Save Our Community was founded in the movement to resist Wal-Mart's development in Rosemead, California. Now, it has become a general site for news, information, gossip, talk, and blogging about Rosemead. We also have stories about South San Gabriel, San Gabriel, Montebello, and occasionally about Pico Rivera, El Monte, South El Monte, Alhambra, Temple City, and other nearby communities. Your host is Todd. If you want a blog just sign up, get approved, and start writing. Good posts will be moved onto the home page.
NCLB
http://saveourcommunity.us/?q=node/556#comment-5337
I posted this as a reply further up in the discussion. But, for some reason, it does not always appear when I click on the thread, and I can't seem to get it inserted where I want it. So I am including this link here. It may or may not work. This was in the context of explaining what NCLB was and what it required.
wEIRD comment bug
The comments seem to show up under two different nodes. One is "MUSD Elections..." and the other is "Election Results".
Thanks for the link, and the link on the post.
After doing a little web research, I learned a few weird things.
The MUSD scores kinda suck. See http://www.greatschools.net/cgi-bin/ca/district_profile/299
The scoring system description is complex, but rational.
There's a problem with the "API Growth Target" though. Not only must the school's API grow, but so must all measured subgroups. One subgroup is "special ed". It's not realistic to demand that they raise their scores.
Also, this calculation obviates the purpose of a school-wide growth target, because if each subgroup meets or exceeds its own growth target, the overall growth will exceed the average growth target.
Bill Gates was mentioned. Turns out Bill Gates and I agreed. He said (at http://www.gatesfoundation.org/MediaCenter/Speeches/Co-ChairSpeeches/BillgSpeeches/BGSpeechNGA-050226.htm ):
Today, only one-third of our students graduate from high school ready for college, work, and citizenship.
The other two-thirds, most of them low-income and minority students, are tracked into courses that won’t ever get them ready for college or prepare them for a family-wage job – no matter how well the students learn or the teachers teach.
This isn’t an accident or a flaw in the system; it is the system.
And a few paragraphs later...
Once we realize that we are keeping low-income and minority kids out of rigorous courses, there can be only two arguments for keeping it that way – either we think they can’t learn, or we think they’re not worth teaching. The first argument is factually wrong; the second is morally wrong.
The rest of the speech argued for college prep for all students. He even said, "all students can and should graduate from high school ready for college, work, and citizenship."
That was refreshing, to read a Republican make a speech that ventured past Democratic Party rhetoric, straight into the Communist Party USA analysis of reality, followed with a classic leftist proposal of equal education :-) And to think, he and Ralph Nader are enemies!
Of course, Gates wants quasi-privatized public charter schools, and that speech seemed to inaugurate his investment into them. What a pitchman.
(And the privatization issue brings us back to NCLB. Scoring is obviously a way to implement a mass marketplace for education -- to make a school's performance "knowable" without deep research by the customer. Of course, ironically, it might not ever be applied to private schools, because those schools sell themselves by their reputation and political connections, rather than raw performance.)
Montebello Unified Failing NCLB
Large article in the L.A. Times, that mostly focused on L.A. Unified. But Montebello Unified is also on the list of schools that are subject to sanctions.
Amazingly enough, the article says schools that fail to produce adequate standardized test scores are subject to sanctions. And no mention is made of the grades the students are earning. Huh. Who’d have thought NCLB was all about test scores and had nothing to do with grades earned by the students? Oh, yeah: Me. :D
NCLB volume 10
I never said the API was based on students collective grades. I meant that the standarized test scores meant something more than just "adequate". Zebra, I personally know MUSD's Superintendent. He agrees with me that "adequate" is not "just passing" when students are being "test scored".
I am glad that "night reader" is learning allot here lol. It's ironic though that Bill Gates is a college dropout from Haaa-verd. I think he made a carefully worded statement that is very "politically correct" AND that he is investing in private schools that will be teaching the top 1% to which he can pick off the cream for employment at Microsoft (it's his money).
Who can blame Gates or Mayor Villiragosa for wanting to explore different concepts in our educational system. After all, there are more stakeholders than just the parents and the people getting a paycheck from our public schools. Stakeholders must also involve the people who are footing most of the bill--people who pay property taxes, people who pay property taxes and send their kids to private school and colleges, and the children themselves. They MUST be part of the equation.
Dropout
Hey, he dropped out of Harvard. That's pretty good :-)
Renters pay property taxes too. It's just passed through in their rent.
You could argue that people who don't have kids are stakeholders. Maybe they'd want "education vouchers" too, for taking art classes at the community center. If the cost of education was borne only by people with kids, education would stink, because young parents tend to have the least money and the most expenses. Education is valuable to society, so everyone should pay.
Stakeholders
Stakeholders
Night Reader stated, "You could argue that people who don't have kids are stakeholders. Maybe they'd want "education vouchers" too, for taking art classes at the community center"
Not really Night Rreader. People who don't have kids, or who are paying high property taxes AND paying private school expenses for their own kids, are definitely "stakeholders" because living in a well performing public school district reflects on property values and their community on a whole, as well as having an effective police department who keep crime down.
