Beverly Hall’s success led to willful blindness about cheating
In the beginning, there was The Mission.
When Beverly Hall came to Atlanta in 1999 to serve as superintendent, she brought a powerful commitment to improving city schools. She did not believe that a child’s socioeconomic status determined his or her destiny, she said, and she was adamant that even in — especially in — low-income urban neighborhoods, public education could transform lives.
So she set about to prove it, and she has done so. In Hall’s 11 years as superintendent, she has produced results that current controversy should not diminish. Atlanta schools today are better run, teachers and administrators are more student-focused, graduation rates are higher and thousands of children are being given more control over their own destinies.
Yet when Hall announced last week that she would not return as superintendent in the 2011-12 school year, the news was greeted not with disappointment but relief. That’s because somewhere along the line, The Mission had given way to The Story.
The Story began to take shape early in Hall’s tenure, as the turnaround of the Atlanta system became national news. Major foundations were drawn to the city, eager for evidence that measurable progress could be made in a largely urban district. Hall became a sought-after speaker, and last year was named National Superintendent of the Year.
Human nature being what it is, Hall and others became invested in that success. The Atlanta School Board, the business community and for a long time the media all bought into it as well. The Story became a point of pride, telling us something that we all wanted to believe, and as Hall’s stature grew, so did the deference that she enjoyed from those around her.
That was part of the problem. The other part involved Hall’s approach to education reform, which relies heavily on testing. Under her leadership, test scores not only determined how students were performing, but how teachers, principals and even Hall herself were performing. The emphasis on test results for job security, promotions and bonuses created a temptation to cheat that some found too much to resist.
So when an AJC investigation in 2008 and 2009 turned up evidence of widespread cheating on standardized tests, Hall faced a choice: She could defend The Mission, or she could defend The Story. And I honestly think she lost the capacity to distinguish between the two.
Defending The Mission would have required Hall to react aggressively when confronted with well-documented allegations of pervasive cheating by school district personnel. After all, if true, the allegations meant that children were being cheated of the education that test scores said they were being given. Had Hall taken that approach, the damage to both the Mission and the Story would have been minimized. She did not.
Instead, she used the respect and trust she had built to downplay and minimize evidence of cheating, leading those who believed in her to follow that lead. She claimed vindication from evidence that in reality offered none, and as we learned last week, she and others withheld a damaging independent analysis which confirmed that cheating was a major problem.
Again, the gains made under Hall’s leadership are real, even if overstated in the standardized test results now under state investigation. But the damage is real as well.
Among other things, fallout from the scandal has fractured the Atlanta School Board at a time when its leadership is badly needed. Like Hall, board members seem more interested in The Story than The Mission. In their case, The Story is about where to place blame for what has happened.
The Mission, however, remains the same.
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168 comments Add your comment
Peadawg
November 23rd, 2010
6:43 am
Do away w/ all standardized test. They are pointless.
USinUK
November 23rd, 2010
6:49 am
I don’t know that I’d do away with ALL standardized tests … but I sure as hell would have a lot fewer of them … and I definitely would NOT link $$$ to performance (recipe for disaster)
Tom
November 23rd, 2010
6:53 am
Good article! It is sad. I believe that the APS system has improved over the last ten years. Hopefully will get past this sooner than later.
T-Town
November 23rd, 2010
6:58 am
When money is involved, fraud is sure to follow. It is what it is.
Jimmy62
November 23rd, 2010
7:06 am
Are the gains real? Or are they graduating more people simply because they are making it easier to finish high school? Now that we know how rampant the cheating was, I would say all results are suspect.
If only liberals would stop trapping poor kids in bad schools with no way out.
USinUK
November 23rd, 2010
7:08 am
“If only liberals would stop trapping poor kids in bad schools with no way out”
yeah, because private schools all over Atlanta are just DYING to take them under their wings … particularly students with learning difficulties and other problems …
Ragnar Danneskjöld
November 23rd, 2010
7:12 am
I would have changed the title of the otherwise well-drawn essay to “Beverly Hill’s government position led to willful blindness about cheating.” It is the lack of accountability among our overlords that allows them the luxury of ignoring that which is moral and good.
Normal
November 23rd, 2010
7:13 am
Off topic, but interesting…
http://news.icanhascheezburger.com/2010/11/21/political-pictures-illusion-of-safety/
http://news.icanhascheezburger.com/2010/11/22/political-pictures-good-things-must-end/
BTW, good morning, y’all…
Normal
November 23rd, 2010
7:14 am
It is the lack of accountability among our overlords that allows them the luxury of ignoring that which is moral and good.
Isn’t that what smaller government is all about?
USinUK
November 23rd, 2010
7:15 am
oh, Ragnar, you crack me up … the fact that she was in government led to the cheating scandal?
really?
are you honestly saying that there is never any cheating / shading / thumbs on the scale in the marketplace? are you honestly saying that corporations never ignore that which is moral and good???
crumbs.
USinUK
November 23rd, 2010
7:18 am
Normal – my favorite of this morning’s pics was
http://icanhascheezburger.com/2010/11/22/funny-pictures-gimme-a-d/
stands for decibels
November 23rd, 2010
7:18 am
She could defend The Mission, or she could defend The Story. And I honestly think she lost the capacity to distinguish between the two.
Think you nailed it, Jay.
Peadawg
November 23rd, 2010
7:20 am
“Isn’t that what smaller government is all about?”
Leave it up to a liberal to use this as an excuse for more gov’t regulation.
josef nix
November 23rd, 2010
7:20 am
Of course, on the way out the door to my job on the front lines, I have a lot to say most of which would carry no weight nor value since what we think is not now, nor has it ever been, nor will it dver be even heard, much less listened to or considered by those “on a mission.” I was brought before Principal Jay last p.m. for my opinions of those missionaries out to reform us savages here in the outer darkness and bring us to the true faith.
When I get back in this p.m., ready for a few days off, there will no doubt be quite the screed blaming the teachers, determining all APS students and staff failures. each and every detractor sure that s/he has a handle on “the problem.” Well, before you do, the problem is YOU. These are your schools, funded by your money and ask yourself when was the last time you were in a classroom or attended a board meeting?
Dr. Hall was medicine show/revival from the get-go, a PR gambit and, from that perspective, not a particularly bad one. She brought in the bucks. When it came time to put up or shut up, though, it turned out hers was just the same whine in new bottles, something her underlings knew all along.
It’s not really her fault, though. She’s a product of the environment which nurtured her and put her where she was. She set out to make a name for herself and did.
Meanwhile, thousands of APS employees who give their all for our children and our future will have to go slinking in bearing the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, so to speak. She’ll sail on out of here, leaving the mess behind just like missionaries always seem to do.
BlahBlahBlah
November 23rd, 2010
7:24 am
Very well said Mr. Bookman.
USinUK
November 23rd, 2010
7:28 am
jo nix – all I can say is: the more I hear about boards of ed, the less respect I have for them. they’re more concerned with covering their own backsides than they are with backing up the teachers on the front lines.
Mick
November 23rd, 2010
7:29 am
josef
Thunderous applause @ 7:20
carlosgvv
November 23rd, 2010
7:29 am
Beverly Hall is at the center of this so it’s no supprise she is leaving. When this scandal fully hits the fan you will hear outraged cries of racism since most of the people involved will be black. Count on it.
Normal
November 23rd, 2010
7:30 am
Well said, Josef! You got the fire this morning!
J. Kase
November 23rd, 2010
7:34 am
Before: B.H. sez “Ignore the man behind the curtain.” Now: B.H. sez “I’m melting……..”
HDB
November 23rd, 2010
7:34 am
josef nix November 23rd, 2010
7:20 am
STANDING OVATION from the son of one who was also on the front lines of public educaton for 44 years!!
APS Administrator
November 23rd, 2010
7:36 am
You said it all, Jay. For those of us who have been around before “the mission” this whole thing is very demoralizing.
Normal
November 23rd, 2010
7:36 am
USinUK,
I put this one as my computer background…to remind my co-workers…
http://icanhascheezburger.com/2010/11/22/funny-pictures-if-yu-kant-beet-em/
Fred
November 23rd, 2010
7:37 am
Jimmy62
November 23rd, 2010
7:06 am
Are the gains real? Or are they graduating more people simply because they are making it easier to finish high school? Now that we know how rampant the cheating was, I would say all results are suspect.
