Parent trigger laws: Shot in the arm for failing schools or shooting yourself in the foot? We may be about to find out.

Three-fourths of the children cannot read or write. 75% of the American children cannot read or write in this elementary school. I’ve never heard of such an educational atrocity, even in Georgia.
And yet…
some still want the same old system in charge of wasting more innocent lives.
This school is a national disgrace.

• Link
• Report this comment

From the article, above:

“In addition, the process creates huge potential for abuse, disruption and divisiveness to school communities.

Parents Across America instead supports a process in which parents are authentically
involved at the ground level in developing strategies for improvement. These strategies might
include smaller classes, more parent involvement, or other reforms that have been proven to
work and are aligned with the individual needs of the school and its students.”
————————————————————————

I agree with this more positive approach of collaboration and good will for students’ improvement.

• Link
• Report this comment

Who waits for a teacher to teach their child how to read? Kids become proficient readers in the home.

That aside, no school should have such abysmal stats. What a shame.

• Link
• Report this comment

Maureen,
I am not sure what the answer is but as my boss used to say “What we doin’ ain’t workin’!” (He was well educated; this was his joke-line.)
Money has been thrown at schools; much (not all, but much) for some of the nuttiest things known to man. People know what some of this stuff is. In many cases (not all, but some) the parents lack of support, poor social skills, and intense poverty are all contributing factors. However, when the original documents ensured the right to a public education, they had no idea it would morph into the cluster it has become. To many “feel-good” rules of the day, bad teachers not being dismissed, a lack of discipline overall as well as such mounds of often blatantly unnecessary paperwork are all factors that have contributed to a mess that is going to be tough to deal with. This idea may or may not work, but at least these folks said “Fish or cut bait!”
If, in fact, a public education is to be guaranteed, then an entirely new (what it is I am not sure) route may need to be considered. The education system has become a beaurocratic nightmare that makes the EPA look good, and that is indeed a formidable task!

• Link
• Report this comment

Bad schools can certainly contribute to creating dumb students. But the main reason is dumb parents sending dumb kids, who unsurprisingly end up as dumb students.

Giving these parents the keys to the school is like letting inmates run the asylum.

• Link
• Report this comment

“It would be irresponsible to open up a school in just weeks,” he said.
Aw, heck, it is so EASY to operate a school! Nothing to it! You can do it in your spare time, with your spare change. Just get your $5 per student for-profit to open it up.

Ms. Downey, what are the demographics of this school? Are 75% of the parents involved in the PTA? Free lunch? Migrant or ESOL? Parental educational attainment? Family makeup? School discipline?

• Link
• Report this comment

Aquagirl, you claim “Giving these parents the keys to the school is like letting inmates run the asylum.”
Surely you read the part about 75% of the kids cannot read or write. It’s been that way for six years.
The inmates were running the asylum for the past six years. Surely it is time for giving parents an opportunity to improve their childrens’ educations. Think about it. Look at four children. Three of them can’t read or write. Those are third-world country statistics. In America, it is unfathomable.

• Link
• Report this comment

Catlady, the demographics and statistics of this school may surprise you. What I expected was very poor and overwhelmingly Hispanic but it isn’t the case. Less than half (46%) are Hispanic and about 18% are black. The rest are white, Asian and mixed race. It is a Title 1 school yet only 20% are below the poverty line.
Compared to this terrible performance, even APS look good.

• Link
• Report this comment

As we’re all agreed that parent involvement is key to the success of local schools, we should be 100% in favor of this.

But that assumes educating kids is your #1 goal.

The forces lining up to oppose parent takeovers of failing schools have a different agenda—that of maximizing teacher union revenues and using them to fund anti-reform Democrats and thus protect union revenues into the future. While of course claiming the opposite.

Their local minions will spend the day posting to this blog.

• Link
• Report this comment

Catlady, here is your source:
http://www.movoto.com/public-schools/ca/adelanto/primary/060171003819-desert-trails-elementary-school/14350-bellflower-st.htm
It also lists the education background on a chart on the bottom. 62 hispanic, 26 black, the rest white, asian, indian and mixed race.
The educational backgroun is half have high school diplomas, a fourth have BA degrees .