So, we both agree that education is good for society. I would be horrified if I lived in LAUSD, this huge fractured ineffective monolith with, it appears, no accountability, that is until LNCB.
MUSD Election Results, HS
I don't doubt that you think the superintendent agrees with you. But that still doesn't explain why you think a law that requires students to perform "at grade level" on a standardized test requires anything more than a minimal passing score on a standardized test. It's a tautology.
I bet you're a
"laugh riot" at parties.
Anyway, besides knocking MUSD and my blogs into microscopic pieces (yawning) looks like the Rosemead's legal fees and issues are more pressing and need for your city to pull together.
Good luck.
Stakeholders
Night Reader stated, "You could argue that people who don't have kids are stakeholders. Maybe they'd want "education vouchers" too, for taking art classes at the community center"
Not really Night Rreader. People who don't have kids, or who are paying high property taxes AND paying private school expenses for their own kids, are definitely "stakeholders" because living in a well performing public school district reflects on property values and their community on a whole, as well as having an effective police department who keep crime down.
So, we both agree that education is good for society. I would be horrified if I lived in LAUSD, this huge fractured ineffective monolith with, it appears, no accountability, that is until LNCB.
Stakeholders
That's pretty optimistic to think that a significant fraction of private school customers would support quality public education. You can preserve property values with lousy public schools. Pasadena is a good example. The folks with money just kind of assume that they'll have to pay for private school. Middle class people in LA already think this way - a lot of parents are still pulling out of LAUSD.
I could see MUSD going down the tubes if more parents in the hills opt to use private school instead of public school, if this leads to people demanding some kind of discount, or lower taxes for schools.
After the downward slide goes far enough, even the liberal folks dedicated to public education stop criticizing the middle class folks who send their kids to parochial school. If attendance at a school pretty much guarantees that your will not get into college if they can't manage solid As, middle class parents will opt-out. They'd rather their semi-hard working, not quite super-gifted kid has a chance to go to college, and attending a private high school is one avenue to college. I don't know what private school is like, but I kind of sense that the message there is "you will go to college, even if you need a tutor to raise that C, and rehab to get off the coke."
BTW, it's NCLB, not LNCB.
NCLB is turning out to be okay for charter schools and their constituencies, but it's only going to be disaster for poor kids. If the parents are uneducated, and unable to "choose", the kids definitely will be left behind. The stakeholders/taxpayers will freak out when studies come out that say it'll cost $20,000 per child per year to educate a kid with a hard life.
Stakeholders
Night Reader states "If the parents are uneducated, and unable to "choose", the kids definitely will be left behind"
Poor non-English parents (most probably un-documented) are already using "fake" addresses to send their kids to Schurr and Mark Keppel (from far worse schools in LAUSD).
If you crossed a dirty river and desert, crawled through a tunnel and barbed wire to get here, OR came here on a tourist visa and just over-stayed your welcome---what kind of PRIVILEGES do are you think you are OWED (over people who stood in line or have been here paying all along)???
Stakeholders
I should have been fairer to the uneducated because some have the mind to lie to get into a better district. It's the fool-ass parents who don't have the wherewithal to choose, or go and choose the wrong thing. There's plenty out there.
I really don't want to get into it about illegals. It's just the piss of the day... but we were all pretty okay with it for the last 10 years. There's some BS on all sides, but all the anger out there on the right is just noise to distract each other from the mess in Iraq.
ROFLMAO
Night Reader also writes, "They'd rather their semi-hard working, not quite super-gifted kid has a chance.."
ROFLMAO (I think that speaks for the majority of us or our kids)
Harvard lowering costs for "middle income" families
Harvard's lowering their costs for families making 120-180k per year.
http://digg.com/educational/Harvard_is_Dramatically_Cutting_Costs_for_Middle_Class_Fams
They're already free for the typical area family, which earns less than 60k per year.
So, if any bright kid reading this is thinking about settling for ELAC because you're low-income, get your ass in gear and know that you can afford the best universities in America.
Harvard lowering costs for "middle income" families
WTF? My dad makes 105,000 this does sh_t...this is very upper middle class (bordering upper class)
This basically excludes pharmacists, general managers, etc.. All that are up there but not really up there.
BTW and with "all due respect", your mayor, John Tran, seems to have done well for himself. I have read his bio on an Asian who's who's online mag, but it does not mention him attaining anything beyond a high school education. However, I am certain his family, the Vietnamese community, and, it appears, the Asian American community in this article he appeared in, was very congratulatory and proud of his accomplishments.
Although this mayor-ship only pays a stipen with traveling expenses, I'm sure that someday he can "parlay" his political experience into a career in corporate America or any variety of governmental positions. LA City, LA County and State politicians can make a six figure salary.
I even remember some time back, you or Todd replied to an article that took exception to Mayor Tran having a number of children with a number of women out of wedlock. I think Todd stated something to the effect that what did the mayor's personal life (kind of Clinton--est) have to do with his official performance as mayor.
Perhaps night reader's passion in pushing for higher education over vocational programs and that kids don't have to "settle" for schools like ELAC, is wasted on me, having attended Loma Linda University myself. Perhaps, you can get an Ivy League application, even a Harvard application for your Mayor, lol. (I mean this in the BEST possible way, really I do).