Wilmington kids being taught the lesson of failure
As I sat down to draw a cartoon about the ongoing feud between Governor Jack Markell and the Christina School District, I realized pretty quickly I had a problem. As someone who is paid to have an opinion, I’m almost embarrassed to admit I was torn.
Tags: Christina School District, Jack Markell, Priority Schools
From the article: “Earlier this week, Markell issued a final ultimatum to Christina, which has opposed the state’s Priority Schools plan from the start and refused to submit its own turnaround plans for the schools.”
Christina worked for months on turnaround plans which the state rejected. John Young has provided links, on this blog, of all the meetings.
I think that the thing that the thing we keep teaching these kids is that we don’t value them all that much. And for *this* population of kids, I don’t think that is an accident. It is why the whole charters experiment in high poverty areas is about pretending that you can get better achievement by investing less in classrooms, schools and support services for these kids.
Not really digging the cartoon or the piece, because it strives to make some sort of equivalence that just isn’t there.
And I totally second Pandora’s comment. Christina’s plans were even more in-depth than Red Clay’s. They were definitely out ahead of this the whole time.
Rob,
Love the passion and the cartoons! But to suggest that CSD is interested in ditching the schools after working all school year long to keep them is actually false.
The DOE is the interested party. The suggestion is being made by the WEAC, a committee formed by E.O. 46 from Governor Jack Markell.
All CSD did, on Tuesday, is say that we believe that WEAC, formed of Wilmington civic and community leaders has done good, thoughtful work, and we appreciate and support that work.
To suggest we want to dump the schools?
False.
Mike: Didn’t think you would. My point wasn’t to equate the two (I try to detail why in my column), but to show my ambivalence about the process itself, which seems to resemble more of a turf war than an honest attempt to help fix the schools.
That was sort-of my point with the whole thing.
“the whole charters experiment in high poverty areas is about pretending that you can get better achievement by investing less in classrooms, schools and support services for these kids.”
If you can’t teach them, fleece them.
John: I truly hope not, because it would seem to destroy the credibility of the argument Christina is making that they’re fighting on behalf of the kids.
I’m leery of the state’s heavy-handedness in these negotiations, and I’m no fan of the idea that charter schools are a magical elixir. I just worry about the inability of the two sides to figure out a solution in a less public way.
Let’s be honest, the jabs back and forth over this is not nearly as traumatizing to these kids as the violence and poverty around them in their neighborhoods. Governor Markell has had 6 years to address that issue and hasn’t; instead, Wilmington has grown more dangerous. I realize that isn’t entirely a state issue, but to ignore the reality of the situation on the ground and go after the schools for “under-performing” is naive at best.
Let’s be honest, the jabs back and forth over this is not nearly as traumatizing to these kids as the violence and poverty around them in their neighborhoods.
Actually, it is all of a piece. Unless you haven’t noticed the race to treat poor people as badly as possible. I would not underestimate how much kids understand of the attitudes of the adults around them.
I’m sure those in the trenches, who work in the school with these kids every day, trying to build them up and help them to rise above their surroundings, might not agree with you assessment that everyone is equally a part of that race.
Mike, I didn’t take that statement as a slam against teachers in the trenches.
As a city resident, whose children attended a high poverty school, I can assure you these children are very aware of many adult attitudes – I would say they are more aware of finances, loss of school programs/activities, consequences of test scores, etc., than more affluent children in a program secure, test score secure school.
Agree…I guess my problem lies with the equivocation between Markell and the DOE and the Christina folks who are doing the hard work and taking the blame. How many classes full of those students has Markell taught? How long has he actually spend in those classrooms talking to those students and parents about the impact of his ideas that he probably pulled from a book somewhere?
I would say, beyond photo ops, Markell hasn’t spent much, if any, time with these children or their families.
That has been one of my biggest problems with the entire Priority School debacle. It was unveiled on the steps of Warner with press fanfare and politicians/superintendents giving glowing endorsements for a plan they obviously didn’t know the first thing about (embarrassing, but goes a long way towards explaining why our legislators vote on certain things – they really don’t know what they’re voting for a lot of the time. See: Charter School Law).