+++++++++++++++++
No Jimmy all the results are NOT suspect and the gains are still there. Here is one of the ‘results” that is beyond suspicion. Take 4 minutes and 58 seconds to watch one of the most impressive young men I can seen. The valedictorian of Booker T Washington this last year.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0Wcr82UOsw
Fred
November 23rd, 2010
7:38 am
I HAVE seen lol not “can seen”
USinUK
November 23rd, 2010
7:38 am
Normal – oh, yeah – I liked that one, too
oh, and while I’m thinking about it … I need a favor from you … on Thursday, could you EAT AN EXTRA SERVING OF DRESSING FOR ME??? and maybe an extra slice of apple pie.
I’m seriously missing Thanksgiving this year.
Fred
November 23rd, 2010
7:42 am
Just close your eyes and think of turkey and dressing while you are eating your kidney pie and yorkshire pudding……….
USinUK
November 23rd, 2010
7:45 am
Fred – I believe you mean “lie back and think of England”
Fred
November 23rd, 2010
7:47 am
I don’t know what I mean lol. i figured from your screen name you were a US citizen in the United Kingdom………….
TaxPayer
November 23rd, 2010
7:47 am
It is the lack of accountability among our overlords that allows them the luxury of ignoring that which is moral and good.
Have you shared your concerns with Perdue and Deal. I hear they’re real experts on such issues as morality and ethics and all that is good in the world.
@@
November 23rd, 2010
7:47 am
Atlanta schools today are better run, teachers and administrators are more student-focused, graduation rates are higher and thousands of children are being given more control over their own destinies.
Are you sure about that, jay?
Atlanta grad rate doesn’t add up
The district has sustained its higher graduation rate — 69 percent in 2009 — despite a two-thirds increase in dropouts since 2003.
A majority of the dropouts occurred at one school: an “alternative” campus for students with academic and behavioral problems. Many of the students most at risk for quitting were concentrated there, allowing other schools to keep their graduation rates up.
So the kids who need it the most are pushed aside…never to be seen or heard from again?
USinUK
November 23rd, 2010
7:51 am
“So the kids who need it the most are pushed aside…never to be seen or heard from again?”
or you could say that the kids who want it the most – and who are working the hardest for it – are able to achieve because the kids who DON’T want it and who AREN’T willing to work were removed from the classroom.
Del
November 23rd, 2010
7:53 am
I don’t see how you can educate children or even adults without testing to determine results.Cheating in order to falsely show a better result is reprehensible. If Ms. Hall was attempting to cover up the cheating she should resign or be fired.
USinUK
November 23rd, 2010
7:55 am
pssst … Del … “Yet when Hall announced last week that she would not return as superintendent in the 2011-12 school year”
@@
November 23rd, 2010
7:58 am
USinUK:
So you’re in favor of segregation?
Interesting…
USinUK
November 23rd, 2010
7:59 am
@@ – segregation of students who are violent and disruptive? you bet your sweet bippy I am.
USinUK
November 23rd, 2010
8:00 am
oh! and mark your calendars … the date has been set …
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11818049
TaxPayer
November 23rd, 2010
8:02 am
an “alternative” campus for students with academic and behavioral problems.
Gwinnett County uses that approach as does our little ole county up here in north Georgia.
This Story is Liberal Spin - Get to the Point
November 23rd, 2010
8:02 am
This Mission/Story business is liberal huey. Measure performance to evaluate how good things are progressing. Be a stand up person who does their job with integrity. Hall didn’t.
As Margart Thatcher said, “Life is conservative”. There is no trophy for everyone who participates in life.
Jay, it is difficult to take you seriously. This adminstrator allowed or was incompetent enough to allow widespread cheating.
what if
November 23rd, 2010
8:04 am
Bravo Jay, Bravo Josef. Seems to me this Story might give us some insight about our various alternative futures.
First, let’s hope it has become a bit clearer that state- (or locally-)developed low-bid minimum competency tests are under no circumstance a relevant measure of educational quality. The AJC – and most other papers – continue to make the egregious mistake of saying “scores increased (or decreased)” when the ONLY thing reported is PASS RATES at typically VERY low performance levels. In fact, IF we paid the requisite dollars for tests that measured ALL students in some limited domain like simple math or reading or recognition of factoids (which is about all these tests do), most research shows that in fact when we focus only on these very low bars, OVERALL scores (if we had them) would actually DECLINE – simply because we’re only focusing on the lowest of the low performers, to the detriment of the other 80-90% of the students. Will we continue to spend millions to learn nothing of what might help us improve the education of our kids?
Second, if this doesn’t show us what will happen to both test information and school culture if we are inept enough to insist on hiring and firing teachers (and administrators) on the basis of pass rates (or, if we pay for full-range tests, scores), nothing will. The private sector learned a long time ago that any attempt to rate complex skills with overly simplistic measures can only (a) corrupt the measures and (b) ruin the very skillsets one is trying to reward. Will we be so blind as to ignore the evidence before us?
@@
November 23rd, 2010
8:04 am
USinUK:
students with academic and behavioral problems.
Behavior problems don’t always manifest themselves thru violence.
Normal
November 23rd, 2010
8:05 am
USinUK
November 23rd, 2010
7:38 am
I’ll do better than that. I’ll write you a synopsis of the day….
Redneck Convert (R--and proud of it)
November 23rd, 2010
8:05 am
Well, I say we turn them all into Private Schools. Which don’t have all this testing and teacher liscensing and stuff like that. Then when they say there’s been a whole bunch of student improvement, nobody will be able to prove them wrong. It’s all this testing that’s making our kids look like a bunch of dummys. Get rid of the testing and we can say our kids are real smart. And the best way to do that is turn our schools into Private Schools.
But nobody listens to me. If they did we wouldn’t have the mess we’re in. Have a good day everybody.
Normal
November 23rd, 2010
8:07 am
USinUK,
Is Prince William the future King of England after Elizabeth passes?
USinUK
November 23rd, 2010
8:07 am
@@ – “Behavior problems don’t always manifest themselves thru violence”
they may not always be violent, but they are always disruptive – which keeps the rest of the class from learning.
or are you okay with lowering the classroom achievements to the lowest common denominator?
USinUK
November 23rd, 2010
8:08 am
Normal – Charles, first … then William …
(and if the Queen and Queen Mum are any indication, Wills is going to have to wait a loooooooong time – that family has some serious longevity in their genes!)
Fred
November 23rd, 2010
8:08 am
The truth is that I doubt many (if any) who post on this blog are even in the Atlanta School district. I’m not. Although i have an Atlanta mailing address if I sent my child to public schools she would be going to Dekalb schools (as big or a bigger mess).
It’s easy for us, the non effected, to sit here and self righteously throw stones, but at the end of the day, we really don’t care. I truly believe the attitude is, “It just those kids, the ones in Atlanta. Glad our children live in good districts.’
At my daughters school they raise money for and support a “sister school” in Africa. It burns me up and I’m unpopular with some of the admin ever since I told them that if they wanted to help educated underpriviledged poor black children they could get in their beamers and drive for 5 minutes to an APS school and donate books, food, and school supplies. instead of spending 10’s of 1000’s on plane tickets for a dog and pony show trip to Africa, they could use the cash for scholarships for those same poor black kids to go to OUR school. Every person that went on that trip equals one student they could have educateted HERE.
As jonix hurriedly put it, those kids in Atlanta ARE “our kids.” We SHOULD care. But we don’t. Out of sight, out of mind. I’m as guilty as the rest……………
Shame on us. ALL of us. And shame on the school board for spending so much time on the blame game and so little on the students…….
StJ
November 23rd, 2010
8:12 am
“The Mission had given way to The Story.” (Oh, wait, could have sworn this was the “Voters unhappy with Obama” blog.)
