Sunday, September 26, 2010
Put 2 and 2 together
Think about this. About a month ago IPS was turning away kids on the first day of school because they hadn't pre-enrolled and the school district was going to report them to the child police. Now the school district is short close to a 1000 kids. Anyone else think there might be a connection?
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Good point.
ReplyDeletepre-enrollment should have been put aside. Now school closings and job loss are looming.
ReplyDeleteIt was just another stupid PR move on the part of Eugene White. This one failed like most of his schemes do.
ReplyDeleteRe: Stupid PR move. Kind of like a state deadline for vaccinations. White follows Tony Bennett's lead. Funny how the "shortage" of vaccines permitted the extension.
ReplyDeletePre-enrollment is a good idea. It's a first step in bringing accountability to the parents' plates. We can't have it both ways -- we complain about no parent accountability, but then we complain when White and the Board take a step toward parent accountability. What exactly do we want?
ReplyDeleteWhat good is accountability when you cave at the last minute and don't enforce it? That is why IPS students and parents don't pay attention to district policies like dress code, attendace, grading policy and the infamous six step discipline policy. Eugene White and his minions have no intention of enforcing them and students and parents know it.
ReplyDeleteWhy do people from downtown continue to post here? I am speaking about the comments up two.
ReplyDeleteYou don't try to bully parents into accountability, you try to win them over to being your partner in educating their children. You try to sell them on the benefits to them to have their children have a good education. Think about Ruby Payne, and what she has to say. We know what the research says but we continue to try methods known to build hostility.
ReplyDeleteI'd start every parent conference with some version of "we're on the same side here, we both want your kid to grow up happy and successful, we just have to figure out how to make that happen." It is a sort of a "do you still beat your wife" question, I've never had a parent have the nerve to say "no I don't care what kind of life my kid has when they grow up."
Great post!
ReplyDeleteYou lost me when you mentioned Ruby Payne. She looks down on minority children and their parents. She is a real good example of self hatred.
ReplyDelete@You lost me when you mentioned Ruby Payne. She looks down on minority children and their parents. She is a real good example of self hatred.
ReplyDeletePrecisely my point with 'what do we want'. See, two sincere teachers already at odds over one educational guru's thoughts. A house divided cannot stand. Remember that !
Ruby Payne is not a guru. She is a self important windbag.
ReplyDeleteLots of educators think Ruby Payne has good ideas.
ReplyDeleteRuby Payne enables uptight white teachers to reinforce their inaccurate stereotypes about minority students. I am sure that "lots of educators" think she has good ideas.
ReplyDeleteSo, what would you propose to change the inaccurate ideas of these uptight white teachers?
ReplyDeleteRuby Payne's message is about the impact of economic class (not race) on educational achievement. Plenty of minority educators agree with her message - but its become so politically incorrect to admit that noone will say so.
ReplyDeleteI love Ruby Payne's work, and I am a white teacher who is not uptight and uninvolved. Payne's work situates education in the hierarchy of Camille's difficult situations. It's Maslow's work under a different name. Payne allows educators to work within a greater family framework. Too often we as educators think that what we do is of paramount importance; it is foolish to think that all families buy into this same notion.
ReplyDeleteThank you for an honest assessment. Political correctness will be the death of us all.
ReplyDeleteCamille's should have read "as a family's"
ReplyDeleteAmen! Politically correct posturing is hurting some of our kids who need us the most, and I will go toe-to-toe with anyone who tries to hurt my kids/students.
ReplyDeleteTo the person who stated that Payne reinforces white teachers' inaccurate stereotypes of minority children. Defend your position with evidence from the text, friend. Payne addresses children of ALL colors in her book and never marginalizes people in her scenarios. She asks each of us as practitioners to look at creative ways to work around issues. Payne grew up poor. Have you ever read Glass Castles by Jeanette Merriman? It chronicles rural white poverty -- non-fiction. A teacher helps her keep steady in the face of chronic poverty. An empty belly is an empty belly and it's hurts no matter your color. How, in acknowledging this fact, do we morph into white teachers perpetuating inaccuracies about minority students? Even Jawanzaa Kunjufu has softened his stance on that one.
ReplyDeleteAbove poster, a big thank you!