Meanwhile 99.9% of the Priority Schools parents/community members knew nothing about the Priority School plan for their schools – and sure weren’t included in the plan’s development, but that’s par for the course when it comes to how this community is treated. Just try and pull something like this in an affluent area. In fact, had this sort of thing been considered in a more affluent area the first thing done would have been to create a community committee. WEAC wasn’t formed until later.
My problem with the comic is that implies something that isn’t true. I have had no trouble calling out school districts in the past, but to portray Priority Schools in a “both sides do it/both sides are wrong” sort of way simply isn’t accurate.
Understanding what happened (and is happening) with the Priority School situation is difficult and confusing – and extremely time consuming. I always love your comics, Rob, but you missed the mark on this one.
Pandora: No worries, can’t win them all. My intention wasn’t to equate the two sides on the issues, but to showcase my own ambivalence about the proposed solutions coming from both sides and illustrate my chief concern – how the very vocal back-and-forth is effecting kids and the learning environment in those schools today.
There’s only so much nuance you can squeeze into a cartoon, which is more like a sledgehammer than a scalpel.
I liked my idea better, Rob: A comic of Markell pounding “For Sale” signs into the yards of Priority Schools. 😉
John Young is a disingenuous, spotlight-hogging joke of a human being. And to suggest that “Christina worked for months on turnaround plans,” or that “Christina’s plans were even more in-depth than Red Clay’s,” is to mistake CSD’s bullshit, substance-free stall tactics for an actual plan.
Transferring these schools to Red Clay might actually be a compromise that CSD can stomach, because it will allow the Christina board to do what it does best — blame others while allowing someone else to fix the problem.
@Marcellus: Sorry, but I’ll take the word of Mike Matthews, who has been all over this, above that of a substance-free spitball thrower. Buh-bye!
I call you out anony ( Marcellus Wallace wannabe Pulp Fiction’s Ving Rhames?).
I dare to you to repeat those lies in front of the teams of parents, staff and teachers who took scads of hours to honor the DDOE mandate for plans for these CSD Priority schools.
And while I’m at it I will call out Rob Tornoe for his refusal to edit in corrections to the editorial he penned to go along with his cartoon. The corrections are all here in front of you, Rob. You own this.
I think Rob’s point is made. Nobody in this thread has yet to mention anything that will help the children. Charter supporters only care about busting the unions, the unions only care about not getting busted. Yet, nobody has mentioned anything that will directly help the children. Don’t cower to these blow hards Rob. It was a good cartoon. Stand by it.
These kids are way more perceptive than you can imagine. They live in an environment that many of the people in the governors office and their teachers have only seen on TV. If you think they’re unaware of whats going on, or are not effected by it as much as they are the violence, you are mistaken. The violence impacts them in one way, the failure for adults in government to come together and fix problems cause them to distrust their government, teachers, unions, school boards, etc. Both sides need to look in a mirror.
Unregulated charter school growth destroys public schools. In the same light, these children face a much steeper climb than children from more affluent communities, therefore their schools have to be the best in order for them to succeed. They dont need good teachers, they need great teachers.
Education is similar to the military in that most soldiers are well trained and we can all agree that they are patriots for signing up to protect our nation. However, some missions require elite soldiers and commanders. Everyone in the Navy is not a Navy Seal. Every Navy Seal is not Seal Team 6.
I’m sure most teachers are well trained and we can all agree that they are noble people for signing up to teach our children. However, these schools need the Seal Team 6 of educators to educate them while the police and government attempt to solve the problems in their community. It seems that the unions are telling us that they already have Seal Team 6 in those classrooms… I highly doubt it. That would mean that are school districts miraculously managed to staff inner city school with all 100% effective teachers And support staff. No government has ever been that good… especially in the hood. So keep that argument for the union hall.
What Markell and the Priority Schools people need to decide is what characteristics they are looking for to qualify teachers as elite, because testing is a joke and cannot be the sole determining factor. Nor can we just keep filling these schools with young white kids from the burbs dedicated to saving the world for the next 4 years of their lives.
Sooner or later both sides will need to come to terms on what is better for the kids. That requires consessions. If you fail to do that, then both of you are EQUALLY at fault.
Marcellus, it is clear you haven’t read CSD or RCCSD’s plans. Sadly, all that comes off here is that you cannot articulate the difference between someone being full of shit or being a piece of shit in your esteemed opinion. Feels like a troll job.