Cheating is cheating. If you cannot do the job with integrity, then the rest is irrelevant.
dcb
November 23rd, 2010
8:19 am
I can’t be the only one sick and tired of the AJC editorial board and op-ed writers patting themselves on the back for taking credit for nailing Beverly Hall to the wall, and then urging her to get out of Dodge sooner rather than later. The crowning glory – and I’m sure it won’t be the last until she is actually gone – was Bookman’s comment in his November 23 Opinion titled “Schools chief lost sight of mission”. The AJC theme exemplified by Bookman’s sentence beginning with “So when an AJC investigation …” is overkill but not unexpected considering the overplay it has been getting throughout this ordeal. For those who say the news media doesn’t make news, it only reports it – hogwash. I’m not a Beverly Hall fan. But enough is enough. You got her AJC. Now leave well enough alone. I don’t blame her for getting out. And the AJC’s now demanding she leave today and allow an Interim to take over for “credibility” reasons is also hogwash. The turf protection in the APS system already going on would only be compounded during the tenure of an Interim. And with the dysfunctional APS board in place, where would the stability in the system be? But then no matter – the AJC has spoken.
carlosgvv
November 23rd, 2010
8:23 am
USinUK
During your time in the UK has that Country ever had this kind of school cheating nonsense happen?
Jay
November 23rd, 2010
8:24 am
I would actually agree with one point in DCB’s post: Under Hall, APS has been structured to respond to strong leadership and oversight from the top down. Her lameduck status and the board’s dysfunction have created a dangerous vacuum that could have real consequences over the next several months.
Other than that, though….
@@
November 23rd, 2010
8:26 am
USinUK:
or are you okay with lowering the classroom achievements to the lowest common denominator?
A student, who wants to excel, will do so in spite of the environment. My daughter did.
What I would like to see are more innovative teaching techniques which set out to include ALL as opposed to excluding some.
Try to remember…..I’m a person who believes that NO child is disposable. As adults, it’s our job to make them feel valued…..important, if you will.
Sorry, but I don’t have time for your silliness.
Southern Comfort
November 23rd, 2010
8:27 am
Amen josef!!!
If only liberals would stop trapping poor kids in bad schools with no way out.
The only thing I could think of after reading that was…
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_dcdi–LdAeQ/Sa1sWd8j4pI/AAAAAAAAEBg/BGX_vc32JHc/s400/wtf.jpg
PinkoNeoConLibertarian
November 23rd, 2010
8:28 am
Reminds me of NCAA Football. The Coach comes in makes the program over into a winning program, national championship aspirations, etc. Then…the rumors start about the violations, the money, the payoffs. Soon, The Coach moves on to his “dream job” that he has “earned” based on the gains his program made. The school, program and athletes that he leaves behind however, have to face the consequences and pay the price for their former leader’s lack of moral and ethics.
Gale
November 23rd, 2010
8:28 am
I had a conversation related to this with my partner this weekend. We do need to scrap the standardized testing. It is damaging the teaching effort by removing the joy of learning from kids. We are insisting they learn specific things so they can pass a multiple guess test. Instead, we should be teaching them how to reason. Our case in point was history. She has a history degree. I just had a few good history teachers. Her experience was teachers who insisted she learn dates. Mine taught the where, what and why. While I may not have all the facts, I think my teachers gave me an enduring interest in digging beneath the story.
The tests don’t help enough. Atlanta is still at the bottom of the education stack. Atlanta’s grad rate is still abysmal. We need to stop experimenting with our kids.
Jimmy62
November 23rd, 2010
8:28 am
I’m basically a right winger. I don’t know what the answer to our education problems is. But the first step is to admit that there are serious problems with our current system, problems that are a lot bigger than whether or not to evaluate with standardized tests. And the problems are bigger than the various teachers’ unions can fix. The problems are bigger than vouchers can fix, and the problems won’t be solved simply by throwing more money at the issue (that’s been tried, over and over and over again).
So I don’t know what the solution is. It’s probably a combination of a lot of things. But we definitely need to get past any partisanship on this, and stop trying to push things that have already been tried and failed. Come up with some innovative solutions, and try them out. Ignore the naysayers and go for it, because it can’t be worse than what we’re doing to kids now.
The first hurdle is to get past the people who are invested in the current system, there are too many people involved that have skin in the current system and care more about the status quo than actually helping kids, and we need to learn to distinguish those people from those who truly want to help, and ignore the first group.
Common Sense isn't very Common
November 23rd, 2010
8:29 am
josef nix@7:20 am
It is all YOUR fault.
I’ll get ahead of the pack of wolves NOW. LOL.
Not in a million years would I blame the current mess on all teachers.
Standardized testing is a POS. It is a POS for the SAT test and all others I have had to take over the years.
That type of testing only lets the testers see WHO CAN TAKE THOSE TYPES OF TESTS BETTER.
But as to the cheating. There never should have been a tie in between teacher evaluations and test scores. Very sad that some teachers were probably rated very low when either the test was more difficult or the test takers did not care about the result.
The teachers if any that participated in the cheating need to be fired.
AmVet
November 23rd, 2010
8:30 am
Good morning all. Another day in paradise!
I’ll not address the specifics in this matter, as I am uninformed of them.
To Fred’s point about the vast scale of this problem in Georgia, what can one expect when we have an enormous percentage of lazyass lamebrains in this state? Black, white, urban and rural.
Many of these kids bought into the ever-expanding universe (get it?) that being stupid and ignorant is cool, and by proxy that being smart and having a deep thirst for knowledge and learning, is not.
In my opinion, one of the many great failings of modern education is how Physical Education was dropped so that the little lardbutts aren’t uncomfortable. (Comfort is everything you know.) Screw that. There should be PE every semester until they graduate. It is a travesty that we have so many hundreds of thousands of obese children, and millions more who are completely physically weak and unfit. Physical fitness is directly related to overall mental and emotional health. No wonder so kids many have such low self esteem. They couldn’t run 100 yards full out, if their very lives depended on it.
To wit, just how many kids “graduate” from Georgia high schools, and even universities(!), that are semi-literate? Barely able to function and perform at eighth grade level work? Plenty.
Education in Georgia has to a large degree always been an unpleasant reality forced upon the people by the loathed “authorities”, who are always the ONLY ones to blame for these woes. Not the parents, not the communities and certainly not the children themselves. And I have little doubt, that if they could do so legally, many here would allow their kids to drop out of school around the eighth grade – just like they did, and their parents before them.
To demonstrate just how entrenched the ignorance factor is, we have rank and file Republicans who don’t even believe in the 150 year old teachings of Darwin! And who would love nothing more than to start up Round 2 of the Scopes monkey trial to bring back creationism or intelligent (HA!) design or whatever they call it these days into public school rooms.
Alas for them, the words of Clarence Darrow still ring true, “We have the purpose of preventing bigots and ignoramuses form controlling the education system of the United States.”
But much, much worse, that mentality has made it’s way to the very pinnacle of faux conservative thinking. We just witnessed eight years of a science-free White House as led by a man with a stunning void of intellectual curiosity. And three of the ten 2008 GOP candidates for president of the United States of America publicly acknowledged that they don’t even believe in evolution.
So now we have garden variety neo-cons who simply dismiss any and all things science, intellectual or academic if they do not dovetail with their ideology, mythology and demagoguery. For them that is reason alone to reject out-of-hand mountains of evidence, data, facts, etc.
And the children of these people will make for so-so employees at Burger King…
USinUK
November 23rd, 2010
8:30 am
carlos – cheating? not that I remember in the 5 years I’ve been here … there is a lot of hullaballoo about the A-levels being dumbed down, though (these are the exams you sit when you want to move on from college – which is ages 16-18 – to university) … from what I understand, A-levels are exams that test you on your cumulative knowledge of a subject (history, languages, literature, maths, etc) — folks my age say that the most you could study for would be 3 exams – 4 if you were super-brilliant. Now, kids are taking 5 and 6 exams and getting A’s in them, so the quality is definitely in doubt.
Jimmy62
November 23rd, 2010
8:32 am
Southern Comfort: There was a very popular voucher program in D.C. that allowed a lot of kids to escape the crappy schools they were stuck in. Obama and the Democrats wiped it out the second they had the chance, and sent most of those kids back to the bad schools they worked so hard to escape. So you say WTF, and I say yes indeed, liberals in many places are killing successful voucher programs so that kids get stuck in bad schools. It’s not the right killing school choice, it’s the left, and teacher’s unions. That’s a fact, and D.C. isn’t the only place it’s happened.
Gale
November 23rd, 2010
8:32 am
@@, The problem is that we pack kids into the same environment regardless of their desires and goals. The ones labeled as disruptive, or not wanting to learn, probably DO want to learn, just not what is being taught. The are just as good, probably just as intelligent and motivated. We simply need to engage them differently in the learning experience.
