"It's just a matter of the districts doing a better job of covering and making sure the students know what they need to know to do well on those tests."

Or maybe it really is the system.  Ever taught in an inner city school?  I have.  This was 1987 and we had science text books from 1959 that included choice quotes like, "maybe one day man will go to the moon."  I actually went back to my old elementary school and asked for their old text books which were newer than the ones that my school gave me.

If you read the book, "Savage Inequalities," it talks about the myth of spending per child.  In old, raggedy, schools much of the spending goes towards maintaining infrastructure and not towards education.  I know someone here in Chicago whose mom was a principal.  She made the news when she actually sued her own school district, taking them into federal court and asking that her school be put in receivership because the district claimed it did not have the money to fix the old, drafty windows.  They were the originals from 1938.  The feds ordered that the windows be fixed.

I don't know why black kids are failing their tests, but I can tell you with 100% certainty that the public schools are failing their kids.  The fact that there is now ample data showing that certain charter schools have had success with black kids who were considered throwaways.  Also, most teachers, black, white and other, are complete fucking morons.  Have you ever noticed that it's always the stupidest chicks who want to be teachers?  I've met teachers who use poor grammar and can't do math without the aid of the answer key.  However, the teacher's union has successfully fought teacher proficiency tests for the past 20 years.  It's a closed system with the stupid leading the stupid, and local school boards that are unqualified to make executive decisions.

There are some kids who don't want to learn, and some parents who are enablers for bad behavior, but it really is a small part of the problem.

The fucking pea-brained morons who have an Ed.D, and want you to call the "doctor" are very resistant to criticism or even suggestions.  In my son's school where the African American kids generally come from more middle class homes, they are still lagging behind.  The school morons commissioned a statistician and a Ph.D in sociology, as well as some "educators" to study the achievement gap.  After more grant money than it was worth, they released a report.  While it had lots of statistics, it failed to even adjust the root cause, and instead relied on analysis from a study done on inner city youth in Baltimore.  These weren't inner city kids, so the analysis didn't even apply.  I went to the community forum, because I read the study and wanted to complain about the waste of resources.  I asked two questions:  (1) if 40% of African American students are falling behind, that means 60% of African American students are successful.  Why are they successful?  (They had no answer.)  (2)  In gathering your data did you ever talk to the parents of any successful African American kids to ask them what strategies they used to insure academic success?  (The answer was "no.").

The bottom line:  there's money in keeping certain kids down.  You can label them as special ed based on behavioral problems and get more federal money; you can get grants to study the situation and to start mentoring programs that bring in additional dollars for the school; or you can ship the troublemakers off to alternative school, which is a real cash boon because that feds pay a certain amount for each kids who attends school.  The alternative schools charge less than that amount.  The school gets a windfall when it ships kids off to alternative school because they get to pocket the difference. 

Don't even get me started on the gifted education problem.  I got lucky because my youngest was in a school that actually has a gifted education teacher assigned to it and being a male, he does great with the boys.  He's going into middle school where the only gifted class is math.  I'll have to work my ass off to keep him motivated until he gets to high school.

Public education sucks ass.

I got my oldest through the middle school hurdle, but it took some school visits, and I had a good relationship with the principal, who is now retired.  My youngest has a bit of a problem with mouthing off to adults, especially those he perceives as stupid, so I've been giving him drills on appropriate responses to stupid adults.  For example, at summer camp he was told to pick up some french fries and a straw cover off the floor on a trip to McDonalds.  His response:  that's what the workers get paid to do.  They didn't like that.  He went on to say that when he comes to a restaurant he doesn't expect that he'd have to go in he back and wash his own dishes after the meal...that's what they have employees.  He thought he was merely explaining his position.  That went over even less well.  I told him that the appropriate response is "yes, m'am," then punch a smaller kid and tell him to pick it up. (Just kidding.  I told him to obey adults even if he doesn't agree with them because they are in control until he turns 18, but think whatever he wants.)

Ladies

Young and dumb and full of cum.

I played a 2 - 3 day suspension thing for at least one and a half years during High School.

Look how well I ended up.

Last edited by MSG Tripps (2008-08-18 15:29:04)

headkicker_girl wrote:

appreciate your efforts, though

Thank you. 


Pehaps....   
[The stuff ya'll do not know.] [Or necessarily believe.]

karenw wrote:

headkicker_girl wrote:

I don't know why black kids are failing their tests, but I can tell you with 100% certainty that the public schools are failing their kids...Also, most teachers, black, white and other, are complete fucking morons...It's a closed system with the stupid leading the stupid, and local school boards that are unqualified to make executive decisions.

There are some kids who don't want to learn, and some parents who are enablers for bad behavior, but it really is a small part of the problem.

Great post hkg. I've been pulling my hair out over our local schools -- which are anything but inner-city, although woefully inadequate for my brighter-than-average kids. And we moved to this school district to get them into a gifted/talented program.

Regarding the teachers, my son actually had a teacher tell him, "you guys don't get more challenging assignments, we just give you more homework to do." So the AP kids were reading the same books as the remedial English classes -- because the stupid state standards actually micromanage the curriculum to the extent that the teachers are not allowed to assign more interesting or challenging texts.

