"No Child Gets Ahead"

The computer I am using makes it absolutely impossible to read Timberlandko's latest contribution at this time. However, I did notice that he said that I offered no argument. Surprising. He claims that I whined. Must have a mirror attached to his computer! Somehow, it is always the left that uses facts and empathy and always the right that uses opinion and selfishness, yet the right accuses the left (inaccurately) of whining. Gee, I thought whining was what a (conservative) woman did when she walked into your kitchen and discovered there was no dishwasher then into your den and learned you didn't have cable.

Anyway.

Here's a profile of the community (Arlington, MA) in which I teach.

72% of the adults are college grads
the median household income is $64,344
45% are professionals, specialty and management people
55% work as clerks, sales personnel, crafts and service people
the median house price is $284,900 (but a glance at the latest listings for single family homes shows a range of $399,000 to $859,000: so much for the median)

Now, let us address some basic stats for the high school:
Class of 2004:
260 graduates
admitted to 4-year colleges: 77%
admitted to 2-year/technical schools: 10%
military: 2%
employment: 6%
undecided: 4%

This school was rated 29th of the 151 public high schools evaluated by Boston Magazine in an area designated as "eastern Massachusetts."

National SAT scores:
Verbal: 508
MAth: 518

MA SAT scores:
Verbal: 518
Math: 523


Arlington SAT scores:
Verbal: 542
Math: 540

So, here is the line up for this community, which is probably close to(actually, slightly above) the MA average (if there is such a thing) in demographic terms.


Now, as I am running out of time, I will return later with the main thrust of my argument. In fact, I will also start a new thread addressed to this argument.

In the meantime, I would like to bring up something I have addressed here at AHS and that is since most kids take the SAT (which is a better test), why is there a need for the MCAS (No CHild test)? If most of the kids in this community score above the national average and the kids that don't take the SAT and who fail the MCAS are, in general, restrained by a basic lack of intellectual ability, what is the point of the MCAS?

The SAT demonstrates the effectiveness of this high school. Why should the high school burden itself with the cost of administering the MCAS?

try to set aside negativism, defensiveness, and Democrat-like denial and obstructionism

The above is a quote from the aptly named Timberlandko. He's the one criticizing education and he is asking me to set aside negativism! Backwards.

And what is "Democratic-like denial" when his daughter, who allegedly teaches special needs doesn't see the role the environment plays in kids with special needs. Should revoke that girl's license!
-------------------------------------------
Showed this thread to some of the teachers in this building who think Timberlandko is just another person who didn't do all that well in school and then thinks he can run things and dictate how they should be done.
They said to save my time: Timberhead isn't smart enough to talk to.

--------------------------------
I'll acknowledge discipline, respect, and home guidance are lackin' - and lay fault for that directly at the feet of the educational establishment which betrayed the parents of the current crop of students in the same way that establishment currently is betraying its active students. I see in your argument there two lame excuses, BTW:

1) - "the genetic material just isn't there" is ridiculous - are today's kids bred to a lower standard than were the kids of the past few centuries?

and

2) the very concept of " ... the demands of the teachers that kids learn" is absurd - one may expect and encourage performance with far greater success than one may demand it. I say again, "If the student hasn't learned, the teacher hasn't taught" - its just that simple.


THERE WERE KIDS IN THE GOOD OLE DAYS WHO JUST DIDN'T HAVE THE SMARTS. THERE ARE KIDS TODAY WHO DON'T.

AS FOR THE KIDS NOT LEARNING AS A SIGN THE TEACHER HASN'T TAUGHT, PLEASE REFER TO MY ORIGINAL POST IN WHICH I DISCUSS TWO REAL KIDS WHO HAVE BEEN AT THE SAME SCHOOLS FOR MORE THAN 10 YEARS. HOW DO YOU EXPLAIN THAT THE BOY -- WHO I DESCRIBE AS SOMEONE WHO WRITES LIKE A GRAD STUDENT -- SAT FOR A DECADE IN THE SAME CLASS AS THE GIRL -- WHO SPELLS THE WORD, "OUR," AS, "O-W-E-R?" DO YOU CHARGE THE TEACHER -- ACTUALLY, SEVERAL TEACHERS -- WITH BINDING HER EYES AND PLUGGING HER EARS SO THAT ONLY THE BOY WAS TAUGHT? IF, AT THIS POINT, YOU CAN NOT SEE THE ABSURDITY OF YOUR STATEMENT, THEN, THE TEACHERS WHO SAY YOU CAN NOT BE REASONED WITH ARE RIGHT.