USinUK
November 23rd, 2010
8:35 am
@@ – “Sorry, but I don’t have time for your silliness.”
I think that people should take responsibility for their actions.
if you are a constant disruption in the classroom – if teachers are spending more time correcting your behavior than actually TEACHING – then you need to be removed from the classroom and put somewhere else so that the kids who want to be there and who want to learn, CAN.
USMC
November 23rd, 2010
8:37 am
The Truth:
I was born and raised in Atlanta and graduated from an Atlanta Public School.
If Beverly Hall were white, she would have been FIRED a long time ago and rightfully so.
She is the result of Affirmative Action.
The Atlanta Public Schools are run by an incompetent Black Racist City Government who have gridlocked the APS in Racial Politics and Affirmative Action Results.
Now, I didn’t vote for Kasim Reed, but I think he is good for the city and will hopefully break up some of the Racial gridlock that has hijacked Atlanta.
Diversity doesn’t just mean “Black”.
Our schools need to get back to the 3 R’s: “R”eading, w”R”iting, and a”R”ithmetic.
Gale
November 23rd, 2010
8:37 am
USinUK, thanks for that note on “A levels”. Now I understand what Hogwarts “OWLS” are all about.
Marie
November 23rd, 2010
8:39 am
Jay how can you continue to write that Beverly Hall improved the graduaton rate among APS students? The graduation rate has been called into question by your own paper. According to the article printed by your own paper a few months ago the whole graduation rate is just smoke and mirrors in which the APS has used deception, trickery, and deceit in order to rig the numbers. And in fact may have actually caused some students who could have graduated not to graduate because they were sent packing to underperforming schools.
Ragnar Danneskjöld
November 23rd, 2010
8:41 am
Good morning USinUK @ 7:15. I regret to advise you that you missed my point, which is “government is always corrupt, and the corruption is always greatest at the top.” It is a function of the lack of accountability, which accountability is the singular strength of the free market.
You query whether that means free markets are exempt from corruption, and of course the answer is qualified. Free markets are self-correcting, which discourages “cheating.” However there are always corporatists – almost uniformly leftists and democrats – who would use the guns of government to obtain an advantage over their competition, and use the government as a means to control the market.
USinUK
November 23rd, 2010
8:42 am
Gale – a little lagniappe …
you take your GCSEs when you’re 16 – that stands for General Certification of Secondary Education. These are simpler and show basic knowledge in any of the subjects you want to sit for (again – math, science, music, languages, etc). In the UK, you can legally leave school when you are 16, so kids will take them to show prospective employers that they have basic proficiency in those areas.
Bosch
November 23rd, 2010
8:43 am
“The are just as good, probably just as intelligent and motivated. We simply need to engage them differently in the learning experience.”
From my experience, there are two reasons for disruptive behavior — sometimes its because these kids are usually MORE intelligent than their peers – maybe not on the scales of a standardized test.
Or two because they just do not get the material they are seeing and act out.
But in both instances, they are bored. In every case, there needs to be seperate evaluation to see what the problem is. But, many times, the school does not have the funds to do it.
You simply can not choke a system to death with defunding it and then claim it doesn’t work.
Southern Comfort
November 23rd, 2010
8:43 am
Jimmy
Why do we even need voucher programs? Why not take the existing schools and ensure they are doing exactly what they are supposed to be doing instead of rerouting money to somewhere else? I have no problem with people switching schools, but you can not voucher 100% of the kids out of a poor performing school.
Our current systems is a broken system. There’s more emphasis placed on test scores than there is on actual learning. I’m not well versed in all things relating to the educational system, but I do know that kids today are not taught the same as I was, and I have yet to attend my 20th year reunion from high school. If you give a child a solid foundation in learning, you help that child more than any amount of money could ever do. However, if you teach that child to take a test, they never learn how to study and learn, and you’ve crippled that child for life.
I have a 2 year old that can speak English, a little Spanish, and she’s learning to count in Japanese. Our family is not one of the elite private school attending, country club living types either. My wife and I are trying to instill a love of learning into her early and we work daily to ensure she keeps that love going strong. Education starts in the home, and it starts early. For all the emphasis on things to help kids, I have yet to hear the public service announcements or billboards preaching that. It’s not the education system that’s failing the kids, it’s the family that’s doing the damage.
Bosch
November 23rd, 2010
8:43 am
And off topic, but when did NK attack SK?
TaxPayer
November 23rd, 2010
8:44 am
You query whether that means free markets are exempt from corruption, and of course the answer is qualified. Free markets are self-correcting, which discourages “cheating.” However there are always corporatists – almost uniformly leftists and democrats – who would use the guns of government to obtain an advantage over their competition, and use the government as a means to control the market.
Looks scripted to me. Dare I say, almost standardized.
USinUK
November 23rd, 2010
8:46 am
Ragnar – “Free markets are self-correcting, which discourages “cheating.” ”
the problem with the concept of markets being “self-correcting” is the length of time – and the numbers of people who are destroyed – before the “market” catches on to malfeasance.
see: Bernie Madoff.
see: Enron.
see: WorldCom.
(the list goes on)
I think that your statement “government is always corrupt” is incredibly facile to the point of falsehood. just as I would never say that the corporate market is ALWAYS corrupt – or that the examples I listed above mean that ALL corporations are corrupt – you can’t take say government is ALWAYS corrupt or that everyone who works with government is corrupt.
Southern Comfort
November 23rd, 2010
8:46 am
Ragnar Danneskjöld
November 23rd, 2010
8:41 am
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rX7wtNOkuHo
Paulo977
November 23rd, 2010
8:46 am
USinUK
@6:49am…11:00 am Brit time?
Darn right …at least wait till the young ones have grown and developed , may be by 4th grade, to intnroduce them to the sorry world of intense competition …reward and punishment!!!
grading bookman
November 23rd, 2010
8:47 am
Erasing the Atlanta School cheating and lying scandal requires sharpened, standardized remedies: hold nothing back, or teachers shall be forced to hold more students back. Remember when the only problem we had in our schools were food fights, spitballs and passing notes? We demonized those activities and created the truant delinquents maurading the halls now. And those are just the teachers. you should see what the students are doing.
Raise taxes. Pay teachers even more, so they can afford the lifestyle all corrupt officials aspire to.
What nobody seems to understand is what a damnable measure of our society the Atlanta School Scandal is. We are corrupt down to the chalk in our bones, man.
We should all have our ears boxed. Especially Bookman for writing about a scandal he clearly didn’t study for. I give his piece a C+. The textbook I would recommend for him is “Dunce Cap Making for Dummies.”
Merry Xmas, bookman, man. Have some eggnog spiked with castor oil. do some deep background next time and maybe your blog will inspire and appeal to the stem and core of applied teaching techniques.
Bosch
November 23rd, 2010
8:47 am
USinUK,
“I think that your statement “government is always corrupt” is incredibly facile to the point of falsehood. ”
or as Obi Wan Kenobe said, “Only the Sith speaks in absolutes”
GALE!! Have you seen the new HP movie? Three words. Oh. My. God.
USinUK
November 23rd, 2010
8:48 am
Bosch – are you sure that it wasn’t Yoda “Sith absolutes only speaks”?
Bob
November 23rd, 2010
8:49 am
Most ATL schools have sucked for a long time. But lets go after the tea party, it’s either their fault or George Bushs fault, we can’t blame the dems that have run the show in Atlanta for over 100 years.
USinUK
November 23rd, 2010
8:50 am
Paulo – 8:46 – I just think entirely too much time is taken away from lessons for these kids to spend in standardized tests … limit them to 3 over the course of their K-12 career – one in the middle of elementary school to make sure they are tracking where they should be … one in middle school … one in high school …
Southern Comfort
November 23rd, 2010
8:50 am
I think Ragnar just called me corrupt… And all this time I thought I was a good officer. Man, the things you learn at Bookman’s….
Southern Comfort
November 23rd, 2010
8:52 am
UnU @ 8:50
I think that was about how it was when I came thru school. May have been 4…
Curious Observer
November 23rd, 2010
8:52 am
I will disagree that standardized testing is a problem per se, and I will candidly acknowledge here that I devoted almost twenty years of my career to supervising the development of standardized tests. If there is a problem in the tests used to measure the performance of students, that problem lies in the lack of validity in the tests, rather than in standardized testing itself.