• Link
• Report this comment

It’s clear that Desert Trails Elementary is a struggling school, but it’s an exaggeration to flatly say that “75% of the children cannot read or write,” and a slam against the children of Desert Trails Elementary. Calling them failures in an untruthful and exaggerated manner disparages the students, is harsh and has racist overtones, so I urge the promoters of the parent trigger to please stop that.

Thanks for quoting the Parents Across America view, Maureen.

A few points about the Adelanto situation: The parents on both sides of the parent trigger debate have said they don’t want their school to become a charter. But as soon as the judge issued the ruling, Parent Revolution (a billionaire-funded organization founded by charter operator Steve Barr) announced that it would be seeking bids from charter operators.

So obviously that’s DISempowering to the parents. And so is the judge’s ruling banning them from rescinding their signatures from petitions. That’s a “gotcha!” for Parent Revolution against the parents.

One possible complication is that charter operators actually don’t want to take over struggling existing schools, as Parent Revolution has acknowledged. They prefer to start their own schools where they can pick their own students and create their own policies from scratch. And the parent community at Desert Trails has been ripped apart by the ugly parent trigger controversy, so that would be an even tougher situation for a charter operator stepping in. So it remains to be seen if any will be interested — and how the parents, who agree that they don’t want a charter, will take being supposedly “empowered” by having an unwanted charter shoved into their school, if any are willing to take it over.

By the way, many nonprofit charter schools still pay their administrators princely salaries, and many have provided easy ways for unscrupulous operators to loot our kids’ public education money, as charters get little to no oversight. So being a nonprofit is no guarantee of trustworthiness.

– Caroline Grannan, Parents Across America

• Link
• Report this comment

Pride and Joy, 12:27 pm

“In this case, at this school, where 75% of the children cannot read or write and has been the case for six years, a positive collaborative approach is a ship that sailed years ago.”
===================================================

I have not studied this school, but from the article above, I did not read that “75% of the children cannot read or write.” As a teacher who had analyzed standardized test data for decades for schools as well as for individual students, I read that 66% of the students could not read ON THEIR GRADE LEVELS. This does not mean that the students “could not read,” at all. In all due respect, your words reflect how some parents might interpret the data. That is why parents need to work with teachers, and not think of teachers as opponents to them. Parents should respect the knowledge that teachers have in child development and curricula. Moreover, I agree with you that schools and school districts should be receptive to parents for the benefit of the children. Let’s look more closely at possibilities for poor scores. I am not defending poor scores. I simply want to share my knowledge of student academic growth with you. Please know that I have not studied this particular school and you mention that you have.

Language development actually starts at birth, if not prebirth. The child hears the sounds around him and learns the cadences and intonations within speech. Later, he picks up meaning and word knowledge. The complexity of the spoken word that he hears around him will effect his reading development, later. In some homes, there is little dialogue which hinders language development. Some children have little interaction with others of their age group, or with older groups. That, too, hinders language development. Some children are exposed to picture books earlier than others. Some are not exposed to these books at all. Some children want to “graduate” from these picture books to books with minimal printed words under the pictures. Some children start to pick up word meaning simply by exposure to the books with words, and through having had their parents, or siblings, read the books to them. Some parents have read stories and nursery rhymes to their children from the time they were only months old; other children have had no language development exposure of this nature at all. Therefore, by the time a child enters kindergarten, five years of very varied language development has already occurred among children.

Let’s take “Johnny” who had all the positive experiences related to language development that I just shared, and let’s take “Sam” who has had none of those experiences. That means that when they both enter first grade, Johnny might be reading on 3rd, or even 4th grade level. Sam, on the other hand, might be not even be able to recognize all of the letters of the alphabet, separate them into vowels and consonants, and sound them out. To Sam a “p,” or a “b,” or a “d” may be the same letter, just turned in different directions, like a chair can be turned in different directions. Obviously, when they both take the standardized reading test in 2nd grade, Johnny will “pass” the test for 2nd grade students, and Sam probably will “fail” that test. Sam, you see, learned much in his first grade year based on where he had begun in first grade – about where a 3 year old might have been in language development – but still he was not reading on 2nd grade level when he started 2nd grade. Now, advance Johnny and Sam to 5th grade. Johnny is now reading on 8.7 grade level in 5th grade, and Sam is now reading on 3.5 grade level in 5th grade which is very good progress for Sam since his first grade year, but he still not on his grade level. Therefore, Sam will “fail” the standardized test for 5th grade students, just as he “failed” the standardized tests for 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th grade. This does not mean, however, that Sam is not growing in his reading skills or that he “cannot read” at all.