My sincere hope is that you are nowhere near our students with your dehumanizing approach. Test and punish is the failed status quo of the last 32 years. CSD one of a very few districts fighting to eliminate this fundamentally failed approach that labels, shames, and punishes kids. I feel poorly that you may work for a morally bankrupt regime, it should be better than this. It really should.
2014-10-17 Priority School Mtg on 10-16-14.pdf
2014-10-27 Priority School Mtng on 10-17-14.pdf
2014-10-28 Priority Schools Mtng with Superintendent on 10-27-14.pdf
2014-10-30 Priority Schools Mtng with Superintendent on 10-29-14.pdf
2014-11-5 Priority Schools Mtng with Superintendent on 11-3-14.pdf
2014-11-10 Priority Schools Legislative Coffee on 11-10-14.pdf
2014-11-12 Priority Schools Mtng with Superintendent on 11-10-14.pdf
2014-11-13 Priority Schools Legislative Coffee on 11-12-14.pdf
2014-12-17 Priority Schools Mtng with Superintendent on 12-15-14.pdf
2015-1-20 Priority Schools Public Feedback Session on 1-16-15.pdf
Agenda Priority School Core Planning Team 12 5 14.pdf
Agenda Priority School Core Planning Team 12 12 14.pdf
Agenda Priority School Core Planning Team 12 19 14.pdf
Agenda Priority School Framework Bancroft _6.pdf
Agenda Priority School Framework Bancroft _7.pdf
Agenda Priority School Team Meeting Bayard _5.pdf
Agenda Priority School Team Meeting Bayard _6.pdf
Agenda Priority School Team Meeting Stubbs _6.pdf
Agenda Priority School Team Meeting Stubbs _7.pdf
Agenda Priority School Core Planning Team 11-07-14.pdf
Agenda Priority School Core Planning Team 11-14-14.pdf
Agenda Priority School Core Planning Team 11-21-14.pdf
Agenda Priority School Framework Bancroft _1.pdf
Agenda Priority School Framework Bancroft _2.pdf
Agenda Priority School Framework Bancroft _4.pdf
Agenda Priority School Framework Bancroft _5.pdf
Agenda Priority School Framework Bayard _1.pdf
Agenda Priority School Framework Stubbs _1.pdf
Agenda Priority School Framework Stubbs _2.pdf
Agenda Priority School Team Meeting Bancroft _3.pdf
Agenda Priority School Team Meeting Bayard _3.pdf
Agenda Priority School Team Meeting Bayard _4.pdf
Agenda Priority School Team Meeting Stubbs _3.pdf
Agenda Priority School Team Meeting Stubbs _4.pdf
Agenda Priority School Team Meeting Stubbs _5.pdf
Agenda Priority School Update with Superintendent 12 15 14.pdf
Agenda Priority Schools Update with Superintendent 10 27 14.pdf
Agenda Priority Schools Update with Superintendent 10 29 14.pdf
Agenda Priority Schools Update with Superintendent 11 10 14.pdf
Agenda Superintendent Update 10-27-14.pdf
Agenda Superintendent Update 11-03-14.pdf
Bancroft Priority School Planning Minutes 1 22 15.pdf
Bancroft Priority School Planning Minutes 10-22-14.pdf
Bancroft Priority School Planning Minutes 10-29-14.pdf
Bancroft Priority School Planning Minutes 11 19 14.pdf
Bancroft Priority School Planning Minutes 11-05-14.pdf
Bancroft Priority School Planning Minutes 11-12-14.pdf
Bancroft Priority School Planning Minutes 12 3 14.pdf
Bancroft Priority School Planning Minutes 12-10-14.pdf
Bayard Priority School Planning Minutes 1-22-15.pdf
Bayard Priority School Planning Minutes 10-28-14.pdf
Bayard Priority School Planning Minutes 11-12-14.pdf
Bayard Priority School Planning Minutes 11-18-14.pdf
Bayard Priority School Planning Minutes 12-2-14.pdf
Bayard Priority School Planning Minutes 12-9-14.pdf
Bayard Professional Development Needs Assessment.pdf
Minutes Priority School Core Planning Team 1-16-15.pdf
Minutes Priority School Core Planning Team 11-07-14 REVISED.pdf
Minutes Priority School Core Planning Team 11-14-14.pdf
Minutes Priority School Core Planning Team 11-21-14.pdf
Minutes Priority School Core Planning Team 12-05-14.pdf
Minutes Priority School Core Planning Team 12-12-14.pdf
Minutes Priority School Core Planning Team 12-19-14.pdf
Stubbs Priority School Planning Minutes 1-22-15.pdf
Stubbs Priority School Planning Minutes 10-22-14.pdf
Stubbs Priority School Planning Minutes 10-30-14.pdf
Stubbs Priority School Planning Minutes 11 20 14.pdf
Stubbs Priority School Planning Minutes 11-13-14.pdf
Stubbs Priority School Planning Minutes 12-4-14.pdf
Stubbs Priority School Planning Minutes 12-11-14.pdf
Survey for Priority School Updates with Superintendent.pdf
Survey Results from Superintendent Update 10-27-14.pdf
“What Markell and the Priority Schools people need to decide is what characteristics they are looking for to qualify teachers as elite, because testing is a joke and cannot be the sole determining factor.”