How many of you ever saw one of the tests used at APS? How many of you are even aware of who developed those tests? How many of you are aware of the methodology used in the development of those tests?
I daresay there are few here who could respond affirmatively to those questions. You examine the results with a microscope, as though test development is irrelevant. A few of you dismiss standardized testing as emphasizing memory of dates or obscure facts. Yet, a really good achievement test should measure reasoning ability as well as the application of facts.
Most standardized tests are developed by amateurs in the testing field. Oh, sure, those amateurs have access to psychometricians, but those psychometricians are largely concerned with the data produced within the test results. It is safe to say that most of those who develop the test items have absolutely zero training in test development. As the shade-tree mechanic would say, there’s your problem.
If you really want measurement of knowledge, make sure that the test developers are fully trained and qualified to do the measuring. Don’t act as though the tests themselves come from Zeus.
atlanta mom
November 23rd, 2010
8:53 am
@jimmy62
That voucher program that was so popular in DC–was that the program that was open to only 2% of the school population? Was that the program that resulted in two thirds of the students attending religious schools because that was all they could afford with the voucher? That program? That program which could never be implemented on a large scale basis?
Bob
November 23rd, 2010
8:53 am
Jay, you forgot to mention the scam Hall ran when it came to graduation rates. Kid drops out, just say he transferred !
walter
November 23rd, 2010
8:53 am
Oh what a tangled web we weave….
Paulo977
November 23rd, 2010
8:54 am
Bosch @8:43am
re: ” disruptive behaviour “? Spoken as someone who knows what EDUCATION is all about!!! Thank you
pencilneck
November 23rd, 2010
8:57 am
Must have been a mistake–Grab an eraser
Paulo977
November 23rd, 2010
8:59 am
USinUK @8:50am
GREAT !!!!!
AmVet
November 23rd, 2010
9:00 am
Free markets are self-correcting, which discourages “cheating.”
In light of what has happened over the past few years, I am not even sure if there is an adjective to adequately describe how preposterous this statement is.
I honestly believe, the poster writes this nonsense to make himself alone, feel better about living under a rock.
Because, please tell me that nobody else buys into this $3,000,000,000,000.00 lie…
USinUK
November 23rd, 2010
9:00 am
Sorry SoCo – you’re THE MAN … you’re keeping us DOWN … and you’re corrupt and have no moral compass
jm
November 23rd, 2010
9:01 am
Well Jay, I’d say the column is generally on target if a bit over simplified. Ok, enough with the rear view mirror.
How is APS going to attract a decent superintendent while it is in the middle of losing accreditation, in a position to possibly be taken over by the governor, and has a board clearly incapable of making any decisions because it is so divided?
I don’t have the answers. But some smart people in positions of power better have solutions or we are in very deep trouble.
The testing problem can be fixed. I don’t know how one fixes the governance problem.
USinUK
November 23rd, 2010
9:01 am
AmVet – 9:00 – my $$$ is on Ragnar blaming the victims (they should have researched more!)
Gale
November 23rd, 2010
9:02 am
Bosch re: HP, I’ll up your word count to 5. “That was exciting.” and “Bored now.” Like the last book, there was too much slow moving.
TnGelding
November 23rd, 2010
9:03 am
Why do we continue to place our children on those big yellow monsters before daylight when we can bring the best educators in the world into our homes?
TH
November 23rd, 2010
9:04 am
Today is November 23.
BONER, WHERE ARE THE JOBS CREATED FROM THE BUSH TAX CUTS FOR THE WEALTHY?
Southern Comfort
November 23rd, 2010
9:07 am
Sorry SoCo – you’re THE MAN … you’re keeping us DOWN … and you’re corrupt and have no moral compass
Guess I can’t rage against the machine anymore since I am the machine.
RB from Gwinnett
November 23rd, 2010
9:07 am
The only way to end this garbage is to immediatly terminate everybody involved right up to Ms. Hall. Until we start holding these people accountable with their jobs and reputations, nothing will change.
See Charlie Rangel….
USinUK
November 23rd, 2010
9:08 am
SoCo
http://jazzartistrynow.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/TheBorg.jpg
s’all I’m sayin
AmVet
November 23rd, 2010
9:09 am
Ex-pat, to my earlier post about how the neo-cons live in an idealized, romanticized past where modern realities and truths dare not impede, this mentality is truly shocking.
Example after example after example after example where the very antithesis of that bizarre claims is the common place reality.
Vast and massive corporate crime in this nation. Unchecked and apparently, even unquestioned!
Culminating in that disaster of September 2008, aka “a sustained orgy of greed and reckless behavior.”
And to your point it is the neo-con model to blame the victims and hold faultless these Titans of Malfeasance and Criminal Negligence.
Or as I call it, “Vilify the weak and glorify the wicked”…
Bosch
November 23rd, 2010
9:09 am
Looks like RB is still having trouble quitting Jay.
AmVet
November 23rd, 2010
9:12 am
SoCo, that reminds me of that commercial about the older white executive railing against “the man”, until his young employee noted that he is “the man”!
So now that you are “the man”, I may have to reconsider whether you are one of the good guys or not!
USinUK
November 23rd, 2010
9:12 am
AmVet – what they fail to acknowledge is the pain and suffering it takes for the market to right itself –
again: Bernie Madoff.
yes, he was eventually found out – but definitely not by the market. and how many more people would have lost how many more millions of dollars before it came to light.
Southern Comfort
November 23rd, 2010
9:13 am
TnGel
Riding the banana is a rite of passage in our family. You’re not officially a student until you’ve rode the banana
@@
November 23rd, 2010
9:16 am
Gale:
The ones labeled as disruptive, or not wanting to learn, probably DO want to learn, just not what is being taught.
Agreed!
But completely segregating? I’m not in favor.
What one group is learning can be of value to the other, and vice versa. They should share the same classroom at some point during the school day in order to bring about common goals.
Do that, and we won’t end up with a bunch of left-wingers who think one’s intellectual prowess is more valuable than the others. Show me a brain surgeon who can fix his own car, and I’ll show you a well-rounded individual.
USinUK:
Anyone who celebrates royalty, as though they were a part of, causes me to question that individual’s intelligence.
I’m outta here.
Southern Comfort
November 23rd, 2010
9:16 am
Looks like RB is still having trouble quitting Jay.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_p1Q1qCfXrQ
AmVet
November 23rd, 2010
9:17 am
Yep, the cons love their criminals. Provided they are of the white collar variety…
And rest assured Bosch and SoCo, if there is ANY kind of racial element to the subject at hand, guys like RB will seize upon it and always try to indict any and all other elements thereof.
You can pretty much take it to the (offshore) bank…
Southern Comfort
November 23rd, 2010
9:17 am
AmVet
That means I have to turn in my hood cred now. That bites!!
USinUK
November 23rd, 2010
9:22 am
@@ – “Anyone who celebrates royalty, as though they were a part of, causes me to question that individual’s intelligence”
I celebrate loads of things – it’s called being a part of the community of man.
“They should share the same classroom at some point during the school day in order to bring about common goals”
homeroom. that’s what it’s there for.
RB from Gwinnett
November 23rd, 2010
9:22 am
Jay, what is the current graduation rate within the APS?
RB from Gwinnett
November 23rd, 2010
9:22 am
And what was it 10 years ago?
Gale
November 23rd, 2010
9:33 am
Right, homeroom. The only problem I have with sharing the same facility for the college bound and the vo-ed students can be solved by instilling a respect for the trades. When I was in school was the start of the “everyone who wants to succeed must go to college” model. It destroyed vo-ed.
Gotta go do work. Have fun.
RAPbama
November 23rd, 2010
9:33 am
If Beverly Hall thinks that public schools can totally overcome the socioeconomic status of its students, she is mistaken. That will never happen. Education begins in the home, or so it was once said. Now, all the responsibility for school failure is being laid on teachers and parents are no longer part of the equation. What liberal nonsense.
Uptopian thinking of the left runs into its biggest challenge with public schools. They have to blame someone for the failure of their ideas, but blaming teachers is gutless, clueless and wrong. The young teachers in my family tell me they spend 75% of their time just maintaining order. How can you teach in that atmospere?