FURTHERMORE, I SUSPECT THAT THE GIRL'S MOTHER HAS AN 85 IQ.
---------------------------------------------
from T again:

I'll submit your assessment of my academic achievement is colored somewhat by your opinion of my opinion. I submit further you have provided no counter argument


FIRST OF ALL, T, YOU JUST CAN NOT WRITE WELL. THAT GIVES SOME COLORING TO YOUR ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT.

SECONDLY, YOU REFUSE TO NAME THE INSTITUTIONS YOU ATTENDED BUT SAY YOU WENT TO A JESUIT COLLEGE. THE UNIVERSITY OF DETROIT IS A JESUIT COLLEGE AND IT WAS JOKE IN THE 1960S AND CONTINUES TO BE A JOKE TODAY. IN GENERAL, THE PEOPLE WHO WENT TO U-D FROM MY HIGH SCHOOL WERE THE KIDS WHO NEVER MADE THE HONOR ROLL. WHEN YOUR STUDENT BODY IS MADE UP OF C STUDENTS, HOW GOOD CAN YOU BE?

THIRDLY, WHILE I HAVE ARGUED WELL, YOU HAVE JUST SAID NO NO NO.

FOURTHLY, YOU CITE THE FACT THAT YOUR KIDS HAD TO ATTEND SCHOOLS ALL OVER THE COUNTRY. BEFORE MOVING, DID YOU RESEARCH THE SCHOOLS OR JUST JUMP INTO A HOUSE THAT APPEALED TO YOUR WIFE? I SPENT A YEAR RESEARCHING SCHOOLS BEFORE WE MOVED FROM A RURAL COMMUNITY. THE TOWN WE MOVED TO IS IN THE TOP TEN IN THIS STATE, A STATE WHERE SAT SCORES ARE HIGHER THAN THE NATIONAL AVERAGE.

CONTINUING IN THE SAME TRACK, NOT ALL STATE COLLEGES ARE THE SAME NOR ARE THEY MEANT TO BE. U-MICHIGAN IS SUPERIOR TO U-MASSACHUSETTS AND BOTH STATES HAVE LOWER TIER SCHOOLS. MAYBE THE STATE U YOU ATTENDED WAS A PLACE LIKE FITCHBURG STATE OR CENTRAL MICHIGAN UNIVERSITY.




Finally, there are ways to become a teacher and ways to become a teacher. When I was in college in the 1960s, the hippies and the left-winger started the movement toward majoring in the subject you want to teach rather than majoring in education.

Last week, I subbed for the woman who teaches advanced placement English. I have subbed for the science teacher who only teaches advanced placement and honors chemistry and physics. Those kids are amazing. Mature. Humorous. Hard-working.

To get into an honors or AP class, a student must demonstrate proficiency in reading and writing; submit essays of 7-8 paragraphs in length; solve science problems independently, using multiple strategies; demonstrate independent analytical skills; demonstrate creativity. Their classes stress independence.

There's more, but you get the picture.

Most of the kids here take C1 classes. The requirement is grade level command of reading and writing; skill at the 5 paragraph essay; ability to formulate an hypothesis in science and design an experiment to test same; create and support a thesis in social studies; solve multiple step problems in math.

People like Timberlandko -- who demonstrate here that they were not capable of honors work -- think all kids should function and behave like honors and AP kids. If all kids are not honors kids, than the schools failed and the teachers did not teach. Wrong. Most kids are C1 and even that designation is generous.

