Putting Parents In Their Place: Outside Class

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/20/AR2006032001167_pf.html

Really strange article.

What are the discipline policies in Pitt County? How is the funding distributed for the most effective teaching? Is there a particular figure who has carried the torch for this district? Have they managed to eliminate a sizable number of administrators and focus the funds on the classroom? Do teachers have more autonomy with curriculum? Do the teachers receive merit pay? How are parents involved in the process? How has the district managed to balance state education mandates and the needs of their community?

Obviously you can’t throw more money at a problem until you address what your district is doing wrong and a neighboring district is doing right. Throwing blame around is a convenient dodge to asking the hard questions and that seems to be what your district is engaged in now. It seems that the conservative judge you write of has basically pushed your leadership into confronting these questions or seeing schools close and students disbursed to the more successful schools. Good for him, sometimes it takes a harsh stand to force an issue to move forward.

Good luck.

The conservatives and liberals on our city/county council and school board really represent ONE side. They both play the blame game and have no solutions. The rest of us call them the elites.

We’ve got SOME conservatives (black and white) saying the MAIN problem with the schools is that most, if not all, of the inner city black kids are causing problems and are unteachable. They have actually said, “inner-city black kids” mutliple times and every chance they get. There have been recent stories of fights in schools involving black kids.

Some liberals are saying the same thing but that there are too many poor kids (black, white, or hispanic) are in the system and just cant be taught, which is why we have so many low performing schools. The poor kids in our district are performing horribly.

The numbers show that even some of our top schools are not really performing that well. Something is wrong.

Some conservatives want more money, some dont. All the liberals want more money.

Then we have Judge Howard Manning, a conservative republican whom I highly respect, threatening to shut down the low performing schools here. He’s drawn the line in the sand and now the elites are scrambling. That means those “poor kids” will have to go some of the other schools. And no one wnats them at their schools.

But, over in Pitt county, a rural county, the schools there are above the state average and are actually over-achieving. Yet, the income levels are much lower. North Pitt high school, which is 67% black, is performing better than the 3 of the top 5 majority white, wealthy schools here in our county. All of the schools there are over-achieving while over half of our schools are under-achieving. In fact, Pitt County schools are suing the state for more public funds, going on 5 years now. There are lots of Pitt Countys in our state. And why should they not sue? They are functioning on much less per student than we are here in Meck County.

The problem is that we refuse to enact any type of real discipline, Teachers cant teach if they know that they can do nothing about disruptive kids.

Its just a huge mess and no one knows what to do except blame poor black kids and poor kids in general.

There is a very small minority of people, me included, who want to see real discipline enacted AND hard work demanded, just like in Pitt County.
We need to revamp the curriculum NOW.
We are sick of the in-fighting and finger pointing.

And we are against any more tax money being poured in to do it.

I think he was on Fox News a couple years ago on Hannity and Colmes.

I’d like to know more about the successful district. Is the district comprised of charter schools and are the parents allowed a choice of where to send their kids. I think you find families invested 110% in their children’s education when they have some say over how they are educated.

Personally, I know a lot more liberals in my collegetown who talk about diversity in schools and then spend a small fortune making sure their kids are in the top elementary school where basically every kid is from the same socio-economic background. They all panic everytime redistricting comes up and their kids might be sent to the “downtown” school with a population of “poor black kids”.

I have never met a conservative who once mentioned the make-up of the student population. The general conservative complaint is that children are not learning much in school anymore, period.

That’s one of the single most idiotic things I’ve read yet on a blog comment section and after a few years, I’ve read some whoppers.

Please quote me one conservative anywhere who complains that there’s “too many black kids” and that “they are all troublemakers.”

When you get back here and are unable to do so, please refrain from such mindless trash in the future.

For example, this week in my son’s school 2 out of 4 math classes were spent on a development program called CHAD (Children Have An iDentity). They were learning social skills and how to interact with others, they were learning about having a strong sense of self. So, when the school takes it upon itself to determine that this kind of learning is more important for ten year-olds than math class, how are the less confident parents, typically those in a lower socio-economic or minority class, suppose to respond? They leave everything in the hands of the schools, of course, why wouldn’t they?

Minneapolis is one of the best examples of school choice equaling greater parental involvement. It is that simple.

We got the conservatives screaming its because there’s too many black kids and they are all troublemakers. The liberals are whining that they have to teach too many poor kids.

It’s gotten so bad that a state superior court judge is threatening to shut down some of our underperforming schools in this area.

A local journalist here did a recent story where a smaller county with over half the kids poor and black (67%) are scoring and doing better than even the top white-majority, schools in our state. Better than the rich white kids and totally destroying the black kids here in our county, which is the wealthiest in the state.
It doesnt get any coverage because the elites (liberals AND conservatives) definitely dont want this story to get out.

AND…they are spending less than a quarter than what we spend per student.

Its not money, its discipline and hard work that must be instilled. I dont know the family background in this particular county, but I’m attempting to do some research. I’ll be glad to post the article if permission is granted.

Amazing isnt it?

If you get a chance, you should attend your school district’s budget presentation, when all the numbers are right there in front of you and then you’ll begin to understand why your property taxes increase without the money actually making it into the classroom.

More to the point, how many parents do you know who have given up income or saved money to stay home with their kids until they start school. These parents, who have opted to “live their life in chapters” while guiding their little ones through the early years, send children off to school who come home repeating bad words and detailing what the middle school kids were doing on the school bus. Boys who never once acted out violently start trying out new behaviors witnessed in class. The girls are confronted with “gang of girls” nasty behavior. And the school spends valuable education hours on “character development” and teaching first graders to say no to drugs. My son asked me if that meant medicine.

The schools have simply lost their way. Instead of teaching basic reading and math, etc., they have taken it upon themselves to teach our children about nutrition and how to be a better person. When did that stop being my job, I ask you?