Posted on 06/23/2008 4:10:42 PM PDT by Amelia
...they take lingering looks at Douglass’s teachers and administrators as they work and at its students as they, more often than not, don’t work. Though eventually the Raymonds (just barely) take sides — they seem not to be fans of Mr. Bush’s program — their dismaying film isn’t really asking whether No Child Left Behind can help Douglass. It’s asking whether anything can.
The film finds a few success stories among the school’s 1,100 students, but it is filled largely with teenagers who are drowning in apathy and attitude, those who seem well beyond any “To Sir With Love”-style rescue.
It is filled as well with emptiness. At “back-to-school night” for parents early in the school year the camera pans the auditorium; it is largely empty. At the Christmas concert the school’s well-regarded choir is belting out a lovely “Messiah,” again to a largely empty auditorium....
HBO, Monday night at 9, Eastern and Pacific times; 8, Central time.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
This list is for intellectual discussion of articles and issues related to public education (including charter schools) from the preschool to university level. Items more appropriately placed on the “Naughty Teacher” list, “Another reason to Homeschool” list, or of a general public-school-bashing nature will not be pinged.
If you would like to be on or off this list, please freepmail Amelia, Gabz, Shag377, or SoftballMominVa
At the time of filming, many of the students read at an elementary school level. More than 500 freshmen matriculate each year yet only 50 percent return for their sophomore year. Only 10 percent passed the reading proficiency tests; math scores are at 1 percent. Some 67 percent of the teachers are not certified.
snip
"Urban education is a moral tragedy in this country," ...If you're depressed [after seeing the documentary], it means that we've succeeded."
I'm interested in seeing this movie and I'd like to ask the help of anyone who believes, like I do, that the state of urban education is shameful, how does anyone, charter, private, home schooled, teach a child who is a senior, reads at an elementary level, and doesn't want to be taught, to learn?
I'm looking forward to the suggestions and insights from the learned Freepers here.
Urban eduacation is bad because THE KIDS DON’T CARE. Nothing less, nothing more. They largely have no fathers in the home, and nobody to tell them that learning and education matters.
Therefore, they don’t care. And no amount of money, or NCLB program, is going to change that.
66 percent of the Douglass educators are not certified, we’re told. The school is running on substitutes and other emergency fill-ins. And that is the bottom line for schools like this. Bureaucrats can make all the rules and set all the benchmarks they want, but none of it will change anything if no one can be found to do the hands-on work of teaching. As seen in this film, it’s not just a thankless job; it looks disconcertingly as if it might be an impossible one.
I thought the South lost the Civil War.
Would charters or vouchers solve it, in your opinion?
Human teachers are obsolete. Replace them all with computers. The most interesting learning I ever experienced was computer based. If the kid has a question or needs clarification, you could have one “teacher” a thousand miles away provide the info.
Parental involvement is essential to whether a student performs, regardless of the school's perfomance.
There is a lot wrong with our ed system, but I say kids fail, not schools. It starts at home.
Charters and vouchers only solve the problem if the kids want to learn and the parents want something better for their kids. Unfortunately, it seems that modern day poverty in the U.S. is not so much a matter of circumstance, but choice. There are more than enough programs to get people out of poverty but those people have to want to use them.
The state took over the school system in Helena, Arkansas just for these reasons.
Do you think that would help the students in this story do better? Or would they just be looking up rap lyrics and cool tennis shoes?
If a student read 6 grades below grade level and didn't want to learn, would this work in that case?
They couldn’t get enough certified teachers? Were the students that bad, or was there another reason?
“Would charters or vouchers solve it, in your opinion?”
As long as parents are not interested in helping their children NO school can make up all of the disadvantages these children start with and have to endure.
If public schools could discipline, dismiss and choose their students like private schools their success rate would be the same.
Vouchers only help a small minority of students and are a bailout for the parochial school system which in many cases in no better that the public system. Their shining examples are usually selective high tuition schools. This is why in many areas the parochial schools refuse to be tested and compared on an even footing with the public schools.
Before we start another “government program” lets see where we stand on both sides. Bleeding one system to help another may be a bad idea in the long one. My wife has taught in both and she hates the Priests (ministers) and the teachers unions equally. They have their own agendas.
You don't. It is possible to inspire someone to want to learn, but there is no way (in our society) to force them to learn.
In a theoretical society, public flogging or execution of the lowest-scoring student in the school at the end of each week would work wonders. But we're not allowed to use such drastic methods.
These teachers are not poor teachers because they aren't certified, but because they are poor teachers.
Certification does not magically make someone a good teacher.
BTW, over 30 years ago Marva Collins proved that even the worst students can be taught successfully. It requires hard work, dedicated teachers and committed parents. And very little attention to the "fad of the year" in teaching methods.
We've known how to teach students for centuries. We just aren't doing it.
“....they seem not to be fans of Mr. Bush’s program ...”
Excuse me. That is Kennedy’s program. Bush just signed off on it.