Will start a thread on this.

Anyone else thing McGentrix's avatar is inappropriate?

What is McGentrix's avatar these days? Wasn't it Andy Capp, at least for awhile? I thought the CApp head was chosen because of the open mouth, dangling a cigarette. Never read the strip, so I don't know what sort of person he was.

---------------------

Since I last posted here, I learned some information about the Arlington (MA) High School class of 2004. Ranked 29 out of 151 high schools in eastern Mass by Boston Magazine (if that means something to you), this school saw 77% of its latest graduating class off to four-year colleges and 10% to two-year college and other forms of training. That would seem to indicate that at least 87% -- although the number is probably higher -- took the SAT.

Now the MA SAT average is higher than the national average and Arlington kids outscore the MA average. I would call this high school successful. Why bother with the expense of the MCAS, the MAssachusetts' standardized test?

During this latest round of retesting, 20 kids took the English test and just under 40 took the math test. There was some overlap. Some of those kids are not native speakers of English; some have diagnosed mental illnesses; some are goofs; some are what was once called "hoods." Some break their hearts working, offer no behavioral problems but just don't get it.

Consider that most of these kids (except the foreign born and the kids bussed in from the inner city) have sat next to each other in the same schools and the same classes for 10 or 11 years. Did the teachers not teach a handful of students? Did they ask them to leave the room when certain lessons were given?

For the city of Arlington . . . Lexington, Winchester, Acton . . . the MCAS is an expensive waste of time.

Just for giggles, POM - My Jebbie years were spent at Loyola institutions - academies (where in grammar school I achieved accellerated grade placement, entering highschool at the age of 12, just shy of my 13th birthday and and I managed to graduate highschool and gain college acceptance (with a SAT in the 96th percentile) in 6 semesters - transcripts available). Secondary and post secondary institutions attended were Loyola Chicago Lewis Towers, University of San Francisco, and within the University of California system. Scholarships, both athletic and academic, defrayed some though by no means all costs. Throughout, there were periods of foreign study. There followed some fairly specialized military training and advanced training, wholly unrelated to my field of study (though I had hobbied in the general field from youth), and which formed the basis of my civilian career. Obviously, I never really learned to type, though I still manage a respectable Morse WPM rate.

As for the various public schools my kids attended, they were typical suburban public schools. My wife and I did put some research into the suburbs we chose, and the schools were a large part of that decision. Both kids attended college in the University of California system.

I submit that any perception of the superiority of your argument in comparison with mine lies with yourself. I note your frequent unwarranted - and frequently incorrect - assumptions in particular.
I do indeed see your plaint as negativist, self-centered, falsely exculpatory, excuse-ridden, deflective, and entirely characteristic of the part-and-parcel of the crisis confronting our educational system due to the generation-plus mismanagement it has suffered.

Now, there are plenty of excellent, dedicated, extraordinarily competent and qualified educators. There is plenty of deadwood there too ... way too much, and that pile seems to grow almost exponentially. We as taxpayers provide funding to education second to none in the world. Money is not the problem. It is imperative we demand, and verify, performance from those who spend that money.

Oh, and just for reference, I happen to sit on my local school board, on my township board, and on my county board, all subject to the electoral decisions of the voters of my community. I am quite active in community affairs, I am an EMT2-certified 1st Responder as well as a certified Veterinarian Tech, I do animal foster care for the area humane societies and animal shelters, and I really enjoy hunting, fishing, and trapping, along with home repair-remodelin' and private landscapin'. Castle Timber is an extensively renovated farmhouse more than a century old. I wear mostly denim, flannel, and steel-toed, traction-soled workboots, and drive a mid-size SUV as day-to-day transportation, with a 1-ton 4WD DRW diesel truck for heavier stuff. Mrs Timber drives a late-model domestic full-size semi-luxury sedan. I have and use a couple tractors, too - working antiques, really. There are a few motorcycles, a boat, a couple snowmobiles, some horses and assorted other farm-type critters, some Koi, an ATV, and a 33' RV also. I fly as well, and own a light plane. There is no mortgage, no liens attached to anything else, I'm just shy of 60, and have been more-or-less retired for several years. I've not yet accomplished all I set out to do, and there have been disappointments and digressions aplenty along the way, but I'm too stubborn to do anything other than keep pluggin' away at it.

