By Antonio D. French
Filed Friday, December 29, 2006 at 8:04 PM
Two members of the city's school board stood by other community leaders today to defend their embattled school district from state takeover. Labels: Schools
Board members Bill Purdy and Donna Jones said that now that the district has changed course, after three years of de facto rule from the mayor's office, it is once again focused on gaining full accreditation -- which Purdy noted it is closer to attaining than many other districts around the state.
"The confusion you see on the board is a manufactured confusion," said Jones.
7 Comments:
The chaos and "maunfacured confusion" are strategies designed to sabotage the SLPS. I can only assume it is because the SLPS were presenting stiff competition for Slay's dream of quality charter and private schools in the city. So, we have the age old conservative 3 pronged approach: 1- starve the beast, 2- push for vouchers, 3- assume power no matter what means you use.
I had my own personal experience with vouchers while on vacation a few years ago. (I wanted to trace my ancestry. Since my great grandparents were illegal aliens there is a gap in our family tree.) The travel agent advised that I get vouchers for bed and breakfast stays for a week while I toured the country. I found a B & B my first night there and presented my voucher only to be told, “Oh, we don't’ accept vouchers. You’ll have to find a B & B that accepts them.”
On the surface, vouchers and school choice look like a good idea. If it comes to pass, families who hold vouchers will find that some school districts won't accept vouchers (does anyone remember the suburban school district that decided not to participate in the school desegregation program?) and other school districts will say that a voucher doesn't cover the total cost of educating a child. So, families will have to supplement their vouchers with cash.
This is rooted in racism. But, since racism is somewhat easier to identify and somewhat more difficult to pull off these days, racist institutions have decided to separate whites and minorities economically. Vouchers and school choice are a part of the same puzzle as “white flight” and the Northside/Southside separation in the city. Businesses are moving out into the suburbs, too. And like everything else in suburban life, a person must have a car to access goods and services.
In speaking about his book Shame of Nation, Jonathan Kozol states, “segregation is not simply a demographic dilemma or some kind of a bureaucratic mistake -- it is a conscious, deliberate and morally intolerable form of social policy. It doesn't happen by accident, it's not like a weather pattern. American segregation has been created by men and will only be undone by the acts of men and women. And that's why this book calls for another passionate political upheaval in this country. I hope I live to see it. I think there is a huge, untapped political restlessness in young people today, especially young teachers. And the teachers are the best witnesses to this crime because they see it in front of their eyes every day. You can't tell them that apartheid is a vestige of the past; you can't buy them off with sentimental stories of black kids crossing the color line 40 years ago.
Segregation is the oldest failed experiment in U.S. social history. We all know it didn't work in the century just past, and it's not going to work in the century ahead. And those that tell us otherwise are guilty of absolute deception. And if you read the newspapers, you know how it works -- every year there is a new plan. This year it's small segregated and unequal schools, last year it was segregated and unequal schools with scripted phonics texts and kids in uniforms, and another year it was segregated and unequal schools with self-help incantations plastered on the walls. There is a kind of evasive game being played by many liberals, which is basically, "Let's try another cute and poignant way to make these schools more 'innovative'" -- and the press loves this because it gives them something entirely unthreatening to promote. But if interesting and even benevolent innovations on the part of school reformers were able to create successful segregated schools, we would have learned it in the past 100 years.
It goes far beyond the question of academic concerns -- it goes to the question of whether we are going to be one society or two, whether our children will grow up to know one another as friends or view each other eternally as strangers, and especially as fearful strangers. But it also speaks directly to academic issues, because overwhelmingly segregated schools in the United States are the schools that have the lowest scores, the highest class sizes, the least experienced teachers, and the most devastating dropout rates
What's happened in many of these inner-city schools is that kids are no longer perceived as children but rather as economic units -- like pint-size deficits or assets for the American economy. No one asks whether they are good or they are happy. The only question is will they be useful to our corporations in a global marketplace. It is not like this in the suburbs. There, children are still valued because they are children and childhood is still regarded not merely as a prelude to utilitarian adulthood but as a perishable piece of life itself. In the inner-city schools, even though most of the teachers I know would like to do the same, there is tremendous pressure on the principals to view these children as products, with "value-added" skills that they pump into them. And if you view children as products, it makes sense to have a lot of product testing.”
