Posted on 12/14/2010 12:19:38 PM PST by SmithL
One of every four Oakland students - including 40 percent of its highest achievers - fled the district's public schools after finishing fifth grade in the spring, shunning the city's middle schools in favor of private, suburban or charter schools.
The exodus, which crosses all ethnicities and income levels, meant a loss of at least $6 million in state revenue. But perhaps more importantly, it shows the staggering brain drain that consistently leaves middle schools heavily weighted with struggling students.
It's a confounding problem for Oakland administrators: How can they improve the middle schools' test scores when the brightest students leave?
"The middle schools are saying, 'Come on. We're supposed to get these kids,' " Oakland Superintendent Tony Smith said. Oakland is the most improving large urban district in the state, but that's not showing up in middle school test scores, he said.
Smith asked district staff this year to examine enrollment figures to confirm his hunch that there was more to the precipitous drop in proficiency rates from elementary to middle school than what was happening inside the classrooms.
The numbers confirmed that the district was losing 40 percent of the advanced students as well as 28 percent of those who reached grade-level proficiency at an Oakland elementary school.
The result has been a drop in test scores from elementary to middle schools - scores that make it hard to then attract families of incoming sixth-graders.
For example, in 2010, 54 percent of fifth-graders were proficient or advanced in English, compared with 39 percent of sixth-graders. Next door in Berkeley, 63 percent of sixth-graders were proficient or better.
In short, many families feel their high-performing children can't maintain that kind of achievement at the district's middle schools, Smith said.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
Hey, I have an idea!
TEACH BETTER.
I think that would fix things right up.
More than 97% non-white. How can those students possibly learn if there isn't a white student to sit next to them? /illustrating absurdity
Raise the bar and students will try to reach it.
Lower the bar and students will try to reach it.
What will the left do if it ever comes to pass that race can no longer be used as a proxy for class.
Truly tragic.
Most funding should be cut for the public school system and instead just place small neighborhood schools inside each public housing project.
The onset of puberty has alot to do with this exodus.
/leftist
It’s OK Oakland - just keep doing what your doing, and everything will work out just fine (/sarc)
Lets look at the bright side: pensions and total # of teachers probably remain steady, and a 30-1 student-teacher ratio can flip, to become 1-30.
They have this backwards, the low scores caused the parents of the bright students to pull them out and give them a chance at a real education. If they would actually teach the subjects needed in the real world instead of how to worship homos they wouldn't be losing students.
WAAAAAAA!
All the kids who really want to keep learning and doing well are leaving to go to schools to get into an environment where they can!
WAAAAAAA!
And the public schools are stuck with the rest: those who haven’t given their education much thought; and those who have, but don’t really care.
WAAAAAAA!
Now the public intermediate schools might have to change their entire top-down, statist-dictated campus gulag environment to try and lure back the achievers.
WAAAAAAA!
Isn’t Oakland the school district which teaches Ebonics as an official language?
The 'Fox' (a.k.a. Ben Chavis)is really starting to have an effect.
They’re leaving to escape the undisciplined kids who disrupt the classes and can’t be controlled by the teachers, so that they can continue with their education.
That is...they fully realize that they are regressing...not progressing. That what they are being fed is more harmful than good. That they look to their leaders for example and find a wasteland. That they look sometimes to their political leaders for guidance and proof that education will work for them...and they read how the "leader-in-chief" says that "unemployment benefits are the biggest boost to the economy."
Is it any wonder that with these examples, they are leaving public education???
The saddest part is that those NOT leaving public education will be elected to high state and/or national office.
Those with the intelligence and having left public education will be the next to leave the US.
This is a good trend. As students leave the public schools for private schools, the power of the corrupt unions decreases. At least these parents care enough to get their kids out of these failing and unsafe schools. The Leftist education monopoly and the disintegration of of the family are the main reasons that our nation is failing to give children a good eduction.
Solution of the Left...have the federal regulatory apparatus implement an internal passport system with strict relocation rules.
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