Bane, the test was the sole factor in determining Priority Schools. So, if you consider testing a joke…
I, and many others, have written extensively on specific measures that could/should be taken to “help the children” at these schools. What’s going on with Priority Schools is extremely complicated and there’s a lot of misinformation being thrown around.
However, these schools need the Seal Team 6 of educators to educate them while the police and government attempt to solve the problems in their community. It seems that the unions are telling us that they already have Seal Team 6 in those classrooms… I highly doubt it. That would mean that are school districts miraculously managed to staff inner city school with all 100% effective teachers And support staff.
You had me until here. You don’t know if the teachers in these schools are Seal Team 6 educators, mainly because these educators have to be in the business of managing a whole lot of issues for these kids that other educators do not. It is all of these other challenges the keep these kids from being in the charters that everyone seems to think are doing such a good job. You can’t measure a good job by how well you educate the best, you measure your good job by how well you educate the kids who walk in the door with all of the challenges that charters simply do not want to deal with.
I’ve been pretty clear that the solution in making these schools work better for these children is in finding a way to warp the right services around these kids and their families in order to improve their readiness for and their experience of school. From parenting tutoring for their parents, to mental health services for family who needs that, to crisis intervention, to basic health care and all of the other supports that kids in poverty sometimes need and don’t get — these are the kind of solutions that are specifically OFF of the table in this Priority Schools business. There is nothing here about the needs of the kids, it is entirely loaded in the premise that the teachers are the only problem and that is specifically not true. Because if it was true, how is it that so many faulty teachers survive the fairly detailed and onerous review process every year? And don’t give me the union crap. Bad teachers can be terminated and it isn’t as tough as portrayed.
The problem with trying to have *both sides are at fault* is that you have to specifically ignore the group of people here that you say are being given short shrift here — the kids. I don’t doubt that some teachers have some room for improvement, but it is the teachers in these schools who show up on the daily to try to do something for these kids, not the Governor or anyone from the DOE. The Governor and the DOE are invested in imposing a school model on Wilmington that transfers a good deal of money to corporate interests but invests not one whit in the community that badly needs to be served here. The bad thing here is that there are models for making high-poverty, high-needs schools better (and you can start with the Harlem Children’s Project), and just handing over schools to corporations without giving the kids and their families any better support ain’t one of those models.
Part of the problem is this; I have seen some very good teachers struggle to get their classes in low income schools above the 50% mark then move to schools in more prosperous areas and hit 80-90% without changing anything. Its no “Seal Team 6” solution here, but I will point this out; they also make more money teaching in the prosperous school and don’t have to fear nonsense like a priority schools takeover. What incentives are there to keep good teaching in schools that are tough when all that matters is a test that has changed 3 times in 4 years?
And no, the union isn’t about “stall tactics,” its about keeping outsiders who have never been in these schools from coming in and telling them what is best for them, with the potential of making things worse instead of better.