I think you see what can happen. Now, multiply Sam’s situation to 66% of the students in that school and 66% might fail the standardized test in reading for their grade levels. Also, perhaps you can see how that might happen for 5 years in a row. The same would hold true for mathematics, as for reading development. Moreover, since 80% of the students in that school “failed” the science tests for their grade levels, I can almost guarantee you, from my experience, that the reason most of the students in that school failed the science standardized tests for their grade levels was because the students were not reading on grade level.

So who is to blame, if we are going to deal in “blaming” which I prefer not to do? Are the parents to blame because they did not foster the reading development of their children for five or six years before they ever entered elementary school, or are the teachers to blame when the students have grown from the point they were when they entered school, but have not, yet, reached grade level mastery of skills?

Maybe some of this information will help you see how complex education is and why parents and teachers need to work together for the academic progress of the children.

If you want to read about academic development in even greater detail, please see this link from my blog and read about another “Johnny” and his academic development – about midway through the post:

http://maryelizabethsings.wordpress.com/2012/02/25/about-education-essay-5-assessing-teachers-and-students/

• Link
• Report this comment

According to Great Schools, it is 100% FRL, 28% ELL – 64% Latino, 21% African-American, 6% White, 2% Asian.

87% of the teachers have full credentials and 3% have emergency certification. Not sure about the other 10%. The average number of years teaching is 10 – which could mean a lot of newbies surrounded by old veterans, no way to know. No info on advanced degrees.

Per student spending average is $7,099 – 62% towards instructional funding, 14% admin, 7% support, 17% other.

Some parent review, copied and pasted from the site:

“My kids have been at Desert Trails since 2008. Up until this year my kids were never bullied. I love the new Principal Mr. Mobley. I hope he is able to turn this school around. I love all the teachers that my kids have had. I do agree that we need to get MORE parents involved that we need at this school.”

“my child went to this school for 2 years. there teachers were ok but there staff was bad. the princable does nothing when you have a problem all they say is ok dont worry ill do something about it and they never do. this school is not the type of school you would want to send your child to and there is alot fighting, gossiping, and many more so please do not send you child to this school because your child will not have a good elementry year here. ”

“My sister has been going to DT for her second year. She is in fifth grade and she loves her teacher but there is ALOT of bullying. Personally you run into bad teachers like you run into bad cops. Not all of them are good, but not all of them are bad either. I personally think that the problem lays more with the students AND PARENTS. Teach your kids some respect and maybe kids won’t be disrupted and actually will get the opportunity to learn something. I get tired of seeing the parent protesters talking about how it’s the teachers fault. NO it’s the parents fault. When did it become that the teacher had to be the parent. I see a lot of rudeness with parents at the school. It’s not the teachers or the staffs fault for YOUR KIDS fighting. It’s only they’re job to control the situation as much as possible. I also get tired of having to wait at the intersection for a long time, it’s not the wait that bothers me, it’s the un supervised kids walking extra slow through the cross walk and dancing in the street. ”

“it is not a school you would want to send your child , the principal does nothing to protect students from bulling, as well as special day class does not benifit students”

“I attended Desert Trails from K-6. There were a lot of gossiping and students fighting and calling me names. I had fun and learned a lot in Mr. Franco’s class. He gave us gift cards and granola bars.”

• Link
• Report this comment

Dunwoody mom asks the most important question of all “My question is how did the district and the state let things get so bad?”
How could any employee stand by and not sound the alarm?
How could anyone not believe this school was and is in a crisis?

• Link
• Report this comment

Specifically, ME, 72% failed the reading exam.
P and J

• Link
• Report this comment

customers who have an actual choice, scare the dickens out of monopolies. the powers that be will do anything to stop them…..starting with disparaging the culprits. we’ll see a huge amount of press out of the various legacy educrat organizations on how awful this situation ends up….regardless of how well it actually goes in real life.

