Chronically Underperforming Schools
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| Wed, 06-14-2006 - 8:28pm |
Hey all. I'm curioius what the consensus is around here on this subject.
We live in a poor District; 80-90% free/reduced lunch. Our DS (AS, 7, 1st grade) goes to a new school in the district; it just opened last year. Some of the old, smaller schools on our end of the city were closed and the kids are going to this school now. Several of the schools in our district have been labelled as chronically underperforming. Our school may be added to that list next year, despite the fact that this is only the 2nd year it has been open.
I know that we can request to have our son transfered to a "better" school within the district. I have no intention of moving him though and think this could be a blessing in disguise since if other parents choose to move their kids, then our school's class sizes will be less.
DH and I are so confused at the differences between our schools scores and those of the schools that are doing well. Two are 94 and 87 in English Language Arts....where our school's is below the target of 75. I don't know where the discrepancy is in the education. It's the same school district. Is it the teachers? Is it the family environment of the students? I can understand the impact of the latter.....but that much?!?! I'm always at my Ds's school. The teachers seem fine to me; how can these kids be testing so badly. I don't put too much stock in the test scores personally, but the system obviously does....and it seems to not be working in our districts' favor. Alot of the kids in high school are getting certificates of completion instead of a diploma because of the tests.
Academically, we think our DS is doing the best that he can (he has reading and math disabilities.) The school is certainly helping on that end with reading programs...etc. Next year he will have more accomodations academically because of a recent Neuro-pscyh eval. But classroom behavioral accomodations and the extra bodies needed to help with these and recess/lunch time are a fight to get because of the budget. Our school is on the higher income side of town as well; we lost some funding because of a lower amount of free/reduced lunch kids. In additon, I also think we lose certain funds because of the chronic underperforming status, though that should also target our school for extra help of some kind too.
Anyone dealing with this issue in their district? I feel like I should do something about it! Even though I have my hands full with DS and all his challenges, plus the 14 month old who wants to be very independent! I grew up most of my childhood in low income housing. I did well in school because I wanted to. My parents expected us to do our best, but worked alot and we were expected to do our homework on our own. I think I would have done well regardless of what school I was in.......school was my thing so our income level didn't seem to factor too much in my education......I graduated in the top 10%.
I'm not sure how to take this info. I know that the budget isn't a legal excuse for denying accomodations but it really is a good reason why so far our school hasn't said, "sure, Sam can have a 3:1 aide in his class; that's a great idea!"
Chrystee


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DEAR LORD do I have an oppinion on that one! My kids elementary which I adore and consider one of the best schools I have ever seen (and I have seen more than my fair share as a parent and educator) is a chronically underperforming school.
Why? 2 reasons. first, there is a high population of english learners in our school and they consistently test lower. It is awfully hard to take a test not in your native language.
This one is a kicker, they are an underperforming school because they did not make enough progress in ONE of thier target areas. Namely the english language learners did not make enough progress in their langauge arts scores. They were supposed to go up like 7 points and went up 3. That's it. That is why we are underperforming.
Now across town is a school that is higher performing. I know of someone who has an AS son there and they refuse to make any accomodations or provide any services for him. My nephew lives in a district that is high performing. We used to live there too. Same story because the entire focus in on high performing kids. THey want to sweep the SN kids under the rug and forget they exist.
Same with Cait this year. She is at the only high performing middle school in the district. DO you know what a "Green Room" is? It is the dressing room used for theatre performances. That is where they have put her Aspergers classroom and her study skills class are 3 desks in the hall outside that room. The school doesn't care, they hide away thier special needs kids as far as they can right between the band room and the gymnasium in the flippen "GREEN ROOM"!
Mikes SDC is right in the wing with the other upper grade classes. They are mainstreamed for everything. They have a mainstream mentality. They have a "we will do what ever it takes to help this child learn" mentality.
Give me my underperforming school any day of the week and twice on Sundays.
Ya know, parents had the opportunity to leave our school too AND only 1 family did. And they only did because thier neighborhood school had been over the max and so they were sent to ours. With this law they were able to go to the neighborhood school.
The admin at Cait's high performing school cares about the numbers and thier scores and how they look to others. The admin at the elementary school cares about the kids. YOu can look at the website and see the difference. On the middle school one there is a moving banner bragging about thier scores, on the elementary one there is a big banner about kids.
My way more than 2 cents on the issue.
Renee
Chrystee.