To build on one of Cassandra’s points, much as the library on Del. 9 will provide services beyond a traditional library’s, we need schools that do more than traditional schools. That’s already the case to some extent (meal programs, etc.) but let’s use Bane’s criterion and put the kids first:
For people of means, by which I mean middle-class and above, schools already serve functions beyond curriculum-based instruction. By 4th-5th grade those students are getting into extracurriculars like music and sports, along with academic-enrichment programs. These programs are not always accessed through school, because these are people who can afford such extras. They are laying the groundwork for college acceptance before their kids reach double digits.
Poor parents, obviously, lack that wealth of options. (I had a friend who coached an inner-city little league, and he had to pay the minimal registration fee for half his team.) We should give high-poverty schools extra funding and personnel to open those avenues of interest to those who could benefit, which is pretty much everyone. Strong extracurricular programs help in virtually all ways, from improving student performance to graduation rates. Do you know how many kids get crew scholarships? There’s a youth rowing club just blocks away from some of the city schools, but only a couple or three local kids were there as of 2012 (when my child graduated).
I point this out because it seems an area outside of federal jurisdiction, one in which we can gain a positive outcome without ensnaring red tape. How it could be funded is another problem for another day.
Also, too, the key to overthrowing the corporate takeover of schools is overthrowing the testing regime. To that effect, an interesting story from New Jersey:
http://www.app.com/story/news/education/education-trends/2014/11/13/parents-try-opt-parcc-test/18982547/
@Geezer: agree with virtually everything you say, especially this:
the key to overthrowing the corporate takeover of schools is overthrowing the testing regime.
… because that’s how you pay for all those enrichment activities–with the hundreds of millions spent over the past 15 years in Delaware and the US on excessive testing rather than on funneling support into the school and the classroom …
The saddest part of all this is that THE MONEY IS ALREADY IN THE SYSTEM, it’s just being spent on Pearson, on ETS, on bureaucrats, on consultants, and NOT ON CHILDREN.
“while the police and government attempt to solve the problems in their community”
Sure, unfortunately the attempt is MIA. It’s pretty much an AND function. All inputs must be true in order for the output to be true. So if anything is not being done, all is for naught. That’s probably not a 100% true in this case, but I bet it’s close enough.
“educators have to be in the business of managing a whole lot of issues for these kids that other educators do not. ”
And for which these educators are not trained or educated because it is outside of their core competency. Most schools would be just fine if the only role they had to serve was to educate, in accordance with a specific curriculum. But we keep asking schools and educators to function as surrogate parents, homes, kitchens, laundries, social services, and who knows what else.
Sure children of poverty have needs, but why are we asking the schools and educators to fulfill those needs?
“Sure children of poverty have needs, but why are we asking the schools and educators to fulfill those needs?”
Because often they are the least chaotic place in those neighborhoods. “Anchors of stability,” if you will. The buildings already exist, and are in use for their primary purpose for less than half the 24-hour day. And finally, convenience. One of the major hassles of poverty is the constant trudging from office to office to get services. The kids already are there five days a week.
Need any more reasons? I’m sure there are some I haven’t thought of.
That said, the schools need more than educators to fulfill those needs. The providers of those services need not be teachers; school nurses aren’t. Unfortunately, we fund those nurses through the education budget instead of the health budget. We would do better to fund through the other agencies as necessary while using the school platform to deliver the services.
“Sure children of poverty have needs, but why are we asking the schools and educators to fulfill those needs?”
Too often this is about teachers just jumping into the breach in order to get a student able to be classroom ready. If you have a student who doesn’t have the right materials to get schoolwork done, then teachers figure out a way to get them those materials. Students who do not have support at home for learning, get that support as best as possible from folks in the building. I can’t even imagine what teachers do with kids who come to school traumatized by what happens around them in the neighborhood. And this is not even *official* service provisioning, it is triage by teachers who can’t just bypass these issues and get to the math lesson of the day.
This is one of the things that completely baffles me about this Priority Schools business — the *best* thing that the Governor could do would be to get Rita Landgraf and her team involved in crafting a solution that would help wrap the right services (performed by the right people!) around these kids and their families which would actually free teachers and administrators to do what they are paid to do. IME, Mrs. Landgraf is someone who wants to make sure that people get the help they need and she seems creative about getting there. She and her department are utterly missing from this equation and they should have been the first partner.
“Need any more reasons?” Nope, they were intuitively obvious, but schools do not have to equal educators.
