<p>what the judge was doing I think, was to give the board the opportunity to take another vote on the decision of which curriculum to adopt.
( Even Cheryl Chow, a school director who was known for mirroring administrative opinion, despite her experience as an educator, made the comment about the textbook vote, that " it wasn’t about the curriculum, it was about the process".)</p>
<p>Project based learning may be great for teachers who are able to draw on other resources and their experience in implementing those resources, and when parents have the interest and ability to identify and supplement when needed, but Marite is right on when she mentioned that teachers who are hired after the training is completed, may not get it until the next year, by which time their kids have moved on to another class.</p>
<p>Op-eds in the Times, often cite schools where project based learning is doing great- but correct that for socio-economic measures, and I get the impression it is more that the families/community is educated and involved, because schools with a high FRL rate are still struggling.</p>
<p>Free Reduced Lunch? O.K., it’s an indicator. But it has been relied upon too much to try to explain or rationalize students’s low achievement.</p>
<p>I just find this rationalization so confouding as it pertains to African-American students because we all know that for generations poor Black parents or parents with little advanced education themselves pushed, encouraged or TERRORIZED [LOL] their children to excel. It’s a cliche now, but there’s a lesson, a very proud lesson, in the legacy of slaves spreading education to their children in secret. And there’s a proud legacy in barely-getting-by Black farmers in the segregated south ‘mortgaging their mules’ to raise money for education and for the legal battle for educational equality (see the book ‘Simple Justice’ about the Brown v. Board of Ed et al, case).</p>
<p>I didn’t mean for this post to be a treatise, but I vehemently reject the idea that low income children are programmed for educational failure.</p>
<p>^ Calm down. It is not a question of willingness. Besides, in many localities, FRL include children of immigrants with limited English and no history of slavery.
Low income children are not “programmed for failure.” But there are many obstacles to their doing as well as they could. Why do you think they are eligible for free or reduced lunch? Because without being properly fed, they cannot concentrate on learning–not a problem with middle-class kids. Their parents may be working two shifts to make ends meet and have little time to help them with their homework; their parents may have limited English, and in fact, need to rely on the children to translate for them, so they are in no position to help them learn.
And many of the new curricula do depend on parental involvement. Math concepts are introduced in class; parents are supposed to supervise the homework that will help the kids master the concepts and acquire automaticity. What happens when the parents are not in a position to help (or hire tutors who can help)?</p>
<p>but I vehemently reject the idea that low income children are programmed for educational failure.</p>
<p>I wasn’t saying that at all- however- with large class sizes, with high teacher turnover- ( using tenure to give teachers their preferred schools often finds the experienced teachers at the schools with more stability), with the merry go round of administrators that many schools have, makes even more challenges in the building than having a high FRL population.
I have pushed in the district for years to assign kids to buildings to disperse low income populations instead of spending hundreds of thousands of dollars fighting the law to assign by race, because if a school doesn’t have a cohort of parents who have the time and money to support the school and the students, the students struggle no matter how much money the district throws their way.</p>
<p>My daughter attended Summit K-12,- which had been around for decades and had a great deal of racial and economic diversity considering the school was located at the extreme north end of the city ( which in the past has been less diverse).
Although the district has just recently closed the school, the students were doing fairly well, allowing that this was the last stop for some of them before they left formal education altogether. ( some in the district considered it a reentry school)
Lots of project based learning, lots of families involved for years.</p>
<p>However, I also helped advise students at Garfield on college applications- not the APP students who have known they were headed for college since they were in kindergarten, but students who didn’t start thinking about it until encouragement from peers and teachers in high school, sometimes not till they were a senior.</p>
<p>Some of their parents are threatened by children who want a different life, who aspire to more than what the parents felt they have as choices, and they may either subtly or openly discourage them from reaching higher.</p>
<p>In schools where there is more socioeconomic diversity, not only can students from a struggling background get more support in academic achievement from their peers, but their parents can use the parents who have access to more resources as a resource themselves. I know, I was one of them.</p>
<p>My DW is a principal and finds all students capable of learning math basics and problem-solving. They have specifically designed deliberate practice strategies for both and find that all students, even those with learning differences, can master essential and beyond math skills and strategies. They have no difficulty teaching math, or in generating student enthusiasm for the subject. Economic, social, or at times physical difference do not typically matter. She hires and trains elementary teachers to be successful who have had little formal math background themselves. The curriculum is indeed of major importance. However, whatever curriculum a school district implements, not enough teacher preparation is likely to be provided. Handing someone a book, activities, and teachers guide just won’t do the job.</p>