USinUK
November 23rd, 2010
9:35 am
“The young teachers in my family tell me they spend 75% of their time just maintaining order. How can you teach in that atmospere?”
and this is my point.
USinUK
November 23rd, 2010
9:37 am
“Uptopian thinking of the left runs into its biggest challenge with public schools. They have to blame someone for the failure of their ideas, but blaming teachers is gutless, clueless and wrong”
oh, and RAP, show me one “utopian lefty” here who blames teachers.
g’head.
we’ll wait.
Matti
November 23rd, 2010
9:39 am
AmVet: Or as I call it, “Vilify the weak and glorify the wicked”…
Bingo. This is the key to the Republicans’ overwhelming success over the past few decades. It’s certainly true here in Georgia!
The Democrats make the fatal mistake of appealing to the voters’ better nature, common sense, rational thinking, and our civic duty as citizens of this great nation. What’s appealing about THAT?
Republicans win the lifelong loyalty of their followers because they do exactly the opposite: They VALIDLATE SIN. They tell the voters, “Greed is healthy! Your prejudice is valid. Your hatred is justified. Selfishness is the natural state of man, the way God intended! (Galt is a good guy… heh…) You are SO RIGHT to JUDGE your neighbor!” I spent enough time in Baptist Sunday Schools to know these things are SINS. But nobody wants to be chastized for their sin. Call them “virtues” and you’re in like Flynn! Woooooooo!
Then they have the nerve to tell us God is gonig to judge us harshly if we don’t persecute gay people, as IF it’s okay to ignore the documentation of what Jesus [allegedly] said, while using something he never talked about against one’s neighbor. (And people here are offended when I say, “CHRIST!”)
Nofreecheese
November 23rd, 2010
9:44 am
GHETTO POLITICS! APS is a means of dispensing cash to people who support the existing political class; not of educating children! Bookman, the “emperor has no clothes”! She is an absolute fraud! Michelle Rhee, the former superintendent of the Washington D.C. schools, is imminently more qualified than Hall. She fought and scraped for progress and improvement. The improvements she attained were incremental; but considering the socioeconomic obstacles her students faced, they were monumental. In the end, she was fired b/c she wasn’t black and interfered w/ the political class’ ability to reward political allies. Oh, Beverly Hall comes along and says “abra cadabra” and snaps her fingers and APS is magically transformed. Bookman–admit it–there are cultural deficiencies which you are fostering. Please note, I did not use the term “racial deficiencies”.
Mr Right
November 23rd, 2010
9:44 am
Just checking in to see what junk Jay is copying and pasting today !
RAPbama
November 23rd, 2010
9:48 am
Well, what folks think on this blog doesn’t matter much. What matters is the thinking of the politicians, unfortunately. Remember the inner city school in Rhode Island this past year? It was not performing well and the “solution” was to fire 100% of the teachers. That kind of thinking will not help our schools. My mom was a high school chemistry teacher and she never thought too much of the “professional educationist” crowd, so I am probably biased. However, their track record of late is pretty dismal.
USinUK
November 23rd, 2010
9:49 am
“In the end, she was fired b/c she wasn’t black ”
mmm … a tad oversimplified.
first of all, she wasn’t fired … she resigned.
secondly, race had nothing to do with the flack she got – she pi$$ed off teachers no small amount by … you know … FIRING a couple hundred of them
RAPbama
November 23rd, 2010
9:55 am
“In the end, she was fired b/c she wasn’t black.”
Unfortunately, that is totally true, succinct and dead on accurate. I wish things weren’t that way, but every distinct group of humans is subject to herd mentallity. If you deny that, you are crazy.
USinUK
November 23rd, 2010
9:56 am
oh … I don’t play cricket, either … does this mean I’m not allowed to celebrate the opening of The Ashes???
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/cricket/default.stm
if only @@ could set forth some kind of guidelines on what one is allowed to celebrate or not …
USinUK
November 23rd, 2010
9:56 am
RAP – considering she wasn’t fired, that’s not even 50% true …
Southern Comfort
November 23rd, 2010
9:58 am
In the end, she was fired b/c she wasn’t black and interfered w/ the political class’ ability to reward political allies.
To quote Bosch: “Oh my freaking God!”
RAPbama
November 23rd, 2010
9:58 am
Technically you are right. But she wouldn’t quit that job unless she knew more than we know. Being right by the letter of the law is useless if the law is flawed, don’t you think?
jm
November 23rd, 2010
10:00 am
Michelle Rhee. Michelle Rhee. Michelle Rhee.
USinUK
November 23rd, 2010
10:00 am
RAP – scroll up. she was instrumental in the firing of 200 teachers in DC schools.
race had nothing to do with it. she pi$$ed off the teachers.
Jack
November 23rd, 2010
10:05 am
Show me a civil servant that’s more concerned with the mission than the story and I’ll show you a saint.
Southern Comfort
November 23rd, 2010
10:06 am
Show me a civil servant that’s more concerned with the mission than the story and I’ll show you a saint.
Should I change my screen name to St. Southern Comfort then?
USinUK
November 23rd, 2010
10:09 am
SoCo … the patron saint of ghost porn
RAPbama
November 23rd, 2010
10:10 am
I’m a strong advocate of teachers, but teachers of late come off the bottom of our academic output, unlike Japan, Korea, Finland, etc. Would you want to teach in this climate? I would not and that is sad. There are thousands of teachers in D.C. and surely 200 of them were truly lousy. And I wish that were not true.
Joe the Plutocrat (the artist formerly known as paleo-neo-Carlinist)
November 23rd, 2010
10:14 am
“…you go to school where you learn to read n write, so you can walk into the county bank and sign away your life…” Steve Earle. public education makes sense on paper, but 75-80% of students are warehoused while their parents work. they are not “educated” so much as indoctrinated to become dutiful, consumers, which contains some irony, as both “producers” and “moochers” consume corporate America’s goods/services. maybe 25-30% seek intellectual growth, but sadly enough, the majority of these “learners” are more interested in learning how to “game” the system (join the plutocracy), as opposed to overthrowing the system. and even those bent on “revolution” are generally marginalized or become artists who care eventually “bought off” for short money (even my namesake)
peaches
November 23rd, 2010
10:14 am
The whole board need to be wiped CLEAN. YES MS. HALL NEED TO LEAVE AND THE REST ALSO.
It’s time for new people with new ideals. I think teachers put up with alot of mess COMING FROM CHILDREN HOMES, SOME TEACHERS ARE CURSED OUT, JUST TREATED BAD.
AND THE TEACHERS DO NOT GET THE SUPPORT THEY NEED. TEACHERS NEED TO BE PAID AND PAID WELL.
BUT WHO EVER TAKE OVER SHOULD LOOK OUT FOR THE TEACHERS AND PAY THEM WELL.
But parents should take pride in there kids education, make sure they do there homework, and make them mine. When your kids are out of control they make the class out of control, and then the teacher lose control.
jm
November 23rd, 2010
10:15 am
well peaches – you may get your way. Governor is in a position to do so if he wants.
USinUK
November 23rd, 2010
10:16 am
RAP – the issue isn’t whether the teachers were good or bad – the issue is whether Rhee was “fired” (she wasn’t) because she wasn’t black (again, not the case)
marky mark
November 23rd, 2010
10:16 am
I have so many thoughts on this subject, that I am not sure where to start. The problem, to me, is that teachers have no control.
1) Allow teachers to decide if a student is truly disruptive. In the 9th grade, a friend of mine was, what we then called, hyperactive. He just couldnt sit still. Finally, one teacher of ours let him wander around the back of the class as long as he was quiet. He could walk, stand, move, whatever, and he “aced” the course. He just couldnt sit still. However, if the student is disruptive, he is gone, and the teacher decides when/if he can come back. The Admin needs to support the teacher, and deflect the parents anger.
2) The admin has got to set the tone for the school, determine if a teacher fails, and remove the teacher if they cant teach. But get out of the way of good teachers, and support them in their efforts.