Its cool you don't like my writin' - or my politics; the sentiment is entirely reciprocated, I assure you. We may not have Paris, and I have no idea what you were wearin', but at least we have that. Here's to you, kid.




Waldo, welcome to A2K. Yeah, re McG's avatar - I s'pose, if ya look for that sorta thing. Some folks enjoy kid games.

do indeed see your plaint as negativist, self-centered, falsely exculpatory, excuse-ridden, deflective, and entirely characteristic of the part-and-parcel of the crisis confronting our educational system due to the generation-plus mismanagement it has suffered.

Chuckle!!!

Wait! I am the only person here with a positive view of education today and you call me negativist?

I defend the school where I teach -- and, btw, we decided strongly against this system when we were looking for a place to live and moved to a town with a better academic track record, then put the kids in private school for other reasons -- and you say I make excuses. Huh?

BTW, what the hell has your clothing to do with anything?

The bio details haven't much to do with anything - just a fillip.

You really need to find a more productive way to fill your time.

BTW, you are the first person I have encountered to use the word, "jebbie" since I left Detroit in 1975.

Never lived in Detroit - been there a few times, but just for visits or business. I spend a good part of my day ensconced before an array of monitors, both 'puter and TV, doin' a variety of 'puter-related stuff, includin some day-to-day securities, commodities, and currency tradin', which calls for keepin' abreast of news, hence the TVs - I keep an A2k window open one most of the time - playin' here when my attention is not directed elsewhere. I think my average is around a dozen or so posts here per day.

None of you have offered anything close to a reason for adding to the layers of standardized testing that kids already wade through.

None of you are outraged by the sloppy manner in which so many of these tests are put together.

None of you can rationalize why a community that sends 77% of its students to four-year colleges with SAT scores that exceed the national mean needs to further submit those same students to the MCAS.

None of you know doodly squat about teacher certification.

It is ironic that, last night, the local news carried a story about a 21-year-old girl with Downs Syndrome, who has already won several awards for her cooking, finally passed the MCAS and can now apply to colleges with chef's programs. Why keep this kid who is differently abled down?

My daughter called me to complain that since her seventh grade French and Spanish students must take the MCAS, she will lose two weeks of instruction time. Gee! And you think standardized testing is worth while. Recognize it for the abuse it is.

BTW, Timberlandko tells us about his plaid shirts rather than engage in any presentation of facts. He calls me names that have to have been derived from looking in his mirror that have no basis in reality.

You miss my point, POM; I don't advocate addin' more tests, nor do I contend those in place are adequate or inadequate. I say the system as it exists essentially reaches the level of overall failure. What there is needs to be replaced by something that works - works efficiently, effectively, and equitably for all concerned. My point is the post-'60s mismanagement of the American educational system has cost us more than a generation's worth of opportunity. The entrenched hierarchy of the system shows neither willingness nor competency to recognize, admit, take responsibility for, address, engage, and resolve the problem. The only "abuses" I recognize are that this outrage has been tolerated as long as it has been and that those responsible are committed to the status quo as opposed to any proactive response to the growin' crisis they themselves have precipitated and vigorously advance, an unproductive status quo and failed direction evidently championed by those with whom you align.

Regardless the on-to-college percentage of your schools, or of any others, the fact is that overall there is an endemic problem, a problem which attitude such as that set forth in your argument serves only to foster.


I believe your assessment of who knows what about teacher certification is a bit far afield. I feel I may know something about teacher certification; I explored the field myself at one time, comin' to the conclusion I was not of a temperament suitable the field, I worked through the process with my daughter, and I sit on a school board, in which body I serve on what amounts to the staffing committee.