Who knows who will pay for transporting a student? Families with vouchers aren't really going to have much of a choice compared to the way things are today. Well funded schools will be in remote locations if a family doesn’t have adequate transportation. We know mass transit won’t get a student to school in a timely manner if the school is in the suburbs. The SLPS has already sold many of it’s buildings. Who knows what will become of students who use vouchers when the voucher program ends or is cut back, i.e. Head Start, Desegregation? Will the SLPS be expected to maintain empty buildings as a backup in this event?
Vouchers are another form of currency. I'm immediately suspicious of anyone who wants to create a new currency because they are also the ones who determine it's value and they are the ones who control it. Let’s not be fooled again. More money is necessary. Not a different form of currency.
In The Nation Walter Mosley writes, “Where is the money? It's not in our bank accounts or serving our people. It's not in affordable housing, quality education or the development of sciences that would better the species and the planet. It's not being used for the purpose of global peace.
America is the wealthiest nation in the world, by far, but we the American people are not wealthy. We, most of us, live on the border of poverty. In the distance are towering silvery skyscrapers housing our corporations and our billionaires. But do not be fooled. This skyline does not belong to us. We are not partners in the corporation of America.
The money we make, the wealth we have created, is paradoxically beyond our reach. We live in a separate America. An America that is heated by oil that we may or may not be able to afford; an America that makes profit off of cigarettes, alcohol and imperialist incursions into underprivileged nations; an America that cares more for corporations than it does for its living, breathing citizens.”
I’m a white guy. And as such I’ve heard countless, normally unspoken racist comments from whites who assumed I believe the same things they do. The concept of "School Choice" was created by some spin doctor and is another way of saying, "We're not sure we can afford to educate you. Go away." In truth it comes from wealthy whites and wealthy white wannabes who are afraid of African-Americans; the people who participated in white flight and urban sprawl while moving businesses closer to them and farther from mass transit. The white churches have been mostly impotent and followed the money. Now we see the early stages of moving the schools West too.
The solution to this problem begins with the people in the St. Louis area if not the entire State proclaiming aloud the extent of their value of children. The next step is to attach a dollar sign to that proclamation and then to put that dollar amount directly into public schools. It appears today that we adults in the St. Louis area have devalued children and the measure is in the amount of money we put into the SLPS and the amount we simply toss into the air for
people to scramble for. I lived in Iowa for 4 years, 2 of them at the University of Iowa College of Education, and I can tell you how I know they value their children. Even the smallest of towns has a relatively new school building. The concept of school choice would be moot in Iowa. If a school needs funds people pay taxes and fund the school. Period. Do your own research and find out how Iowa K-12 measures up against the rest of the country.
Funding schools well and across the board will eliminate the necessity for choice. A family should expect a quality education in this State no matter where they live. If this doesn't happen, the solution is every family for itself for decades to come.
12/30/2006 3:10 PM
More money is fine, except the schools are not an isolated problem. The problem also include a tore up environment and a lack of economic opportunities in large areas surrounding these poor preforming schools.
The political types mouth concern for children over and over, but the only answer is to improve their economic and physical environment across the board. More money for schools will have a hard time overcoming the many other shortcomings in the students life.
Until the society commits itself to truly helping children with a well rounded approach, schools will continue to struggle.
12/31/2006 8:01 PM
gmichaud ,
I don't think the schools will struggle if they have more money even though the problems in society continue to plague the students and their families. But, the schools will still be faced with a big challenge to educate students who have problems at home.
1/01/2007 9:15 AM
I posted this at stlschools.org---very few people visit that site.
I apologize for the length---I really thought this guy had some interesting things to say---I will post a few of his sentences following this bio:
Bruce I. Matsui, Ed.D., Faculty Fellow
Bruce I. Matsui, Ed.D. is a professor at the School of Educational Studies at Claremont Graduate University. He also serves as Faculty Fellow with the Institute at Indian Hill, an organizational research unit of the School of Educational Studies, which he co-founded and directed for a number of years. In addition to teaching graduate level courses in education, professor Matsui developed an innovative cohort-based Ph.D. program targeting school leaders in urban communities, launched in the fall of 1998. He received his Ed. D. from the University of Southern California’s School of Education, concentrating in the areas of Organizational Development, Leadership and Curriculum and Instruction.
