In the piece by Topher Sanders detailing W.C. Gentry apology to Education Commissioner Eric Smith for calling him untrustworthy and unreliable there were several interesting pieces.
First the school board plans to turn North Shore K-8 back into just an elementary school. Which to me seems like a good idea, 5 year olds and 14 not only have different issues and should probably have a little distance between them.
Next like a junk yard dog who refuses to give up an old bone, the school board announced they will continue with their plan to split the three high schools, into two each, smaller theme schools that share a common campus over the next three years, this at an additional cost of 1.4 million dollars.
Betty Burney opened her mouth in the piece and said something about, it being about the kids, as if that has ever been a real concern of hers. After all she has been on the board for six plus years now and the problems we had on her day one are still the problems we still have on her day 2000.
Then way down on paragraph four, something highly interesting was mentioned. To me it was if the first signs of intelligent life were discovered or the hammer and the nail were now finally in the same vicinity. The district said for the new schools, they will recruit students, train teachers, put in place new electives, hire specialized personnel and coordinators and improve the rigor of programming in each school's feeder schools. It was the last part; improve the rigor of programming in each school's feeder schools that caused an alarm to go off. Could it be the district is finally getting a semblance of what they should do? Though I still have reservations if they know what that means.
You see kids don’t show up at high school and suddenly lose the ability to read or do math at grade level. No they show up without the skills they need. They are pushed along until they get to high school and there is nowhere else to push them to. I do not blame their teachers for this by the way; their hands have been tied by an administration which cares more about stats than children.
This transformation will mean the district can no longer subtly cajole teachers into giving gentlemen’s c or passing kids without the skills they need to be successful. They will have to trust that their teachers are failing kids that deserve it instead of giving them arbitrary percentages they can’t exceed. They will also have to provide more after school opportunities and legitimate summer school opportunities for the kids who are trying but either don’t get it or need more help. Then for some, heck probably for quite a few it will mean they will have to repeat a grade or two and the district will have to be okay with that.
There will also have to be more discipline in the feeder schools. You can have all the rigor you want and the best teacher too but if kids are running wild then no effective learning can occur. This means teachers will have to be able to write referrals and administrators will have to be okay with that and give kids real and meaningful consequences for their behavior something the district has loathed to do up to this point.
If the district is serious about putting more rigor in the feeder schools and I really hope they are, they should know it’s not going to be easy. It’s going to take a different way of thinking and doing things because for a long time the feeder schools have been pushing kids along without the skills they need, discipline and a work ethic.
There it was all the way down in paragraph four and at the end of it too. Almost like an afterthought what I, many teachers and people concerned with education think is the beginning of the solution to our education problems.
Chris Guerrieri
School Teacher
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