I teach 9th and 11th graders at one of the *top* public schools in the city

Followed by this…

I found him the day of the fall riots, when I had to put my freshmen on lockdown in my classroom. The riot in the spring was much worse.

Doesn’t ring a bell. I know students at 2 of the 3 top public schools in the system. The first quoted school with the bathrooms come close to fitting, but drug use in the school isn’t the problem.

Whites: 60
Blacks : 40
Hispanics: 110

This whole debatical is over 60 white students, which just barely cross the threshold of 50%.

Hearne is a district of 1187 students and Mumford barely has enough students to keep the doors open. I would hardly call this “siphoning off” the white students from Hearne.

In Texas, we get to elect quite a few of our Judges….. Revenge can be sweet.

The counter discrimation suits are in the works already.

There is a predominantly white school nearby called Tarkington ISD where many of the Cleveland parents want to send their children. There is a large mix of races at Cleveland as that town in the bigger one.

If Hearne interests you, then you may want to look into the Cleveland/Tarkington case as well.

Isn’t it passing strange that not one of them has ventured to fix even one little, only partially broken system?

I teach 9th and 11th graders at one of the *top* public schools in the city, but you’d never know it. Many of the freshmen can’t read on a 9th grade level, much less a 5th grade one. Grammar, spelling, and vocabulary are atrocious.

The student bathrooms have no soap and no toilet paper. Many stalls have no doors on them because of students being sexually assaulted in the bathrooms. The boys’ bathrooms are usually locked on every floor because of numerous problems with drug deals and gambling. Mice run rampant, both in the cafeteria and in classrooms…the one that lives in my desk I have named Steamboat Willie. I found him the day of the fall riots, when I had to put my freshmen on lockdown in my classroom. The riot in the spring was much worse.

Last year was my first year, and was nearly my last. I cried daily because I had never worked in such horrible, awful conditions. I was a lousy, crappy teacher. How can anyone expect a first-year teacher to survive, much less succeed in an environment like that? I chose to return because I want to make a difference to some of these kids-the ones who come every morning to sit and talk while I have my coffee, who eat lunch with me daily, who ask me to read their college essays and look at their art projects.

To students succeed in classrooms with well-educated and highly qualified teachers? Not all. Student motivation plays a large role in their success. I had a lot of bright, lazy kids who did horribly because there was no emphasis on their education at home. Teachers can only take so much responsibility. I do the best I can with the meager supplies I am given-15 year old textbooks that kids can’t even take home because we don’t have enough. The parents aren’t involved, they don’t care…they eat government cheese but drive Escalades.

Federal funding? What’s that? In Baltimore City, it lines the pockets of the administrators and the kids know it. The superintendent wonders why the kids start fires daily…but their anger is nothing compared to mine.

There is no solution to this but to dismantle public education as we know it. My boyfriend and I have already decided that when we have children that I will stay at home and homeschool the children. I would never, ever, put my child in a public school. I feel for the people who have no choice because private education is simply out of their reach. I applaud all those parents who pull their children out of poor-performing schools! Do whatever it takes to make sure your child can do the best they can. But do me a favor…if your child is doing poorly, don’t jump on the teacher; talk to them. Work with them. Teachers are your greatest ally if you work with them.

It’s truly amazing how many education experts there are. Everyone I meet knows how to fix the system.

What is most discouraging to me is that the states have jammed their social services programs with a few bright stars and a cesspool of 9 to 5 “let’s don’t, but say we did” types who are snug in the system and practically useless.

Futhermore, for all the bad news the news media loves to report, their liberal bias keeps them from even looking into public education and the rotten core in so many schools.

Veteran teachers with a streak of honesty know that what you have written in the core truth.

It’s gotta be “racism”: ‘White flight’ from Hearne ruled illegal. I see Hube has already commented on this La Shawn Barber noted post; it’s amazing to me that today people still cling to outdated notions of “the right thing to…

Now, of course, many of the same “activists” that supported the original case are arguing that “tracking” and other factors inside classrooms are discriminating against the inner-city [mostly] black kids. It’s “subtle” racism that is “holding these kids back” now, including the “latent racism” of the mostly white teachers.