3) Parents, parents, parents. Too many parents use the school as dumping grounds. This opens the whole socio-economic problems of single parents, babies having babies, etc. Until we change our culture so that out of wedlock and young births are frowned upon, this is never going to get better. But we need parents involved in the schools. You can make arguments that the cost of living makes it where both parents now have to work – and that cost of living can be reflected in everything from the cost of government to the desire for more luxuries; but until adults deflect their desires in order to spend more time and attention on their kids, again, this is not gonna get better. But this is the biggest single factor that is missing today, parental involvement at all levels, in the school and at home.
4) READ to your children. Video games for two hours? fine….now read for Three. Start them with anything from the Dr Seuss to the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew, but teach (not MAKE, this is fun!!)them to enjoy reading. Have a reading night with no TV. Thank God that my mother (widow) instilled in all her kids (3) a love of reading. It made school SO much easier….
Most of this is obvious…..and should work in conjunction with testing, etc. My sister, who is a professional actress, sucked on tests. She was the first candidate to kick off the Masters program in Drama at GA State – (she declined and moved to NY for theatre). But she would have never gotten her degree if some of her professors hadn’t realized she had a thing about testing (we still dont understand, truly) but they assigned her extra credit coursework to offset this issue. This is an example of effective teaching and student management.
Southern Comfort
November 23rd, 2010
10:17 am
SoCo … the patron saint of ghost porn
Even Casper has wants and desires…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCHFVTQKqdQ
RAPbama
November 23rd, 2010
10:19 am
Well, according the Rhee, the issue was clearly because the teachers were lousy. We are at loggerheads, you and I. That is a Brit term is it not? As usual, I can’t convince anybody of anything, least of all my own family, and am just lucky to keep myself in line. Have a good one, USinUK.
Matti
November 23rd, 2010
10:25 am
marky mark,
Good suggestions. Can we run you for school superintendent in four years? I also cannot understand the modern obsession with video games. I watched my friends’ children spaz out on everything from Bandicoot to Grand Theft Auto. Then here comes the whine, “I had to take my son’s cell phone away because his grades are in the toilet!” Really? Who could have predicted that — when he was four, and spent three hours a day on the playstation? We never had a playstation, x-box, or anything of the sort. We had books, honors-level classes, sports, and student government instead. I stand by my decision to reject the mindless pop-culture consumerism that is turning us into a nation of ignorant corporate slaves.
jm
November 23rd, 2010
10:27 am
We need Rhee. We need Rhee.
RAPbama
November 23rd, 2010
10:31 am
marky mark, you make way too much sense for a blog. If I were King, you would run the Atlanta schools.
marky mark
November 23rd, 2010
10:31 am
Matti, I agree. I think that they do need to have some interests in the things their friends do like video games (so that they are not ostracized as being strange)just as me and my friends obsessed over baseball growing up; however, now is the time to teach balance. A kid that READS Harry Potter vs seeing the movies is going to get a totally different experiance. My grandkids are 2, 4 and 7 – I have already bought them all the Hardy Boys, working on Nancy Drew for the 4 year old, and bought the boxed set of Harry Potter for when they are old enough for those…..
Matti
November 23rd, 2010
10:36 am
marky mark,
My daughter not only read all the HP books, (and ripped through them again every summer) but she now always reads any book for which she is going to see the movie, before seeing the movie. My first question is always, “How was the movie compared to the book?” She’s also a big fan of Vonnegut, which makes me proud.
marky mark
November 23rd, 2010
10:40 am
for teacher pay, I am going to be a little bit of devil’s advocate. One of my first loves, when I was 20, retired last year from the Glynn county school system (think Brunswick/St Simons). Cathy was a music teacher for 30 years. When Cathy got her Masters, she was got a huge pay raise. She retired with a salary of $65K, teaching music to 1st – 7th graders. Sorry folks, I love her dearly, but a grammer school teacher teaching music making $65k. No county/state government can sustain that type of pay scale. And when I hear clamoring for increasing teachers pay, we have been doing that for some years now.
marky mark
November 23rd, 2010
10:41 am
Matti, believe it or not, because of my love for Army comics when I was ten, I am an amateur historian (and pretty good at it) of WW II. One day I want to go back to school and get a history degree in it….all because I love reading comics….
marky mark
November 23rd, 2010
10:42 am
I have somewhere upwards of 1000 books on WWI. I collect first editions that were written in the late 40’s and early 50’s of firsthand accounts (or at least I DID before last years financial disaster, but thats another story!!)
marky mark
November 23rd, 2010
10:43 am
that shoulda been WW II
Matti
November 23rd, 2010
10:54 am
marky mark,
OK, but I’m betting your teacher friend did not start out at $65K, nor the equivalent of that amount for the times. Am I right in assuming that it took her more than 25 years to reach that pay level? That used to be a lot of money, but I can ASSURE you that $65K is not much money when you have a mortgage and kids. Trust… there’s nothing left over at the end of the month. Zip, zilch, notta.
The good news is, with the advent of the 21st-Century Global Plutocracy, and the resulting widespread wage suppression in this country, we should begin getting better-educated, more qualified applicants into the teaching pool, now that the opportunities for those with advanced degrees to actually make a decent living are drying up faster than the belief that in America, anything is possible if you just work hard.
BTW, I also read tons of books on WWII (and still watch the movies every Memorial Day weekend!)
Nofreecheese
November 23rd, 2010
11:09 am
@ USinUK: Apparently you lack an awareness of how things work. Politically appointees are almost never fired–it’s made clear to them that they are no longer welcome and they resign. Whether it’s due to dereliction of duty, incompetence, or in the case of Michelle Rhee, politics, “resigned” is merely a euphemism for “terminated” or “quit” under pressure. You’re partially right in that she wasn’t fired for lack of pigment–being racially black; she refused to go along to get along–to conform to the black political culture of DC. If non-black progressives/liberals would address the deficienies and corruption of black culture and politics w/ the same zeal they attack corporate America, the situation would improve.
Mary Elizabeth
November 23rd, 2010
11:20 am
Good article that got to the essence of the story: The Story vs. The Mission
The Story: “Power corrupts. . .”
The Mission: Continues. . .
Since a picture says so much more than words, I will show what resulted from a reading test given to 9th graders – 450 students each year – in a black, suburban high school.
.
From these 10 students’ results, use your imaginations to triple what I have shown to make 30 students for a typical classroom. Ask yourself how one teacher can effectively reach these 30 kids. And this represents one teacher’s class results. Multiply that by 15 for all the 9th graders.
Sally = Readding on 6th grade level
Sam = 5th grade level
Dahlia = 7th
Pete = 8th
Dexter = 6th
Babs = 4th
Johnson = 10th
Alex = 12th
LaShonda = 9th
Wilson = 5th
Mary Elizabeth
November 23rd, 2010
11:22 am
When I shifted spaces, I got a typo – Should be “Reading” not “Readding.”
Mary Elizabeth
November 23rd, 2010
11:32 am
Recently I asked the minister of a very large, protestant North Atlanta area suburb church – mostly Republican, mostly white – to consider developing a project whereby his church members could travel to a very large, protestest South DeKalb area suburban church – mostly Democratic, mostly black – in order to tutor the children of the black church in their individualized reading skills – on their individual levels.
I told the minister that that project would not only enhance the lives of the children, but it would do so much to break up the rigid stereotypical thinking we have about blacks, whites, Republicans, Democrats, South Atlanta, North Atlanta not having connections or caring about one another. Especially I thought the white minister should make the gesture to reach out first, because the black children had the most need in the area of reading.
Results of my conversation with the minister: No interest on his part. He had other outreach going on.
Matti
November 23rd, 2010
11:58 am
Mary Elizabeth,
I think your idea is awesome! You must live in my little corner of the world. They’re eaten up with their disdain for the south county, and the determination to break away. Hard for me to understand, since our services, roads, and schools up here are great! Yet they begrudge those who have much less…. while sitting in pews praising God. I’ve accepted that I just don’t fit in.
Mary Elizabeth
November 23rd, 2010
12:36 pm
Matti @ 11:58
Be glad that you do not fit it – it speaks well for your depth of spirit and simple kindness. Your 9:39 post speaks many truths. Thank you for it.
Tancred
November 23rd, 2010
1:32 pm
“…you will hear outraged cries of racism since most of the people involved will be black.”