Professor Matsui spent twenty-five years in public primary and secondary schools, most recently holding the position of Deputy Superintendent at Pasadena Unified School District. Prior to that assignment, he served as Director of the Los Angeles County School Leadership Center. In addition, Dr. Matsui served as a principal for fourteen years in the Montebello Unified School District. During the course of his career, Professor Matsui has benefited from experiences as a Peace Corps volunteer in Aguilares, El Salvador and as a VISTA volunteer in Brooklyn, New York.
Dr. Matsui’s interests in public schooling, especially with respect to breaking predictable cycles of failure associated with gender, poverty, and race, were shaped by his experiences over the last twenty-five years. His current scholarly pursuits include integrating theoretical ideas associated with systems-thinking, social constructivism (Vygotsky), semiotics (meaning making), glocal thinking (global thinking coupled with local action), and voluntary simplicity; and making them usable, authentic and routine for public school stakeholders
1/01/2007 6:27 PM
The quotes are out of context the whole article is taken from---
http://matsuib.edublogs.org/2006/08/07/a-new-paradigm-for-data-driven-practices/
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The problem with medical metaphors is that they purport that certain of our student subgroups are suffering from maladies – some incurable. The belief that schools confront a “sick” population is so pronounced that the medical metaphor is in fashion for both liberals and conservatives
Unfortunately, beyond the bluster of the bully pulpit, the president has no evidence to justify the funds that have been allocated for our current iteration of large-scale school reform. We have scant evidence of the lasting power of NCLB interventions and plenty of evidence to the contrary.
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PLC is the acronym for a professional learning community. Unfortunately, PLCs in many places have come to stand for programmatic learning communities.
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The current evidence seem to point out that scripted programs have produced gains that are relegated to the early grades, but the same data seem to suggest that early gains from programs such as Open Court Reading are lost by the middle grades.
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It assumes that programs can overcome the deficiencies of an under prepared and over burdened corps of teachers
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Teachers and teaching count
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turns out that teaching higher cognitive skills that contain specific vocabulary and concepts understood at an abstract level is what good teachers do routinely and what programs cannot do on their own.
No program has the ability to match the presence of a skilled professional teacher.
1/01/2007 6:31 PM
Snead Hearn, I was just trying to say that more money for schools can be effective, but atudents are always going to be in battle with their surroundings unless there is an exceptional effort to rebuild communities.
Your very good quote from Jonathan Kozol sums up the problem. The ruling class has managed to funnel most of the resources of society into their pockets. Much more can be done for the children if the larger society really cared, the commitment is not there.
Leadership makes a big show about being all for children. They are merely conducting a PR campaign, the resources are not there to back up a true concern for children.
By the way the Matsui piece is interesting. As you would expect rigid teaching to the test results in students that are still fundamentally uneducated. The emphasis should be on the professional teacher who can inspire sutdents in creative, human terms. Teachers should not be programmed robots spitting out data to make sure the high stakes federal and state tests are passed.
I want to add, if they go through with this takeover of SLPS, then a takeover of the office of mayor and all of the seats in the board of aldermen is in order also. This City has been going backward for over 50 years, and as being in the lead for crime shows, is still going backward. Their failure is at least as great as the school system. In fact you can argue their failure has caused the difficulties in the school system.
(I don't otherwise generally agree with this takeover notion. What Danforth and his followers are saying is that voting is not worth a damn.)
1/01/2007 7:53 PM
gmichaud,
you got that right! I heard Jeantte Mott-Oxford say that we need to get out the vote and I thought, what's the point? Here we are 8 months after we voted and the fate of the SLPS is out of our hands!
Slay hasn't accomplished a thing and wants to just hand over responsibility to someone we can't vote out of office.
You're right about the Matsui concepts. Now that's thinking outside the box.
Today I watched a very funny video of George Carlin at the Google Video web site. Go there and look for Owners of This Country. His statements about education are funny and true!
1/01/2007 10:20 PM
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