• Link
• Report this comment

The paradox is..
if the parents were that involved to begin with, the school wouldn’t have been failing.

• Link
• Report this comment

What I see is two parties, the public school crowd, and the private school crowd, fighting over someone else’s money, the property owning tax payer. I can solve the fight right now, end all property taxes used to support education. Parents choose to have children, let the parents pay for educating them. The same with health care, end Medicaid, let people pay for their own health care.

• Link
• Report this comment

Mystery poster your comment is so pitiful. You wrote “The paradox is..
if the parents were that involved to begin with, the school wouldn’t have been failing.”
In your own words, the children failed to learn and it is all the parents’ fault.
If that is the case, the teacheres and administration need to refund their salary and benefits.
Teachers and administrators get paid to teach. If they can’t teach and it is all the responsibility of the parents, then give back all the money you didn’t earn, including the cost of benefits.
On this earth, you don’t get paid for nothing.

• Link
• Report this comment

Well said Mystery Poster. Because, seriously, I have SEEN parents take a failing school to a non failing one. It is HARD work. But who’s to say a charter will go better? Really?
Because – in charters, there is a relationship between the parents and the school – where the parents agree to do certain stuff (like volunteering, etc)…so if you’re *forced* into a charter school – how does that work exactly? The parents could have done a zillion things – yet they didn’t and now there’s this.
I don’t see it getting any better.

As for the ‘oh, no, we couldn’t possibly homeschool! we work!’ that’s a crock. families figure it out all the time – where the parents work *and* they homeschool the kids. or they move to a less expensive neighborhood or smaller house, or whatever. it can work – it’s not impossible. if you (as in ‘collective’ you) don’t want to do it, that’s fine, but don’t complain that ‘it’s too hard.’

I am not sure I see a lot of super exceptional schools to merit the idea that public schools are really really working anywhere. it’s so very sad.

• Link
• Report this comment

I learned to read in Catholic school, my parents did not teach me to read. I am outraged when I see comments from educators demanding parents teach their children the alphabet, the numbers, addition, subtraction, and reading prior to 1st grade, and beyond. That is what we are paying (through the force of state taxation) the schools and teachers to do! Stop trying to dump your work on the parents!

• Link
• Report this comment

You said “No offense, but “paid dearly”? My property taxes for a nice house in an area with a Top-10 high school are about $2,800 per year. ”
$2,800 won’t even begin to pay the taxes I do and I don’t live in a nice house. Move to the city of Atlanta in Dekalb county and you will pay $5,000 a year for a tiny bungalow with no yard and no parking.

• Link
• Report this comment

Atlanta mom rudely says “As for the ‘oh, no, we couldn’t possibly homeschool! we work!’ that’s a crock.”
A crock, atlanta mom?
Please tell me how you manage to work 50 hours a week plus a commute and homeschool your children.
Do tell.
I am waiting with baited breath.

• Link
• Report this comment

“Move to the city of Atlanta in Dekalb county and you will pay $5,000 a year for a tiny bungalow with no yard and no parking.”

Which is among the reasons I will not move to either place. But….that $5k is not just for schools and even if all of it went to the local school I would still be of the opinion that public school is a bargain with one child not to mention 2 or 3 or more. Just my opinion…as you have yours.

