6 comments:

• Darrell Baumbach posted at 8:44 am on Thu, Sep 1, 2011.

  Posts: 9403

  Mary... it sounds like you are a great teacher. May I ask, do you think NCLB overrides and invalidates your valuable contribution as an educator? I am curious . I was making a point below that more money does not equal a better education.. To me, it is valuable competent teachers that make a difference. My wife is a bilingual elementary teacher who just retired and she made a difference to the students. She was fed up with the system, but not the students. What are your thoughts?

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• Mary Ragusa posted at 12:01 am on Wed, Aug 31, 2011.

  Posts: 14

  I teach at a Title I school. Yes we have lost newer teachers, class sizes have increased, we have 98% ELL students and about 95% free or reduced lunches. Our students live in poverty. We have very little parent participation. Our parents are embarassed and a bit intimidated because they are not well educated. No one can help that, least of all our little students! In Lodi, we send our children to neighborhood schools. This means they are segregated. The Title I schools are mostly on the east side of town in Lodi and the lower income areas in Stockton. The 800+ testing schools are on the west side of town or the better areas of Stockton. What a surprise!!! I work with my students at school ceaselessly to help them learn all the basics they need (kindergarten). I treat them like my own children. Every year they show growth. In the summer, they do not retain it all. No one works with them at home. (Some parents do; not the majority) Amazingly, I do more with my students than I did on a daily basis with my own children. One of my children is now working on his Ph.d after being valedictorian of his high school class. The other is about to graduate from college with a B.A. in graphic design. Both of my own children were in the GATE program and went to ELKHORN. But one was a terrible test taker!! He never did well on standardized testing. Yet he got in to every University he applied to, had good grades all through school and has had a successful academic career. REALLY NOW--HOW VALID IS ONE TEST A YEAR? Our country has become too hung up on NCLB. I hope I can retire in 2014, because I can't take anymore of this nonsense!!!!

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• Jay Samone posted at 9:17 am on Tue, Aug 30, 2011.

  Posts: 356

  Dean - I agree with your comments. No Child Left Behind was an excellent idea in theory, but instead it compounded the existing problems and created additional problems where there hadn't been previously. The schools are now required to teach to the (forgive me) dumbest kids in the class and they are scrambling to shove curriculum down their throats that is designed to bring up the test scores.

  If the school isn't performing well, then these "problem" schools become even bigger problems when parents pull their children out of low performing schools and enroll them in better performing schools. The remainder of the children left at these low scoring schools are now "left behind" because they are mainly ESL, poor or both. Our entire Education System needs an extreme overhaul and soon. This is one of the main reasons "Charter" schools have become so popular in recent years is because they teach to a higher level of students without having to teach around test scores.

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• Dean Clark posted at 7:23 pm on Mon, Aug 29, 2011.

  Posts: 3

  Who are we kidding? Everyone stop being so darn "Politically Correct."

  The problem is that these Title 1 schools have students who are generally: 1) super low income, 2) English is their second language, 3) the vast majority of their parents do not hablo any English, & 4) have a high transfer rate as the family moves.

  With those four "whammies" who is surprised the test scores are so low?
  

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• Betty Dean posted at 11:31 am on Mon, Aug 29, 2011.

  Posts: 144

  Hey, I have an Idea. lets give ALL the Administrators a Raise and Lay off some more Teachers!! Certainly the scores will go up!

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• Darrell Baumbach posted at 8:29 am on Mon, Aug 29, 2011.

  Posts: 9403

  The Title I program provides supplementary funds to support students who are failing or most at risk of failing to meet state academic standards, according to Lisa Kotowski, director of curriculum who oversees categorical funding.

  In other words, spending more money, providing better instruction, funding advantages for one segment (discrimination) does not translate into success. What if you have poor children at other schools that cannot afford these benefits of education... we just say... too bad, you do not fit in Title 1 funding... therefore you are not in the "right" class to qualify. What happened to a fair quality education for "ALL"... now its better education for "some" if you qualify.

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