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 ...
That said, all are mixed together. So the smart ones learn despite the school. The capable ones get by but learn very little. The rest may graduate, but are lacking the most basic elements of education.
Parents with above-average children should, in my opinion, get them out of public schools. Find an alternative. Those who want their average children to excel should do the same.
The public schools are, by and large, with exceptions duly noted, an intellectual desert. They are not getting any better. And even the best teachers are so busy taking care of the incapable and unwilling that they have no time for the better students.
Step 1: Lose the entitlement mentality.
Or worse, revive the state court ruling that home schooling is "illegal."
“Its OK Oakland - just keep doing what your doing, and everything will work out just fine (/sarc)”
More money! They need to spend more money! /s/
My sister went to 7th grade at a school in El Cerrito back in the 70s, and the black-on-white persecution was bad back then. I’m sure it’s worse now.
Of course, this would have nothing to do with people leaving the schools.
/sarc
Considering how well Jerry Brown did destroying Oakland and its school system, one can’t begin to imagine how well he’ll do with the entire state of California. The nightmare is right on the horizon. Future article will be entitled “Brain drain from California School Districts,” and the “rest of California.”
Those that can flee liberalism . . schools, neighborhoods, cities, shopping areas, states, regions. Liberalism is inherently a deal killer.
“How can they improve the middle schools’ test scores when the brightest students leave?”
Maybe they should actually HELP the kids who DO need it.
California was cutting edge in introducing the hate whitey diversity doctrines into the schools. I feel sorry for the 92 white students who had to finish school there. They are probably extremely abused. Their parents stink to do that to them.
1. Eliminate tenure and seniority.
2. Base teacher benefits and retention on quality, not seniority.
3. Make it clear to the persons evaluating, hiring and promoting teachers that their jobs depend on improving the quality of education.
4. Make the dismissal of a bad teacher a simple, short process - not a multiyear judicial process.
5. Make the expulsion of chronic troublemakers in the student body a simple, short process - not a multiyear judicial process.
6. Encourage teachers to get advanced degrees in their areas of expertise. Discourage them from obtaining advanced degrees in Education.
The schools would improve markedly in a very short period of time.
No problem. They’ll pressure the big unions to find a way to make it illegal for these students to leave. This is what leftist teachers do best....it’s the only thing they can do at all!
The elementary schools are probably just as bad as the middle schools. The difference is most parents are capable of supplementing enough to make sure their kids can read and know their times table.
After five years they say, “Screw this, I’m not teaching them algebra, too” and send them private.
The ones who care, that it....
I believe that their area of expertise is Education. I don't think most of them could obtain a Bachelor Degree in the subject they are teaching, so I see no way for them to obtain advanced degrees.
I base this on seeing the mass transfer of chemistry majors to education majors after one semester of hard science and calculus, back in 1968. I only assume it happened in other majors, and is still happening today.
Teacher unions, after having for decades whined about wanting smaller class sizes finally got their wish. Not so great when the students left are the unproductive schlubs, is it?? Well, too damned bad!!
This is a microcosm of California as a whole... the producers are heading for the exits, leaving behind the unproductive types. This is what the progressivist left has wanted, right? Now the teacher unions have a simpler, more mentally malleable core group of students to mold into perpetually needy, dependent sheep. The future of California couldn`t be brighter.
...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...So, about seven, eight kids?
Damn, those poor kids. My wife and I went to a mixed-race urban school, and had our share of getting jumped and beat up by blacks. But it was only about 20 percent black. Can't imagine it being 97 percent black and being a white kid there.
“Raise the bar and students will try to reach it.
Lower the bar and students will try to reach it.”
Students will be reaching for the $4.5B MO salad bar.
: o /
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