• Link
• Report this comment

Might be “baited” – could be trying to catch someting

• Link
• Report this comment

Pride: Your parents were involved is so much as they pushed you to get an education and, I’m guessing, raised you to believe in its importance. That alone is a major part of what I consider parental involvement; guess I should have clarified that, huh? Some of the best kids I teach I never meet or talk to their parents. But the kids value their education- and that is a value taught them before they enter the school. Surely you realize that, as you too appear to be reasonable. I’m sure parents are more willing to stress the importance of education when the school is doing its job. If the parents are willing to sign a petition and demand change, then it seems obvious they are willing to be part of that. That can happen simply if the school is willing to make the changes and is allowed to do it. Bringing in a charter organization, without a bottom-up approach to decision making, isn’t going to achieve what the parents want and deserve. Unless they participate by at least encouraging their kids to be active learners in any new school, then they’ll end up with what they have now. The community will have to have some level of involvement for the charter school to work, don’t you think? I’m absolutely NOT against the charter, but how will it be any better if the parents aren’t participating? I agree with you that parents have a right to demand better, and local schools should be allowed by the often dicatatorial nature of district leadership to make those changes. As a longtime teacher, I can tell you unless we dismantle and reorganize the powe structure in school systems, whether public, private, or charter, we’ll just end up with a new name for the same old moneypit. Too many charter schools end up with similar leadership issues that the current system has when parents blindly trust them and there’s no accountability.

• Link
• Report this comment

@Pride and Joy and Solutions – you say your parents weren’t involved, but let me ask you what they would’ve done if you brought home grades clearly beneath your ability or they received a call about some kind of atrocious or disrespectful behavior? Would they have stay uninvolved? Would they have told the teacher that your poor behavior was his or her fault?

I ask because, like you, my parents weren’t particularly involved. They expected good report cards and no bad news phone calls. They asked me if I did my homework, but rarely checked it. I was on my own with most projects. As long as my grades were good, peace reigned in the house. And I worked hard to keep that peace, because I was afraid of the fury that would rain down should those grades drop. So, involved? Not exactly. Set high expectation? You bet your bottom dollar – and that’s what’s sorely lacking from some segments of the student population.

As far teaching your kids their letters/numbers/whatever, I think good parents do that naturally, and don’t expect the teachers to do it. It’s not the teacher’s jobs to get them ready for kindergarten. I did it with my kids because I wanted them ready for school. I didn’t teach them to read (I wasn’t a teacher at the time either, BTW), but I did read to them, virtually every night, and I modeled reading for them in the home. We went to the children’s library and picked out books. I feel strongly that that was part of my job as a parent. We went outside and looked at the stars and bugs and trees and flowers – and none of that cost money (and we lived in an apartment complex and yes, P & J, I was a working mother).

These are the things that families who place a value on education do with their children – they don’t look at it as doing the teacher’s job – they feel it’s the PARENT”S job. They know when report cards are coming home – and question when they don’t. They check that homework is done and have consequences if it isn’t. If their child is having trouble, they find out why. They quiz their kids before tests and work on their multiplication tables with them. They set a foundation for success.

• Link
• Report this comment

@Pride and Joy, 2:00 pm

“Specifically, ME, 72% failed the reading exam.”
========================================================

Pride and Joy, it appears to me that you are making a lot of assumptions that are inaccurate and you seem to have no doubt about your opinions, even though they are inaccurate, at times. Please see below.

Here is what the article states, above: “At Desert Trails last year, two-thirds of the children failed the state reading exam.” Two-thirds equals 66%, not 72% nor the 75% you had earlier stated.

Also, I have called and talked with a consultant at the California Department of Education this afternoon to make certain that what I posted at 1:47 pm is true regarding a standardized reading test being administered for every grade level in California, and not simply one standardized reading test being administered for students at Desert Trails Elementary School. I was correct. Students in California, including those at Desert Trails Elementary School, are tested on the standardized reading test for THEIR GRADE LEVEL each year. That means that at Desert Trails Elementary School had administered at least five, if not six, standardized reading tests to their students – and not simply one. The journalist who had written the article for the Washington Post, which is reproduced in part above, should have made that fact clearer in her article. In fact, that journalist’s words above should have read, “At Desert Trails last year, two-thirds of the children failed the state reading exam FOR THEIR GRADE LEVEL.”

Please take the time to read and study my post to you at 1:47 pm. I gave a lot of time and effort to try to help you understand instructional phenomena. I believe that if you really try to read my post in order to learn more about language development in children, you will understand how it could happen that many children may “fail” their particular reading tests for their grade levels. I, also, would urge you to read the link I provided for you in my 1:47 pm post, to be even more informed about how continuous progress in students operates.