Indeed. The one commonality for most of Atlanta’s woes (dysfunctional governance, smash n’ grab robberies, foreclosures, mortgage fraud, cronyism, poor school performance, chicken bones everywhere) seems to be race-related. But people don’t talk about urban black culture, unless they want to “celebrate” some indigenous artistic expression like hip hop or rap (much of which is part of the dysfunction anyway). Until a cultural movement can change the extant culture, more and more people (including the blacks that have assimilated into the mainstream) will leave for the burbs (just like this paper). And wait until our already emptying office towers become vacant. Atlanta will be the new Detroit, despite our more varied economic base. Who would hire a product of the ATL schools? What college would matriculate the same unless it was one of those “fake” colleges you see on the MARTA?
BADA BING
November 23rd, 2010
1:41 pm
I think they are teaching those kids effectively. Teaching them how to cheat and play the system.
Nofreecheese
November 23rd, 2010
3:13 pm
@ Mary Elizabeth; I appreciate your kind heart and desire to do good, but it’s naive. Your proposal to set up missions in “South Dekalb” or other predominately poor black areas of metro Atlanta wouldn’t be embraced by those residents; they would characterize it as paternalistic, condescending, and patronizing–and would imply you’re a racist for suggesting it. You can keep your middle class WHITE ideals and values; all their political leaders want is your money! Never mind that your ideals and culture largely determined your higher socioeconomic status.
Matti
November 23rd, 2010
3:21 pm
Nofreecheese,
You have a point, but not if it’s done right. I used to be a literacy tutor. The young woman I tutored did not announce the world that some white woman was helping her learn to read. I doubt many people even knew where she was in those hours. She learned, though. She made it through grade 11 in a school system that failed her. All she needed was some one-on-one. I wish someone had been there for her sooner.
Fred
November 23rd, 2010
4:28 pm
Mary Elizabeth:
John Hamilton of Sozo church in Tucker, a small church, has a youth group made up predominately of impoverished black kids. The congregation is predominately white but mixed none the less. The church is in walking distance of Tucker high. He and others tutor all the kids that want help either every day or on some set schedule. (At least they used to, aven’t spoken to him in a while). If you want to help, I’m sure he would appreciate your offer. His BIGGEST ministry as best as I can see it is those kids. You should give him a call. He’s a great guy as is his youth minister.
His church probably bring in less money than you mega church pays the preacher every year, but they get the job done.
Fred
November 23rd, 2010
4:29 pm
You can find them on Facebook. Sozo New Covenant I think………..
Mary Elizabeth
November 23rd, 2010
4:53 pm
Nofreecheese @3:13
You are so mistaken. I am a retired teacher who worked in leadership in a south Dekalb high school for 16 years. Did you see my chart and comments posted at 11:20 a.m.?
I worked to enhance black students’ reading for all of those years. I also worked with the parents of those students after school hours – of my own volition. They never felt that I was condescending or patronizing because I wanted to help them. The parents, in fact, appreciated what I was doing to help. And we did help, significantly.
At one of my meetings after hours, the parents were so inspired to raise money, that they passed the “hat” that evening to give their money for whatever reading needs I felt would serve the kids best. I think the main reason they were so inspired was that they knew I genuinely cared about them and had the knowledge and will to be helpful.
You write as if you are blinded by your preconceived ideas of how people will react. I was there. I saw firsthand how the black people responded to me, a white woman. I also gave inservice meetings to fellow teachers and spoke at county meetings on techniques I had used to enhance reading skills. I hardly think that all I had done in my career – and my suggestions to the minister – came from a naive base. In fact, it was my firsthand knowledge and experience with the problems in the black neighborhoods that gave me the authority with which to speak to the minister in detail. His wife thought I had an excellent idea. The minister was more politically attuned, I believe. However, we must free ourselves of political stereotyping if we ever care to break down race barriers and help others simply because the spirit within us wants to help others. It is as simple as that. Caring breaks down huge barriers. Political ends are self-serving for the most part.
It is so unfortunate when you make stereotypical statements that reinforce prejudice to others. It is I, not you, who has actually worked with the people you so malign and I can say to the readers how wrong you are in your assumptions.
To the readers: It is not true that you would be found to be condescending, racist, or patronizing if you wanted to help black kids in the south areas of Atlanta. It is not true that all they want is your money. In fact, if you want to call the local schools or churches there and volunteer to help the children, why not do so? I found that most people were so appreciative of the love I tried to give tto their children through my skills. But people know when you love them or you don’t. I never felt I was superior to anyone. I, in fact, I believe – deep within my soul – that we are all equal on this Earth under God. I was given certain talents, and I wanted to use my talents to offer whatever love and help I could to others in need. If that is naive, so be it. Then, this world could use more of that naivete. We are all part of human family. And that includes you, Nofreecheese.
Mary Elizabeth
November 23rd, 2010
5:02 pm
Fred @ 4:28
Thank you very much for your kind suggestion to me. Perhaps other readers will pick up on your suggestion and help the students. Literacy Action in Atlanta used to have the motto “Each One – Teach One” from a missionary who wrote a book of the same name. How much better our world would be if more thought like that.
Over my 35 year teaching career, as a Lead Teacher, and Reading Dept. Chair, I worked with thousands of students, and hundreds of teachers and parents. At this point in my life, I have a broader interest and am more focused on my writings which I hope will inspire others not just in reading – but in changing our world toward one that has deeper understanding of human nature, values kindness toward others, and transforms one’s own soul and that of others through love.
But I thank you, again, for taking the time, and for caring to write to me with your suggestion.
Fred
November 23rd, 2010
5:03 pm
Well I’ve pointed you in a direction that would gladly accept you gifts Mary. but I erred on the name. He prefers Tom over John. It’s a non traditional church but firmly bible based, none of that willow creek, “lie them to Jesus” crap. I found the web site:
http://www.sozoncf.com/Sozo_New_Covenant_Fellowship/Home.html
Follow the links under ministries to the youth page on face book. Contact Tom or Woodie…….
Fred
November 23rd, 2010
5:04 pm
Sorry, I started the post above before you posted your last one lol.
Nofreecheese
November 23rd, 2010
6:37 pm
@ Mary Elizabeth: I suppose you’re right; my “preconceived notions” and “prejudices” are entirely baseless and have no foundation in the real world. I will refrain from “maligning” the political class of school districts predominated by under-performing black children. WAKE UP AND SMELL THE COFFEE! Their schools suck and their political class puts themselves ahead of the children. The fact that good citizens like yourself are the only chance these children have validates my contention.
Fred
November 23rd, 2010
8:13 pm
So what is YOUR solution to the problem Nofreecheese? Sterilization? Euthanasia? Or maybe Mary Elizabeth’s?
The child doesn’t choose who bears it.
shirley
November 23rd, 2010
10:06 pm
Georgia would do well to emulate those APS successes that have been verified like those acknowledged by Secretary Duncan a few weeks ago. Such accomplishments at APS were unheard of a few years ago and still are across the state. Some might say mission accomplished for APS, story or not. I do.
Mary Elizabeth
November 23rd, 2010
11:49 pm
Nofreecheese @ 6:37 p.m.
If there is anyway that you could help to tutor some of the children you are speaking of, if not during the school day, then on a weekend day. evem once a month, I know that your heart would change and you would see the situation in a different light.
Please think about doing that, seriously. The students could use the support; their parents would appreciate your efforts; and we always receive in ways we cannot possibly imagine whenever we give.
Nofreecheese
November 24th, 2010
8:14 am
Mary Elizabeth: My heart truly goes out to these children. I wish I could help all of them before they cross that threshhold into adolescence at which point they’re almost impossible to fix. Once they cross the threshold from adolescence into adulthood and become the bad parents and corrupt political leaders that perpetuate this culture of mediocraty they have haved to be judged accordingly. One thing I know for certain: Throwing money at the problem doesn’t help. Inner cities such as NYC, Newark, and Atlanta spend much more per pupil than their better-performing suburban counterparts, yet have far lower academic achievement. How about school choice? These underperforming schools spend as much per pupil as even elite private schools.
Fred, “euthanasia”? No–this is murder. Sterilization? Maybe for someone like Octomom who imposed millions of dollars of costs on taxpayers b/c she exercised her choice to procreate. Odds are her “freedom” of procreation will continue to enslave the taxpayers. Obviously, we can’t sterilize people–but in some case it does have an undeniable appeal.