“That said, the schools need more than educators to fulfill those needs. ” Which was my key point.
“We would do better to fund through the other agencies as necessary while using the school platform to deliver the services.” Exactly! Why aren’t we not doing that? Is it hard? It can’t be that no one has ever thought of it before. Is it a stovepipe problem? A union work rules problem? Or just a paradigm?
Great conversation
Dave: I think it’s because we don’t prioritize truly helping the poor. Many are at a loss trying to navigate the system. When adults aren’t getting the services they qualify for, we tend to blame them, but kids shouldn’t suffer when their parents don’t know how to, or simply can’t, access services and programs that would benefit their kids.
Geezer, I wish this was the conversation instead of what it seems to be. If it takes a village, why is it that the schools, their budgets, and their administrators are responsible for the entire village?
I have felt this way for a very long time. Probably around the time that schools started to send food home on the weekends because if they didn’t then some kids would not be able to eat. Schools cannot perform every service and function necessary to fix every societal ill. And it is my belief that the problems in public education are directly attributable to trying to do mitigate failures elsewhere in the system.
Is there a program where schools provide food for the weekend? I thought this was done by teachers seeing a need.
The truth is there is no financial incentive to truly help these schools and the children they serve.
Go back and read the original MOU concerning Priority Schools. In order for the 6 schools to receive approx. 5.8 million over approx. 4 years (Do the math – it’s not that much money per school, per year) the schools had to:
1. Hire a school leader for a minimum salary of 160,000.00
2. Have teachers reapply for their jobs
3. Achieve stunning success or be closed, converted to charter and/or privatized
See the money there? Know what’s missing? The children. There wasn’t one word about smaller class sizes, hiring more teachers, equitable funding, wrap around services – let alone restoring programs such as technology, TAG, the arts (you know, the programs more affluent schools take for granted and give their student body an edge). Quite simply, the children didn’t exist in the Priority School plan – they weren’t the plan’s priority.
No one in power (the Governor, legislators, school districts, etc.) will ever say, “Hey, we’ve deliberately re-segregated our schools through Choice, the Neighborhood Schools Act, Magnets and Charters which created high poverty/high needs schools and now we have to take money from our non-poverty schools to fund what we created. Sorry, if that upsets people in non-high poverty schools, but you can’t have it all. You have to choose: Stay segregated (ugh) and lose money, or keep the money and diversify your student body.”
Because there’s only one pot of money and it isn’t fair that we fund all schools based on the same formula and pretend that high poverty schools (that we purposefully created) don’t exist and should be treated the same.
One more thing… This statement from Mike:
“I have seen some very good teachers struggle to get their classes in low income schools above the 50% mark then move to schools in more prosperous areas and hit 80-90% without changing anything.”
This is 100% correct. And, can someone explain to me how an interview would determine a “great” teacher? Would never having taught in a high poverty school be a disqualifier? Seems like it should be – I mean, how would you know if a teacher could succeed in an environment they’ve never worked in?
I understand there is a “backpack” program in Red Clay and other districts to send kids home with food over the weekend. I have heard mention of this but it doesn’t seem to be widely known. I am sure the teachers play a role in identifying students in need.
“I thought this was done by teachers seeing a need.”
Yes, a need that is not being met by other agencies. My question is, why not?
“The truth is there is no financial incentive to truly help these schools”
And I think that’s the crux of this. You are correct, but you have a different perspective than I do. I don’t want to help the schools. I don’t think the schools are failing the children they serve. The failure is elsewhere, in the “wraparound” services, for which education and the schools play a vital role.
My perception is that many want the schools to play the greater role and yet, when I consider the greatest obstacle to children (everyone agrees it’s poverty), it has to make you say “huh? I don’t get it”. Geezer said that the schools are an island of stability. Well ok, but why does that mean you shove everything into the education budget? From the overall conversation, one gets the impression that education is the tall pole in the tent when it’s really poverty. I give to programs like Feed America because a full stomach means the mind is free to think and learn. If you wanted me to donate to a school, I wouldn’t do it. Ask me to feed someone, I open my wallet.
Dave makes a great point. Social service agencies should be required to host a sigificant number of their points-of-contact inside schools as part of the agency budget. One thing though, there is no state agency responsible for feeding hungry people. That is all done privately on the “thousand points of light” philospophy, for better or worse.
