Two news articles
caught my eye today.
I don't care that
the Bills are playing in London.
I really don't care
about the Paul McCartney concert last night.
(John Lennon was a
better songwriter & musician anyway.)
And Benghazi – the
real crime there was the NATO bombing raids.
It was an article on
the bottom of the front page about a youth caught up in a crime
spree, how he had family problems, and that the crimes that he is
accused of occurred while he was suspended from school. They
advocate daytime curfews for students. Seriously.
The other article
was on the top of page B1 – Superintendent Kriner Cash wants the
authority (or thinks he has the authority) to assign teachers to
schools in receivership. Schools that are struggling with students
grades, achievement, and test scores. We need to have good test
scores.
Teachers want
seniority protections while Kriner wants to be able to put “the
best person in the position.” He also wants to lengthen the school
day and school year.
Why don't teachers
want to go to the schools in receivership?And why aren't students achieving?
What's the physical
plant like? Is it old an decrepit? Poor heating in winter and
cooling in summer? Leaks in the ceiling? Are the desks ancient and
needing replacement? Are the halls the long tomb like corridors with
poor lighting? Are the lockers from the 1960's? Are the stairs safe?
What's the gym like? And the cafeteria? What about the auditorium?
I was in an auditorium in a Buffalo school during my student
teaching days and it was ghastly. It looked like it was out of the
1950's. When I drove 30 minutes away to Williamsville and looked at
their auditorium, it was sleek and modern looking with modern sound,
lighting, and projector equipment. And the seats were comfortable
enough to sleep in, not metal boards with worn out foam and faded
corduroy covering.
What about books?
Are the textbooks up to date (less than 5 years old)? Does it have a
library with up to date materials? Or are we looking at books that
talk about how one day man will make it to the moon. (Don't laugh –
a friend of mine in a rural district had a book that said that on the
shelf AND the Board of Education saw nothing wrong with it.) Does it
have a computer lab with modern computers?
One of the
receivership schools has a high concentration of ELL students –
English Language Learners. The school has somewhere around 40
different languages spoke by students and not enough translators to
help them. And I as a teacher am going to be held accountable for
that student's success? First they need to become proficient in the
language. This school should be exempt from all the testing
requirements, but that is another article for another day.
The student accused
of being involved in the crime spree was suspended and was dealing
with emotional problems after his step father died. He wants to
learn, according to his mother, but he needs help with outside issues
before he can learn. Who's offering him counselling?
Of course the
district and the state/federal government will say that it doesn't
have money for counselling staff. Or enough money to hire enough
teachers so that students aren't crammed into classes of 25+
students.
Turn the school over
to a charter and all of a sudden money is available from everywhere.
Public and private. And the school population becomes capped. Class
sizes are capped. New materials (books, computers and other
technology) come in like Noah's flood.
Where was this money
when the school was in receivership?
Where was this money
before the school went into receivership.
I have friends that
are doctors and they always tell me that “an ounce of prevention is
worth a pound of cure.” We all know that adage.
So why is the ounce
of prevention being withheld from the students?
If the school that
the student is assigned to is in horrible condition, a curfew isn't
going to make the student want to go there. And a longer school day
or year isn't going to do any more to help them learn.
And there needs to
be a better alternative to suspending students. Kicking them out of
a place that they don't want to be teaches them nothing. I had a
student that was suspended for four months for drug (pot) possession. They
received two hours of tutoring a day (that met the state's
requirement for education!) and they picked up extra shifts at a part
time job that they held. What did that student learn? Really? They
wanted to go back to being suspended.
There are so many
issues in the Buffalo school system – poverty, nutrition, school
conditions, transportation, and learning issues that bumping teachers
around isn't going to solve. And neither will a longer school day
and year.
Then again, you
would need to have taught in a classroom to know that.
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