What I perceive to be the core of the position you advocate is that the educational establishment needs more money and more lattitude. Given that several decades of ever-increasin' fundin' and the ever-growin', already nearly wholly insular, autonomy of the educational system have brought about the present intolerable situation, lobbyin' or more of the same is not just ludicrous, it borders on the criminally insane.

I submit I have seen no argument from you, no rationale, no recognition or address of the problem of the broken system, but rather have you partisanly rationalized, defensively denied, and deflectively avoided the problem of the broken system, its causes and its cures.

I submit further, in mind of the recent and contemporary performance of the educational system, that continuin' to press a course of action which repeatedly, consistently has proven counter-productive in expectation of improved result through persistence in same fully meets the definition of stupidity.

I have no reason to doubt, and do not doubt, that you're a sincere, honest, dedicated, moral, ethical, nobly principled, all-around upstandin', outstandin', thoroughly admirable person, due and accorded all attendent respect and regard. The agenda you press, and the stale, feckless, futile argument by which that cause is prosecuted by its adherents is another thing entirely.

timberlandko: I say the system as it exists essentially reaches the level of overall failure.

Define failure. A long time ago, I read something that I found thought provoking but silly: that the amount of human knowledge increased for the first time in the year 1750 and again in 1900 and again in 1950. As an exact statement, that's crap. No other word works. However, as a reminder that what people need to know to get on, it is real wake-up call.
People decry the death of penmanship and wax nostalgic about the time spent in elementary school, learning a fine hand. Well, in the 1930s and 40s, there was a lot less to teach. Period. Furthermore, fewer students stayed in school through graduation, in part, because a high school diploma really wasn't necessary to find work that could support a family.

Since today's teachers have so much more to present, and, in the main, present it well, how can you say they fail?

Of the people I know, I say my former husband suffered the most from serious defects in his education. The most serious deficit was he was never taught in school how the Constitution works, how a bill becomes a law, what the system of checks and balances means. He graduated from high school 1961. My high school required a semester of government and a semester of economics in order to graduate. The two older kids who went to Montessori school learned this stuff in the fifth grade. The youngest had it in seventh grade. That's just one way in which the schools the kids attended were superior to the schools their father attended.
-------------------------------------

timberlandko: My point is the post-'60s mismanagement of the American educational system has cost us more than a generation's worth of opportunity.

This is pretty vague. It looks like you think that in the year 1970, all of the administrators in all of the school systems suddenly retired and were replaced by people who were educated during the 1960s. Since the average administrator has a rather long career -- 20 years -- and since most administrators teach for a few years while working on advanced degrees in night and/or summer school, few adminstrators in 1970 were anything but folks who were educated in the 1940s and 50s.

Are you referring back to the whole, "Why Johnny Can't Read?" thing? That started as an article written by novelist, I believe. It generated a panic among school systems and educational theorists who just beginning to realize that not everyone learns to read in the same way. While much valuable information about the manner in which people learn and the working of the human brain was gathered, there were one or two huge missteps. The most notable mistake was the wholesale abandonment of phonics and, in far too many districts, the adoption of the "whole word" method of teaching reading, also known as "see it and say it." Thoroughly discredited and largely abandoned, this method lingers in back water areas. However, it was not a post-60s innovation. It dates to the 1950s!
---------------------------------

timberlandko:The entrenched hierarchy of the system shows neither willingness nor competency to recognize, admit, take responsibility for, address, engage, and resolve the problem.

How can there be an "entrenched hierarchy" when people are regularly promoted? Now, I did say above that the average administrator has a fairly long career -- 20 years -- however, those administrators do not necessarily spend an entire career in one school or even one school system.

Furthermore, your assertion that no one takes responsibility is at odds with the innovations that have made elementary education so exciting today. Innovations like "teaching across the curriculum" offer wonderful opportunities to see how learning to read enables you the student to do math and to learn science.