[I suppose I should qualify this by saying that grades 3-6 were amazingly well-taught, but the system fell apart after that. The administrators put more emphasis on "social learning" (whatever the fuck THAT is) than academics from middle school on.]

Thankfully the younger one made it out entirely, but my 12th grader has all but given up (and his transcripts show it).

It's my contention that the GT (for lack of a better designation; I know it's a controversial label) kids, who are generally critical thinkers -- should be considered a "special needs" population just as much as those who are going to spend their adult lives pushing a broom at McD's.

And I swear to God, if I hear one more goddamn empty suit whine about "parental involvement" I'm going to kick his fucking teeth in. In my experience, the schools have been chilly at best and obstructive at most when I've tried to question the system or otherwise attempt to be involved.

/soapbox

Man, this sounds like my life story in reverse. My older boy had a bad teacher in elementary school and barely made it out of high school. My younger is in G&T and is self-motivated and gets straight a's. Now I'm scared as hell that the program is going to fall to hell when he gets out of middle school!

I hope to god you don't live in the same school district I do!  After years of struggling with my older son, I'm so relieved to have the younger one achieving and happy about it (he was actually looking forward to school?!?!). If  there is some falling off on our program, I'm going to look to private schools.

Hopefully I don't start a shit storm with this one, but what if it's not the schools or the genetics at fault but rather the culture?  I've noticed that the Natives from around here that accept white people and their culture tend to be as successful as their white counterparts and the ones that don't end up sleepin' in a pool of their own vomit in a back alley someplace......  Not to bash anyone's culture here, but how the hell can the Natives expect to get anywhere in life with their culture of drinking, fighting, hate and squirting out kids all the time...  The same can be said about the black thug and hip hop culture which is forced down everyone's throats anytime you turn on the TV or the radio....  It's real easy to blame "the system" because doing so is the same as blaming the white man for every little inequality there is...  Since when did coddling every minority into being successful become the white man's responsibility?  I've been called racist for expressing this opinion before, but that's about as far from the truth as it gets...  It's far more racist thinking you have to provide special privileges and programs to some group because they can't seem to make it on their own, it's the same as treating them like retards...  Give everyone the same curriculum and stomp out all the dumbass subcultures, that'll get results....

karenw wrote:

ptah13 wrote:

I think I read about this on some local newspaper blog somewhere. If not, I read about another kid doing the same thing. If so, thanks because I used the incident as a learning tool for my older boy (the king of class clowns everywhere, master of sarcasm). My point was, "you have no freedom or rights, until you are 18 you are the bitch of your local school, whether you are in school or out at the time of your actions". It took a good discussion for him to grasp how the school could police him on matters that happened outside of school.

Actually, I think I posted about it on Cruel when it all went down, so that may be where you first saw it.

I don't think we're in the same district -- you said you were in Indy, correct?

When it comes to high school, we have a fabulous resource here in this state. Do some research on the Indiana Academy for Science, Mathematics and the Humanities. It's located at BSU and tuition is paid by the state. It may be a good fit for him once he's old enough.

Thanks.

We found out he was "gifted" purely by mistake. Sure, we all thought he was smart as hell but the school seemed to care less. In the 3rd grade they had a teacher switch between 1st and 2nd semesters (the regular teacher left on maternity leave). I got his progress report and it showed some grades dropping. I called about it and the teacher asked me what his ISTEP results were. I said, "I never received them" and she looked them up. She says, "umm, well, umm, I'm not sure what this is saying, hold on", then put me on hold for 10 minutes while she ran down to the office and consulted with someone. She comes back and says, "well, I have to say this is a school first, your son got a perfect score on the ISTEP". Then went on to explain that the principal suggested having the township psychologist out for a day of testing, which I agreed to.

Well, the psychologist spent the entire week with my son. When he called me, I asked, "well just how smart is he" and he replied, "well, he's smarter than either one of us, but at least he doesn't know it yet" ha ha (yeah, you can't tell I'm the proud dad). The family always knew it, in a way. He'd been reading Harry Potter books since the 1st grade and by 3rd grade he'd read one in 3-4 days, which is pretty amazing considering the size. Also he uses words that most kids his age don't use. Anyway, the psychologist said that, at the time, he comprehends anything you tell him as a 2nd year college student. He said you could basically explain things to him like an adult and he'll understand it just as well as anyone.

Well, needless to say they whisked him into the G&T program, which was good in the 3rd grade as it had it's own teacher. His grades immediately shot back up to straight A's and all has been well ever since. Last year he had a great teacher. I'm hoping things continue this year. Having him in orchestra seems to help, too. I'm sure I'll someday hear, "this one time, in band camp"... lol...

It's not that deep, actually. Having had an older brother who paid a lot of attention to him has caused him to mature faster than kids his own age. Hence, he's pretty popular (he's the kid that "knows things" other kids his own age don't generally know, unfortunately).

Anyway, thanks for that link. That will come in handy. Yes, I'm from the south side of Indy.