We must resist the temptation to make hasty generalities about student failure without studying the details in depth. I tried to take the time to inform parents through my 1:47 pm post. I hope that parents, including yourself, will take the time, in turn, to become more informed regarding the many different levels of functioning of students within each grade level and how that will effect test results.

http://www.cde.ca.gov/search/searchresults.asp?cx=001779225245372747843:gpfwm5rhxiw&output=xml_no_dtd&filter=1&num=20&start=0&q=Standardized%20reading%20tests%20for%20each%20grade%20level

• Link
• Report this comment

I’m all for it.

let’s see them put their efforts where their mouths are.

if it works, wonderful. if it fails however…..don’t come crying to us

• Link
• Report this comment

@Skipper, Honest question here: What “original documents” ensured a right to a public education? I’m not aware of any such thing in our nation’s founding documents, as public education as we know it hadn’t really been invented yet, so I’m wondering if I’ve missed something…Let me know. Thanks.

• Link
• Report this comment

Let’s take Caroline Grannan’s comment–”many nonprofit charter schools still pay their administrators princely salaries, and many have provided easy ways for unscrupulous operators to loot our kids’ public education money, as charters get little to no oversight. So being a nonprofit is no guarantee of trustworthiness–and substitute “school district” for “nonprofit” and “charters” and “operators.”

Such is precisely the case of a school district like the one Desert Trails has been held hostage to, and many school districts with failing schools all over the country.

• Link
• Report this comment

Dr. Henson, do you think that a student – who at the beginning of 3rd grade had read on grade level 1.8, and who entered 4th grade reading on grade level 3.1, with an I. Q. of 90, or low average intelligence – had not been taught well in 3rd grade because he was not functioning on grade level in reading at the beginning of 4th grade (and may not have scored well on the 4th grade reading standardized test, as a result)?

I would think that that student had been taught well in third grade since he had improved his reading grade level equivalent by 1.3 years for one year of academic work in reading, even with a low average I. Q. The question becomes: Why was this student functioning only on 1.8 grade level equivalent in reading at the beginning of third grade? That might have been because the student had entered school functioning well below grade level in his reading skills, even in first grade.

I am not trying to excuse the test results of Desert Trails Elementary School. I am simply urging people to look very closely at the details of test results, at the details of instructional progress for specific students, and at a school’s population in depth before deciding, without a doubt, about the quality of instruction within a particular school.

• Link
• Report this comment

Personally, I don’t see the need for Parent Trigger laws to be enacted in GA. The existing charter school law(s) have provisions which essentially allow for the same. Taking that into consideration, I simply don’t see the justification for placing redundant laws on the books.

• Link
• Report this comment

To AngryRedWarsWoman, you say “Which is among the reasons I will not move to either place. But….that $5k is not just for schools and even if all of it went to the local school I would still be of the opinion that public school is a bargain with one child not to mention 2 or 3 or more. Just my opinion…as you have yours.”
Public Schools in APS and DEkalb is NOT a bargain.
Of course $5 doesn’t all go to teh school — the school also gets a HUGE chunch of my state AND federal income taxes…and let’s be clear on this…I don’t pay $5000K a year in property taxes and tens of thousands more in sate and local income taxes while my childrne are in school. I pay every year and will pay every year well before the time and well past the time my children are in school.
Public schools are NOT a bargain. You haven’t comprehended your own simple math.
Public School Cost = (State Income taxes + Federal Income Taxes + Property Taxes + SPLOST +) multiplied by the number of years I work plus the amount I pay in fundraisers and donations.
Traditional public schools are MORE EXPENSIVE than the best private school in this part of the country, Woodward Academy.
At 28K a year, Woodward Academy is less expensive than all the money in taxes and funds I hvae paid and will continue to pay for local, traditional public schools.
You need to focus some of that energy you spend on being angry into learning common, simple math.