ReplyDeleteI've read Payne, and she really brings to light some of the puzzling aspects of poverty. She doesn't mention race at all, and it is a window into a different socio-economic mind set. My own step daughter has slid into that lower socio-economic group and does many of the same things mentioned in Paynes writing, when she got her earned income tax credit, did she save it to pay for emergencies, no she she took her three kids on vacation, and bought new dining room furniture, which left her father and I scratching out heads, and just an FYI she is white.
ReplyDeleteAh an intelligent conversation, at last!
ReplyDeleteHow about what Malcolm Gladwell says in Outliers, his book about hidden factors of success. On pages 102 to 108, he discusses two different modes of parenting, the parenting philosophies divided clearly along class lines, not racial lines. The wealthier parents were heavily involved in their children's lives, they talked things through with children, reasoned with them, negotiated. Lareau (the researcher) called this style of parenting "concerned cultivation" and created in the child a sense of entitlement. These kids knew how to actively manage interactions, and were more "open to sharing information and asking for attention"
Poorer parents on the other hand a strategy termed "accomplishment of natural growth", they cared for their children but let them grow and develop on their own. The poor children's school experience was characterized by "an emerging sense of distance, distrust, and constraint" they did not know how to get their way or how to "customize" the environment for their best purposes.
The entitlement attitude, which is not racial in nature is perfectly suited to success in the modern world.
The book is well worth reading, and has several other very valuable insights into education.
So perhaps what we need to do is encourage parents to be involved in their students school life, and teach them how to cultivate this attitude of entitlement in their children, instead we seem to be discouraging this and encouraging the opposite in parents and students. Interactions with students not raised with this sense of entitlement are marked by "quiet and submissiveness."
ReplyDeleteWow, thank you for posting the information about Outliers. I am currently in school to become a teacher, and I had never heard of this book, but from your post, it seems to make way, way more sense to me than some of the 1970s race-based theory we're learning in my education classes! I just ordered it from Amazon!
ReplyDeleteAnother wonderful book is "Teaching Reading to Black Adolescent Males: Closing the Achievement Gap" by Alfred Tatum.
ReplyDeleteWow...these posts are a welcome change from the gossip and mud-slinging. We can actually learn from one another and have a professional dialogue.
ReplyDeleteThanks!
I agree that race has nothing to do with anything. Many of the students say things such as "It's because I'm black." I think that is interesting because it doesn't matter what color your skin is it matters your upbringing. When I, a white woman, lived in a townhome in a poorer part of pike, I would say hello to our neighbors and both Mother and Daughter just looked at me with out responding. Now I live in a house and our new neighbor says hello all the time and her son calls me ma'am. It is a different change of pace and much nicer. By the way both neighbors are black.
ReplyDeleteWell from your post, you probably wouldn't agree with Outliers either. I think there is definitely oppression and discrimination that disenfranchises a huge group of students and their families. But I don't think it's race based so much as socioeconomic- and culture-based.
ReplyDeleteI have questions. After reading the Star today about Marshall and Washington getting grants, what is a turnaround school? If a high percentage of teachers were not acceptable at these schools why would they be acceptable at another school? Why does IPS play musical chairs with the same people year after year?
ReplyDeleteThe document at the below link explains the Turnaround Model being used at Washington and Marshall. Many of the teachers requested transfers away from these two schools, so that accounts for their leaving. The teachers were not necessarily unacceptable. The Star article is a bit misleading regarding the explanation for the teachers at these two schools.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.doe.in.gov/TitleI/pdf/Elements_of_School_Improvement_Models_Final.doc
Many left Washington because of the new witch in charge!!!
ReplyDeleteThat's what I heard, also.
ReplyDeleteTurnaround Schools have much greater flexibility by allowing the leadership the ability to remove ineffective teachers. It's unfortunate that IPS doesn't have the best interest of their students in mind, when they just shuffle these teachers around! Kudos to Michael Sullivan for taking on such a challenge!
ReplyDeleteThe article is very misleading. Notice it never mentioned the over/under kids that were assigned to Marshall. Dr. Johnson is about as creditable as her credit rating.
ReplyDelete,,,but she filed bankruptcy, had several properties foreclosed and owed over $70,000 on credit card debt....is her creditability that low???
ReplyDeleteAnother great book to add to the list that is relevant to both teaching and parenting is Drive by Daniel Pink. It addresses the intrinsic and external motivators that encourage productivity from both employees and even our children. It really changed the way I think about my teaching and the rewards and consequences I use with my own children at home.
ReplyDelete