Why isn’t this need being addressed by other agencies, Dave? Because, yet again, there’s no incentive to do so – and it’s easy to ignore the poorest among us. We do it all the time…
Listen to political speeches (you know, the people who control budgets and make policy) and notice how very, very few mention policy to address poverty. They talk about crime and money for police and prisons. They’ll talk about poverty in education and money for testing and charter schools. They’ll talk about feeding the poor and then applaud charities and call for donations (not legislation or funding). And conservatives will talk about sacred pregnancy while cutting every benefit once the child is born.
Utilizing schools for wrap around services makes sense (not making it the teachers’ job) It’s the only place where you’ll find children on a daily basis and find out their needs, what’s going on in their life/neighborhoods. The way this works now is that teachers are stepping in – because they live with these children everyday, and unlike the rest of us, can’t ignore the reality of these situations. This isn’t a policy debate for them.
If you don’t want to use schools to implement these other wrap around programs then what would you use? How would you amass the necessary information for these other agencies to address? Surely teachers in these building would work with the other agencies?
And no one is saying that these programs should be run by schools/districts and come out of their budgets. What I’m hearing is the school building is the logical place to gather/identify information/need. But if you have another way/location to achieve this, I’m all ears.
Know what? I think I’m misunderstanding Dave’s school point. I think we’re actually saying the same thing.
I think the misunderstanding came about because Dave mentioned “schools and educators.” I think we all are arguing that we should use the schools, but not the educators, to deliver services that aren’t directly educational.
Is the backpack program based in the school district or is this a Food Bank program? I know the Food Bank preps and delivers weekend food backpacks to kids too.
I don’t know for sure but it is probably a Food Bank program delivered through the schools. It is welcome but still a drop in the ocean.
As far as I am concerned, the schools have under-used industrial kitchens and facilities in the middle of our high-poverty areas and should be serving hot meals breakfast through dinner seven days a week, year-round to the community as well as schoolkids. Scheduled around school hours, of course.
Perhaps we are saying the same thing. When I see the word “school” I envision the buildings, staff, curriculum, buses, students. Basically the whole enchilada. I agree that school campuses can be multipurpose. And I do not think that staff can be held responsible for achievement when they have no means to deal with poverty.
If I were governor, I would collocate all those services that have something to do with a child’s health and welfare, including food banks, medical clinics, social services, law enforcement, etc. One stop shopping for everything. Again, if poverty is the tall pole in the tent, it seems to me that we should be expending our efforts on that. If you pull people out of poverty, then most of the issues regarding choice, charters, etc. becomes moot.
Reminds me of the joke by Stephen Covey where he talks about a team of workers busy cutting through the undergrowth and the leader climbs the tallest tree, surveys the entire situation, and yells down, ‘Wrong jungle!’ … The workers yell back up at him ‘Shut up! We’re making progress!’
Again, if poverty is the tall pole in the tent, it seems to me that we should be expending our efforts on that.
All true, but I think education advocates have resigned themselves to understand that is not going to happen, which is the premise for most education debates.Therefore we debate poverty issues in the context of schools. Unfortunately official education policy in Delaware is to contain poverty and build enclaves, responding to public attitudes, rather than to alleviate poverty.
Sometimes I think we should make all public schools offer the exact same opportunities – this mainly applies to elementary and middle schools. No more dropping the arts, TAG, Technology, etc. because there’s “not enough” children in high poverty schools to make them cost effective. And it’s crap like this that’s tolerated when it comes to high poverty schools. Can anyone imagine telling a child at a more affluent school, Oh, you need special ed, reduced/free lunch, a winter coat, etc., well you’ll need to attend one of our high poverty schools. We don’t offer those services at our non-poverty public schools. (Altho, that was one of the Cooke Elementary attendance zone arguments. Still stunning after all this time. But I get why they made that argument – districts have pretty much made the same point with how they fund their high poverty schools.)
Make all the K-8 schools offer all services/programs and watch how fast things change. Yep, go after the money.
And my idea isn’t radical. We are talking about public schools. It isn’t fair for high poverty schools to not have the exact same programs (programs that equal opportunities) as every other school.