<p>aparent5,</p>
<p>Thanks for the link–that article addresses the point I had been trying to make above.</p>
<p>I was a parent before I became a teacher, and I mistakenly thought that all or at least most parents would have similar values to mine, of course I was wrong. There are parents out there who think of school as an inconvience, or totally responsible for teaching their kids. In their minds, schools are responsible for anything that goes wrong with their kids. There is another large block of parents, those who want to raise great kids, but who don’t know how, or who are up against tremendous odds because of circumstance. These parents can and do benefit from programs, as do their kids.</p>
<p>I can’t tell you how many home visit appointments ended with me standing at a door and no one answering at the agreed to time, or the number of poor families that have purchased products from tv…thinking it would make their kids smart. We need to level the playing field. Public dorms would help some kids, and yes there would have to be rules.</p>
<p>For once I agree with Pyewack!!! Excellent link aparent5. This is exactly the point which Jonathan Kozol makes in his book “Savage Inequities”. Economically segregated schools have profound impacts on the education of poor and typically minority children. </p>
<p>And perhaps the most hypocritical thing is that public schools in our northeastern cities, those bastions of liberalism, are among the most segregated. This is particulary repugnant when rampant economic and racial segregation is the norm within large districts like the NYC Public School system!</p>
<p>As a nation we can ill afford to accept a public education system which systematically exposes millions of poor children to unjustices which we more affluent families would never tolerate.</p>
<p>And I hesitate to bring up religion, but…the Scriptures speak little of hot button issues like homosexuality, but volumes about justice and how we must treat our “neighbors”. Jesus summed up the entire Scripture in one sentence, “Love the lord your God… and love your neighbor…” In my opinion, the Christian conservatives and in fact the conservatives of Judiasm and Islam, have made a mockery of this wisdom. And yes this same wisdom is in the Pentatuch and Qur’an.</p>
<p>LakeWashington: Please understand that when I brought up the Abbott districts situation, it was not to say I disagree with the need or intent. In the original context, what I was saying was that Kozol discusses the situation as being a difference in money. I’d like to have seen him examine the states, like NJ, and apparently others from posts here, in which the money issue is much less stark than he portrays throughout his article, and analyze what is keeping it as it is in these districts. Because attributing all differences to the differences in budgets just does not resonate here. </p>
<p>I am in favor of the Abbot districts getting this aid. However, there are many parts of NJ which are almost as low income who weren’t included in the magic 30, and as a result work with budgets much, much lower than theirs, or that of the richest districts. A sliding scale would’ve made more sense. It’d be nice to see some of that wasted money going to the less-advantaged students and schools who aren’t getting anything.</p>
<p>I’d like to see both governor candidates acknowledge that we can’t cut taxes anymore in NJ, when we’re borrowing ourselves into tremendous debt, too. There are important injustices that need to be taken care of, all over the state.</p>
<p>This is worth reading. Before dismissing it out of hand, consider that the author spent around ten years after graduating from Harvard teaching in an inner- city public school (Baltimore), and another 10 years as a columnist for the Baltimore Sun writing on political/social/education issues.
</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.dailyhowler.com/dh092605.shtml[/url]”>http://www.dailyhowler.com/dh092605.shtml</a></p>
<p>Thanks, Driver.</p>
<p>Interesting NYT article discusses “No child left behind” from the perspective of black parents in an elite public school district–Princeton Township.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/28/nyregion/28education.html?ex=1285560000&en=e4521b45550cae9e&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/28/nyregion/28education.html?ex=1285560000&en=e4521b45550cae9e&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss</a></p>
<p>Driver:
I’m a bit puzzled. If you have a post with a heading of </p>
<p>'Never take anything in the NYT at face value ',</p>
<p>why do you follow it up two posts later with
‘Interesting NYT article…’ ?</p>
<p>OD:
Because it reinforces the point. The NYT does this all the time. Their crusading story goes on the front page of the Sunday edition, and a piece that tends to contradict their crusading story (and shows some support for a Bush initiative) gets buried in the midst of the Thursday edition. I’ve seen buried news stories in the NYT that directly refute statements of fact made on the editorial page in the same issue. </p>
<p>The second article had obviously been around for a while…it was written about last June’s graduating class. What is most interesting is that the NYT didn’t see fit to juxtapose it with the Sunday front page piece, to open up some real educational discourse.</p>
<p>It would have been nice indeed to have had both articles run together rather than separately; but I don’t think one contradicts the other. There is more to ending the achievement gap or de facto segregation than busing. The article about Princeton High School suggests that a high proportion of low SES minority students are consistently put in lower tracks within the same high school. Princeton High, by the way, not only has 29 APs, but also sends some of its students to Princeton for classes; so many, in fact, that Princeton tried to enforce some limits on their numbers.</p>
<p>Marite is correct that the articles don’t directly contradict each other. One deals with elementary and middle school students taking state tests. The other deals with high schoolers taking NCLB tests. Apples and Oranges, no question. But still, the implication of the NYT’s Sunday front page crusading piece was that busing black kids all over the state to have them in proximity with wealthier white kids had somehow turned the tide. Achievement gap wasn’t touched…it was simply about the improvement of minority children compared to their own prior performances.</p>
<p>But the Princeton article could be looked at as an extrapolation of the NC article, and the embodiment of what many have suggested in this forum: put minority kids in this situation permanently, in a high-cost school district with high achieving students from upper middle class families. Why isn’t it working? I don’t know. But the black mother mentioned in the article seems glad that NCLB is making the district pay more attention to that issue.</p>
<p>That was an interesting article. Thanks for posting it.</p>
<p>The Boston area has had a Metco program for many years now, whereby inner-city kids get bused to suburban schools. A year or so ago, one suburban high school decided to stop accepting Metco students on the grounds that they lowered state tests scores, but its decision was met with opposition and it was rescinded. In general, the Metco program has been considered a success by its participants, although it involves sacrifices for them, such as getting up at 5am and not getting home until dark.