It sounds hard, and it is, but it is not impossible. The first question is whether they are too stupid to learn or simply never cared enough to try. Stupid can't be fixed, but that's a rather small fraction of the kids who perform poorly. Lazy and indifferent are a challenge, but it's amazing what can be done if you break through that barrier. It's all a question of motivation and connections, and a teacher who cares may be able to connect with kids and motivate them. It's not a guarantee, and the teacher's style has to match the temperment of the kids (or be made to match), but the results can be spectacular.
To take your specific example: a senior who reads at the elementary school level, I know from personal experience that a math teacher can inspire a multi-year jump in math. I don't think you can fix everything in one year, but the sense of real accomplishment (not imitation self-esteem) can put the kid on track to make it through community college and beyond.
Can't wait to see if the media call Barack "Mr. Obama" incessantly if he wins the Presidency...
Hang in there and see if you can’t interest a few grandparents in tutoring some of the children. My 12-year old grandson failed Math 3 years in a row in AR and was dangerously close to failing English, also. When his mother requested that he be retained in 6th grade, we had to battle the teachers whose attitude was, “well after all, he’s only failing one subject”. We succeeded in having him retained and I enrolled him in school here in AL. After we resolved some of his glaringly apparent behaviorial issues, and with some tutoring from my husband and myself, he ended the 2007-2008 school year as an Honor Roll student and he passed Math for the first time in 3 years.
Yes, they will. It is standard style. The first time the name is mentioned in a story, the title, be it President, Congressman, whathaveyou, is used and and subsequent mention is either Mr., Mrs., or Ms. Prior to this style change, at least 10 if not more years ago, any subsequent mention of the name contained no title of any shape or form, just the last name.
Parental involvement is indeed a key ingredient, but so is the expulsion of the bad students, teachers unions and blood thirsty lawyers that have ruined the discipline necessary to create a safe learning environment.
If it’s on HBO it will be just another liberal propaganda film that bashes G W Bush and conservatives. I have no use for HBO, except for its boxing program.
And Ted Kennedy's program too. Amazing how the left always forgets that.
The article didn't say. Some substitutes in our system are retired teachers, and some are "warm bodies" - I don't know about this system.
Ten percent learn, no matter what you do. Ten percent don't learn, no matter what you do. Teaching is the art of reaching the other 80 percent. Looks like urban schools in the United States have succeeded in reaching absolutely zero percent of the salvagable, they are more or less complete, utter failures. It is truly a singular achievement.
Is anyone watching this show?
Poor Frederick Douglass is probably ashamed that the school bears his name at this point.
The school is cleaner than I thought it would be, much cleaner
That poor principal is doing her best, but she is way, way over her head with these kids that just don’t care.
Yes, one of the first things that struck me was how bright and clean much of the inside appears!
It is sad how much the teachers and staff seem to care, and how little the children seem to. The student at the beginning talking about having no home, who said she was the norm, probably is one reason why....
It was more than likely scrubbed from top to bottom for the cameras.......and HBO probably paid for the cleaning.
I think so, because parents that care enough to use vouchers have decent kids.
The problem is that even the kids in these urban schools who are halfway decent, are being brought down by the thug kids, because one bad apple spoils the whole bunch.
I'm finding that I'm impressed with the administration, and I didn't expect that. I expected to hate them and to be sitting here picking apart everything they are doing wrong - and I'm not seeing that in the least. I'm seeing administrators that are doing so many things right.
Someday, your grandson will rise up and call you and you husband “Blessed”!
I’m really surprised to see the principal herself going to the homes. We have a social worker who does that, but I’ve never heard of the principal doing it personally.
Wilson Reading system - another good choice. Excellent reading program, completely phonics based.
I teach at a major university. Distance learning (buzzword for online classes) works well with adult learners who opt into the class. It doesn't work worth a darn with traditional 18 year-old college freshmen.
Motivation is my number one goal with that group. Only about 10% of that group are self motivated. If I wasn't there to check that the students were doing their work each day, more than half would flunk. Most are shocked that a they don't get an automatic B for just showing up. They are even more stunned when they do something and still receive an F.
Student: But I worked so hard on that.
Professor: I'm sorry, but the assignment was a break even analysis. You can't do that without numbers.
Student: But if I don't get a B I'll lose my school loans.
Or my personal favorite:
Student: I don't understand any of this.
Professor: Perhaps you aren't studying effectively and I can help. Can you show me the notes you took when you read the book?
Student: I don't take notes on the book.
Professor: OK. Can you show me the notes you took in class?
Student: I don't have any.
"I just want to do what I do and you should pass me for doing nothin" "I should pass you for doing nothing and not coming to class?" "Yeah, cuz I'm just gonna do what I do, walk de halls."
I'm speechless
I can’t understand why Auddie, the 17-year-old 9th grader who won’t go to class, even bothers to show up ever, at all.
The teacher talking about why the state doesn’t take over the schools even though they’ve been threatening for years - “I don’t think they have any solutions either.”
Both my parents were teachers, and I recall endless exasperation at the dinner table nearly every night as they each complained about the lack of parental involvement in the schooling of their most failed students, and that was nearly 30 years ago. The only thing that’s changed since then is that the government has thrown more money at the problem, and the parents continue to care even less, which equals continued failure.
Sad.
That choir is quite talented. Too bad almost no one is there to hear it.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.