What you have done is assume the mantle of the right which largely likes to pick on people you assume are inferior to you. Here, I mean teachers, and you assume that because they work with children and they are more apt to be women than men. You are woefully ignorant about what really goes on in the classroom; how much time teachers spend on the work they do with and for their charges; how much of their own money they spend on classroom supplies and "incentives."

It's not me who is missing your point: you have no point.
-------------------------------------------

timberlandko: The only "abuses" I recognize are that this outrage has been tolerated as long as it has been and that those responsible are committed to the status quo

What outrage? I wrote above that my former husband and I -- actually, it was me almost alone, as he doesn't have the skills to ask the right questions and is stupid enough to think that money spent per student is an indication of how successful a system is -- wrote off Arlington as a place to live because the school system wasn't good enough. I am not certain 22 years after I made my decision what %age of kids went to college, but it was lower than it is now, perhaps only 60%. Currently, this school sends around 80% of its graduating class to four year colleges.
Some go to lower level state schools, but kids from this high school are admitted to Harvard, Princeton, Smith.

I have repeatedly told you from my own experience with my kids that the teaching of math and science are better than my own student experience. You are talking to hear yourself.

timberlandko rants on, from the sentence fragment above: as opposed to any proactive response to the growin' crisis they themselves have precipitated and vigorously advance, an unproductive status quo and failed direction evidently championed by those with whom you align.


Hot air! Launch your balloon! I would hope that you are homeschooling your kids, because you would never be satisfied with any product from the public schools. But, then again, they'd never get into college because no one would read the essays they wrote in their applications, based on your model!
---------------------

timberlandko: Regardless the on-to-college percentage of your schools, or of any others, the fact is that overall there is an endemic problem, a problem which attitude such as that set forth in your argument serves only to foster.

HE DOESN'T GET IT, DOES HE?
--------------------

timberlandko: I sit on a school board, in which body I serve on what amounts to the staffing committee.

Geesh! Do you campaign for election or are you appointed by the mayor or town manager who feels indebted to you for some reason? I can't believe anyone would vote for someone as long winded and as content devoid as you.

-----------------------------

timberlandko -- What I perceive to be the core of the position you advocate is that the educational establishment needs more money and more lattitude.

WOW!! This is a man with serious reading comprehension problems. MAke that perception problems.

-------------------------------------
timberlandko: . Given that several decades of ever-increasin' fundin' and the ever-growin', already nearly wholly insular, autonomy of the educational system have brought about the present intolerable situation, lobbyin' or more of the same is not just ludicrous, it borders on the criminally insane.

Funding has not been increasing. Worse, cuts are eliminating music, art, athletics, gym.

So this idiot with his pride in his plaid shirts and steel toed boots, rants on that I have not argued. Enough! He is looking in the mirror.

WHAT PROBLEM? DEFINE WHAT YOU THINK IS WRONG WITH THE SCHOOLS!!!

I think what is wrong with the educational system is that it has become a beauracracy structured to advance the interests of itself and its hierarchy. I think it is being run in shameful manner, I think that were it a profit-through-performance business entity it long since would have ceased to be. I think it requires a thorough gutting and restructuring from the top down. I think the system should be held thoroughly and openly accountable, required not only to produce but to document and disclose performance.

Oh, and BTW - great aspersion casting there. Pity I have no pearls at hand to cast your way.

Of course, turn the schools into a for-profit venture then you can outsource them to India. Brilliant.

BTW, what state are you in and what are the stats for your system in terms of failure of standardized tests (btw, only the 10th grade test actually counts . . . or haven't you figured that out?) and college admission percentiles?

Finally, your answer to my question was the usual non-answer, but, then there is nothing like a right winger to avoid answering anything in their whining.

I sincerely hope for the good of your community that you resign from the school board. Things will improve!

Your position on the argument is abundantly clear, as is your position in the problem.

pretty obvious there is a problem with our school system, I say take it out of the hands of the people in the school community and turn the problem over to a nanny fed government to handle, they always solve these kinds of problems more efficently because they know better.

nothin like a good round of reducio ad absurdam and Orwellian hyperbole to build a really impressive straw man.

whatever it takes