I don’t know if a study has been done of the extent to which these students are fully integrated (or not) into regular classes with the suburban kids. There is, of course, no point in busing students only to segregate them into separate and lower track classes once they get to the school.
There is no easy formula for raising achievement. Several years ago, our high school abolished honors tracks and put all incoming students into heterogeneous results with disastrous results all around. The struggling students continued to struggle, the high achieving students were bored because they were unchallenged. The honors tracks have now been restored, but it’s too early to see results, or to say whether the school is re-segregating along class and race lines.</p>
<p>“How effective is this busing program? If you enact it in one district, scores rise all over the state!”</p>
<p>That’s funny.</p>
<p>Woodwork,
Somerby’s an interesting guy (this refers to #125). Harvard grad, devoted public school teacher and advocate, newspaper columnist, and now standup comic. True.</p>
<p>This question interests me, and was discussed a few pages back. My oldest D wants to teach and is currently in Toronto doing a year of teachers’ college there. The way it works in Ontario is that you have to have a four year undergraduate degree, in any area really, and then you apply to one or more of the teachers’ colleges in the province. The program she is attending had 7,000 applicants this year, they accepted 115. Her classmates are mostly like her, rather new grads with BAs, BSs, a couple of Engineers, but there are also many more mature students who have worked in other fields for a few years before deciding to go into teaching. One had a BA, had gone to three years of law school, had articled (clerked) for a year (a requirement in Canada), practiced for a year and then decided that law wasn’t for her. Most, including my D, had in excess of 300 hours of in-class volunteering prior to applying. These ‘kids’ are bright, interested, enthusiastic and I have high hopes that they will be wonderful teachers in the coming years. One thing I should also note is that these are all for elementary/primary positions, not high school.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/28/nyregion/28education.html[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/28/nyregion/28education.html</a></p>
<p>Princeton high school…interesting article</p>
<p>MR. B</p>
<p>this link was already posted in this thread by Driver (#127)–though as George Russell once opined in song, “it’s so nice you have to say it twice” [NY, NY]</p>
<p>…are you self editing these posts?;)</p>
<p>I am with Garland–on this- “Try better jobs for their parents, eradicating drugs and gangs, better housing, better medical care, better environmental conditions, and a different society in general.”</p>
<p>I lived and was raised very close to the Bronx schools. My parents “escaped” as they put it, in 1958 from the Bronx. From 1950-1980 (or therabouts) the majority of the students in the schools the article cited were of Italian,Irish,polish, and of the jewish faith. (primarily white) The majority of the African Americans and Hispanics lived in very poor areas all centered (it seemed) around 100 street to 125th street (Harlem areas)The families in the Bronx were the working poor of the time. As they worked and saved they ran from the city in droves to the suburbs and built the suburban school systems with their tax dollars. My point- the new working poor took their place which I guess is hispanic and african american. Granted discrimination helped to keep Hispanics and other minorities in a concentrated area and closed opportunities to them. They could not afford to live elsewhere. Meanwhile the working poor Irish, Italians,etc took up civil service jobs, low paying service,financial jobs, etc. At least they had work, jobs that the minorities could not obtain. That was wrong, but remember also the upper white elite also discriminated against the working poor (Irish, Italians,polish,jews,etc…all a visicious cycle that thankfully is disappearing today ,except for the plight of many minorities that still are not participating in the so called “American Dream”… So have we learned much in 50 years? And what have the deomocrats or republicans done to solve this problem? I would rather see my tax dollars go to solve these issues than to IRAQ! And I would be happy to pay it! Provided we bring some accountability to the process.</p>
<p>Evanston High School has had the same problem/results for many years. Despite lavish and equal spending blacks lag whites and asians by a large margin.</p>