• Link
• Report this comment

Already Sheared….thanks for Bated breath, not baited breath…yeah, like I have a worm on my tongue..too funny an dthanks for the laugh.
P and J

• Link
• Report this comment

CCMST, you asked a good question. My parents weren’t just “uninvolved.” It’s too painful to discuss in detail but my so-called parents were abusive and neglectful. The things they did to me then would put them in jail today. Actually, it was illegal then as well but there was a conspiracy of silence.
My point is not to garner sympathy but to illustrate the truth. Kids from poor and abusive homes can and do succeed. Oprah and I have a lot in common. She’s, of course, tremendously successful and I am struggling along in over-taxed, over-burdened middle class but we both came from similar circumstances and we overcame them with the help of a few good teachers. In my case, there were two teachers who helped me. I give them credit for helping me become a tax-paying, productive citizen and for becoming a loving, involved parent.
What worries me about the comments from teachers on this blog is the “They’re poor and a minitory so they’re hopeless” mentality.
Teachers are the hope. They are they way to success or at least, they can be if they want to be. How many of us can name our first grade teacher? I’ll bet everyone can. How many of us can name the bosses we worked for? I have a hard time remembering those. Teachers make a huge impression on our lives. They can be good role models and effective leaders (Mary Elizabethe) or they can stomp a kid in the ground.
The choice is up to the teacher.

• Link
• Report this comment

Ron F. you said “. Your parents were involved is so much as they pushed you to get an education and, I’m guessing, raised you to believe in its importance. ” I wish that were true.
Because of the abuse I suffered at their hands, I ran away from home in high school and have lived on my own, financially and in every other way since I was seventeen. Again, I credit a few teachers for simply caring about me. I didnt’ get any great earth-shattering advice or help in any way for college, neither did we even mention college, it’s just I knew two human adults really cared about me and it made me feel better.
I won’t go into more details becuase, literally, it sends me into a boo-hoo place I don’t want my children to see me in but I was that abused poor kid with the worst parents and I did well in school and suceeeded. It is unfair and not right for teachers to ASSume that one’s circumstances are an educational death sentence and it “sho’ ain’t” an excuse not to teach.

• Link
• Report this comment

“You need to focus some of that energy you spend on being angry into learning common, simple math.”

I am not angry…generally don’t get angry as I feel it is a waste of energy. If you are referring to my screen name – you don’t “get” the reference. Believe me when I say that I know math and I understand the funding of public schools. I simply disagree with your opinion – but I am comfortable in my own opinion and don’t need to attack you for yours…perhaps you are the one who is angry? If you don’t think that Atlanta and/or Dekalb public schools are a bargain and you don’t like the taxes that you pay — ummmmm….move?

• Link
• Report this comment

Now I KNOW that Pride and Joy is really the former Good Mother. The personal stories of an abused, poor childhood related at great length are the same. Soon the story of the father who beat her so badly she was embarrassed to go to high school cheer-leading practice will appear again, and the plates stacked in boxes in the kitchen because they couldn’t afford cabinets.

We still have GM’s nasty writing style and snide bashing of teachers, alhough GM’s hallmark word “whine” is now left out. Also the long racist stories of how “her” children endure terrible APS African-American teachers who speak bad English, year after year…evidently without any complaint to their principals by P&J/GM.

However, the fictional self-portraits seem to be changing, probably why he or she changed names. GM dramatically decided last April to put “her” children into a private school…P&J backtracks here to public schools again so “she” can criticize the public school teachers. Would be pretty lame if “her” children now go to a private school. “Her” husband now has moved up in the world with degrees from the best Universities and a great job. I guess he won’t make her do the laundry all week-end while she blogs on her laptop to “Get Schooled,” as before.

But P&J, like GM, still claims to work hard in an office all day, while sending in long posts to this blog continuously and keeping up what everyone says about “her.”

• Link
• Report this comment

Pride and Joy

and

Ron F

Thank you, both, for your earlier compliments to me. I did read both of your separate posts and I appreciated your thoughts. I will try to respond more to your thoughts, later.

Enough writing for “yours truly,” for the time being.

• Link
• Report this comment

@ Caroline Grannan.

Thanks for posting this. Remarkable.

• Link
• Report this comment

Well, now we know at least one side is paying for posts…just surprised at which one. Of course, given the constant accusations of the same from our usual offenders, maybe it’s a case of the pot calling the kettle black?

• Link
• Report this comment

@ CCMST. The side paying for posts seems to be the charter school movement., wouldn’t you say?