I am with Renee on this one. I was going to move last year, and did a lot of school research, and I found that the top schools and districts did not have good special needs stuff at all. They would rather use their pots of money to send the SN kids off to a neighboring district school to bring down *their* scores and the
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My two cents:
My daughter's school was labeled as underperforming as well this school year but then was chosen by the state as a high acheiving school go figure that one out. Yet my daughter has done better here than at our old school in a different state that is suppose to one of the best. I do blame the "No child left behind" act as part of this whole thing. Our old school, which gets high marks by all parents in the area, was labeled as underperforming in there state tests. Yet the district accepts a lot of children with learning disabilities, I mean children from the mild disabilities to down syndrome children which can bring the scores down. They were at risk for losing there federal and state funding because they were willing to work with severely learning disabled children.
Now one the flip side my son's school was not labeled as underperforming or high performing and I can't get them to do anything with my son and I am at the school so much his classmates are calling him a momma's boy.
It all comes down to those state test scores which have gotton completely out of hand. Here if a child doesn't pass the state test every school year they don't graduate to the next grade no matter what their in class performance has been. So what is the whole point to the report card grades then?
grr..don't get me started on No child left behind...
a perfect example...
my cousin is a special education teacher - she teaches reading - she had a 4rth grader reading on the level of a k/first grader - she worked with this child so hard and got him up to a third grade reading level in one year - guess what - she underperformed!!and worse her pay increases are merit based so initially no raise...fortunately her principla raised holy HELLo and pulled the scores of all her students - all had significant improvement, just not yet at grade level...so how we define underperforming has a LOt to deal with it, too.....
"If i can make a commentabout underperforming schools. Here's the thing. If you look closely at these schools, you'll seem some trends...less qualified teachers, poorer facilities etc.... one of the contributors to underperforming schools is that if you don't get what you are supposed to get in first grade"
I have to beg to differ with one part of this comment. I don't find a trend of less qualified teachers at these schools. A trend I do see is that it typically is a neighborhood school where unfortunately the kids have had less opportunities and family support than other schools. Not that the parents aren't loving or involved but in our area many are spanish speaking. It is very hard to help your child with homework when you don't speak the language. It is very hard to help you child learn and have the right tools when you barely have enough money to put food on the table. Without that home support those kids have a very hard time with learning.
As for the highly qualified teacher thing. Man that is a can of worms.
Here is a sort of funny predictament we are in. My DH is an autism specialist but he is also a credentialed teacher. He has his masters degree in special ed. He has his professional clear credential in special ed here and a credential in Massachusetts. He trains other teachers and is an adjunct professor for 3 nearby universities for thier special ed programs. Sounds pretty qualified to do his job right?
He just got a notice that he has to get his CLAD certificate within a year (basically some classes on teaching bilingual children) to remain a highly qualified teacher. Now DH never works in the classroom with kids and there is a bilingual person in the program to help parents who are not english speaking. But if he doesn't get this certification he will be deemed an underqualified teacher and lose his job.
In my kids school the kindergarten teachers average over 20 years experience and are fabulous. All with masters degrees. First grade is more of the same. In fact I believe the average at our school is like 11 or more years teaching and 75% or more have masters degrees. We have no interns and no teachers on emergency credentials. We have 1 first year teacher (5th grade) who is there on long term sub assignment because the other teacher is on maternity leave. I don't think underqualified is the problem at our school.
Renee
Maybe I should have said less experienced. I am not talking about paper qualified teachers..I AM talking about new teachers, teaching in areas where there is a need for teachers but not necesarily where their particular strength lies, little to no mentoring etc... i don't mean that crap in the statute. I have several friends who did Teach for America, which is/was a great program but every one of my friends who did it left because the felt they didn't have enough support, training and were given the children with the greatest challenges before theyhad enough classroom and work experience to do the job well.
I personally think that when you have situations like a large non english in the home speaking community etc.. thats where your most experienced, qualified teachers should be etc....
Hi Chrystee,
I never put any emphasis on the school business. We moved to a school area that was getting 99% in all three areas. So my I enrolled my daughter in that school. SHe went there for only 3 yrs. 2 out 3 yrs. we got the worst teacher and I don't remember my daughter learning anything. Not only that she did not do any class work either and the teacher thought she was (a 7 yr old) was too smart and didn't feel like doing the work. Do you believe that? I pulled her out. I put my son in underperforming school. He had great teachers. But the Principal was a nightmare and I had to pull him out. Go with what Sam is learning and not w.r.to scores. The day you feel that your school is NOT providing enough for your child, then move him.
Just my 2 cents worth,
Anandhi
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