donations to fund opt out alternatives seems unlikely to occur quickly if at all.
Someone thought the comment beginning "Note the difference" was a Questioner comment. To clarify, the whole comment was left by Anonymous on another post, then cut and pasted to the correct thread on this topic.
McKinsey's analysis on the front end was fluff disguised as substance and they were warned as such, as was Roosevelt. The results have more closely followed the unmanaged decline projection.
The elasticities of demand would be much more influenced by tax structure (3% wage tax vs. 1% suburbs) and the relative quality of city schools vis a vis other regional choices.
The very principal at McKinsey that was dead wrong on the promise projection would be richly rewarded as the owner of Two Bell LLC for doing not much of anything.
Pittsburgh's a very interesting town. That same consultant's house that he listed for sale $612,000 is assessed at $350,000.
Didn't the Post-Gazette's editor also receive a nice reduction via the 2012 values?
Don't hold your breath waiting for the Law Offices of Ira Weiss to appeal either value on behalf of the district.
I'm no fan of Haulk or the Allegheny Institute. Here is yet another group of people on the sidelines who have become adept at throwing their opinion around and getting ink.
That said, Haulk doesn't go nearly far enough with his comment. No, the Promise has not enhanced enrollment, point taken. But the Promise certainly *has* helped needy students as they go on to college. It has helped to defray costs with institutions of higher learning that are simply out of fiscal control. In this regard, it is a wonderful idea and no, the Promise certainly has not been broken for needy, hard-working students.
But what Haulk typically fails to note is what we have seen on the front lines---how a good idea has been corrupted by a district hellbent on good PR. The Promise corrupted the Lanes and Lipperts of the world, as the idea became getting ALL kids on "the pathway to the Promise"...even those who have no business on that pathway.
Grading is certainly pertinent to this conversation. We've watched PPS water down grades and sell its integrity to place more kids on this path. A 50% policy? Insanity. If anything, grading should have been ramped up---93% acting as the cut-off for the A, etc---not watered down.
You can't give a '0' score anymore and if you do, those looking over your shoulders will change your grade in your tool book.
And curriculum has become so ridiculously watered down that again, it's clear that the idea was to show the world that any Pittsburgh kid can get on the pathway by rolling out of bed and going to school.
Each class now entails myriad pair and group activities---an apparent nod to the idea that urban kids like ours just can't learn from the adult in front of the class. Let them learn from each other.
The problem with all of this is that the real world of college doesn't work like this. You don't have watered down grades. You have challenging courses. You do little group work.
This is the failure of the Promise and Houlk's failure to note the corruption inherent in the continued PR campaign is very telling. His ignorance about what is really going on once again makes it clear that he's been reading too many press releases and looking at too many statistics instead of remembering that education is a people industry.
We've failed a generation of kids in this district thanks to a faulty corporate approach that is still maintained today.Big money always brings corruption and in Pittsburgh, we have loads of it, whether it is actual or moral.
The Promise should have been a wonderful idea for true students but PPS central administration did irreparable harm with its tinkering.
All for a few dollars more and a bit of good ink.
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