• Link
• Report this comment

Lindance, you say “Could it be that the ‘elephant in the room’ is the lack of assimilation by people/persons from another nationality not wanting to speak English to their children in the home prior to and during the students’ formative years, not to mention teaching the value/importance of education in their lives.”
No, I disagree. My grandmother came to this country when she was in the sixth grade and didn’t speak a word of English and neither did her parents. She was literally thrown into an English-speaking school where everyone spoke English except her and her family. She was incredibly poor. After school she scrubbed hospital floors to earn money. She spoke English perfectly later and she wrote beautifully. I regret I didn’t save more of her perfect letters. She had beautiful handwriting and used papers that didn’t have lines on them but the handwriting looked as if it was written on lined paper.
She never finished high school. She was a woman, after all, and education for women was a luxury. Yet, I’ll bet she knew more and could perform math, English and science better than most APS teachers.
The education she received was by the teachers at the school and on one else. Her family didn’t value education, especially not for her.She passed down that non-value to my own mother. None of us had parents that helped us do our homework, that read to us. We had none of that and we learned — at school.

• Link
• Report this comment

@ Prof – isn’t Students First Michelle Rhee’s group?

I’m not anti-charter school – full disclosure, my kids went to a conversion charter in our district, and I was involved from the parent side (as I wasn’t a teacher at the time) in getting our public elementary chartered. However, we went through “proper” channels. It is a public elementary, and it isn’t run by any outside entities. In my opinion, that’s the best way to create a charter. There is no picking of students – all students districted to the school (with the exception of those otherwise enrolled under HB 251) attend.

Just slapping the charter label on a building and group of teachers isn’t going to solve anything though – I feel much better about a “homegrown” charter versus an outside run one. That’s just me, though.

• Link
• Report this comment

No, @Dr. Monica Henson — one thing you can’t accuse California public school administrators of is paying themselves princely salaries in our cash-strapped school districts. That’s simply false.

I made the point in response to someone who seemed to believe that nonprofit charters are all on the up-and-up. No, many nonprofits are paying their administrators richly, and far too many are engaging in unethical shenanigans.

Yes, in case it’s not clear, it’s the so-called education “reform” side that’s paying for supporters — Michelle Rhee’s Students First operation. Students First also collects names by tricking people into signing petitions that sound pro-teacher and pro-public education, then lists those people as supporters — I’m listed as a supporter, and so is Diane Ravitch. So we already know they’re dishonest — this is just another unethical ploy.

Whoever has claimed that Parents Across America is a tool of teachers’ unions: We are supporters of teachers and public education, and we got a startup grant from the NEA. Parents with no affiliation with the NEA founded the organization, and we set our own policies. We don’t accept the teacher-bashing notion that getting a grant from a teachers’ union is damning — we support teachers.

One thing that the teachers’ unions are very, very poor at is the kind of PR/outreach that they need to combat the current teacher-bashing fad. If they DID consider trying to create a parent group as puppets, they wouldn’t have it together to pull it off, frankly. That kind of ploy is what the “reformers” pull, as we can see from the gift card e-mail.

• Link
• Report this comment

“Pride and Joy, July 26th, 2012, 12:52 pm said:
Most people work for a living. One cannot home school and earn a living. Perhaps you are a stay at home mother with a husband who provides for all your family’s financial needs. If you are, you have my dream job. I wold love to stay home and home school my children but I have to work, just like most Americans.”

ROFLMAO…. Pride & Joy, do you actually KNOW any homeschoolers? Sure the decision to homeschool involves some financial and other sacrifices, but many of the homeschooling families I interact with are still dual career, dual income families….and no, they are not farming out the education of their children to tutors constantly. All it takes is creativity and ingenuity…and good time management skills.

• Link
• Report this comment

Julie Davis, your post is heartwarming. Every bit of it. Congratulations to you and your daughter. I wish her the best of luck in her criminal justic endeavors.
P and J

• Link
• Report this comment

ANgryBitterRedwoman, aha. Of course you can’t tell me how to home school and have a full time job because you can’t. It isn’t possible.
Just as I thouhght. All talk. No action.

• Link
• Report this comment

Maureen, you do realize that the mere mention of shooting in one’s essay, whether it be in the arm or foot, could result in at least a 3 day suspension in our zero tolerance public schools.

• Link
• Report this comment