|
Comment on this article |
View comments |
Email this Article
|
|
Announcement :: Education |
|
C-U Branch of AAUW presents: What Champaign Schools are doing to Close the Achievement Gap |
Current rating: 0 |
by Nancy Dietrich-Rybicki
Email: nancydietrich (nospam) juno.com (unverified!) |
10 Feb 2004
|
|
|
The Champaign-Urbana Branch of the American Association of University Women presents:
"Closing the Achievement Gap"
An overview of what Champaign Schools are doing to close the racial achievement gap.
Speakers:
· Arthur Culver, Superintendent of Unit 4 Schools
· Dorland Norris, Deputy Superintendent for Achievement and Equity, Champaign Schools
· Margie Skirvin, Champaign School Board Member
Thursday, February 12th, 7:00 p.m.
Grace Lutheran Church
Corner of Prospect & Springfield, Champaign
Refreshments to follow |
This work is in the public domain |
|
Re: C-U Branch of AAUW presents: What Champaign Schools are doing to Close the Achievement Gap |
by Jack Ryan
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: -4
11 Feb 2004
|
Perhaps you should ask St. Matts, or Holy Cross. 90% of those kids go on to higher education. Just a thought.
Jack |
|
Higher Incomes Yield Positive Correlation with Higher Education |
by ML
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 3
11 Feb 2004
|
I'd certainly be curious where you get your figures, Jack, and if they are truly accurate for graduation from a four-year college.
That said, even though there are no doubt some scholarships offered by these schools for low-income students, it is a fact that these students come overwhelmingly from higher income households who can afford private school tuition. There has always been a significant positive correlation between higher income and higher education achievement. So there is really no surprise if the statistics are skewed in that direction anyway.
The public schools are always expected to do far more than what their proper role is in society and they are expected to do it for every child who shows up, not just making their stats look good by cherry-picking the best students. Good schools can only make up so much for the negative impact on students caused by the poverty of their families. Give every family a Living Wage, jobs that allow parents to spend time with their children, and health care and you will have a far greater impact on education levels than your selective manipulation of statistics implies.
But I know you support none of those things, all less expensive than the bamboozled war in Iraq will be. |
|
Public vs. private |
by 5
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: -1
12 Feb 2004
|
ML is correct to point out the socioeconomic differences between public and private school populations. Comparing the two is kinda like comparing apples and oranges. Teaching everyone who shows up and teaching everyone who applies and is accepted and can afford the tutition are very different groups of students.
In addition, I would find it interesting to know how many kids in these private are developmentally delayed or physically handicapped. In addition, public schools also have many children with emotional and behavioral disorders. I also doubt these schools have very many children attending that live in foster care or in group homes.
Perhaps Jack knows how these private religious schools help children that don't come from "an even playing field"---like children in foster care, children with disabilities, and ESL children.
Regardless, closing the achievement gap in the Champaign school system is important and this event is a good way to help educate the public, including myself, on what is being done currently and what will be done in the future. |
|
Re: C-U Branch of AAUW presents: What Champaign Schools are doing to Close the Achievement Gap |
by Jack Ryan
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: -1
12 Feb 2004
|
Dear ML,
Then why not support giving the poor vouchers that will allow them to attend private schools? Are you afraid of the results that might be achieved?
Face it, the status quo of tossing additional dollars to public education has not ,nor will it ever work.
The true fact of education is that until parents are able to listen to their children read, and run through the multiplication tables at night for endless hours upon hours, children will be drifting in the wind.
Liberalism has brought us the household in which both parents work. One has to pay the bills and one to pay the taxes.
Until we give true tax relief to the parents of households with children regardless of income, this problem will continue to fester.
Until we give parents a "choice" in the education of their children, schools will not have to compete for federal dollars.
Now ML, this post will be double posted which will ,through no fault of my own, be l be hidden.
You will note, that there are no insults here, just my basic beliefs and those of many like minded Americans. The public educational system has failed us and our children. Perhaps it is time to try something different.
Jack |
|
Re: C-U Branch of AAUW presents: What Champaign Schools are doing to Close the Achievement Gap |
by Jack Ryan
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: -3
12 Feb 2004
|
Dear 5,
You bring up a good point. The market will respond for schools who display an excellence in teaching the children who may be a little more challenging to educate.
If the parents of these "special children" are awarded more vouchers as a result in exhange for more funding, the market will respond by schools competing for additional funding in taking on the difficult children.
Markets work. You and your liberal friends have taken the competition and the expectations we have for children out of our schools and have therefore doomed them to mediocrity.
It is time to try another way.
Jack |
|
Starving the Schools to Achieve a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy |
by ML
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
12 Feb 2004
|
After 30 years of conservatives trying to starve the public schools into failure through tax cuts, tax caps, and simply ignoring the most basic needs of education, why do you think giving extra money to certain, non-public schools is a good idea if, as you say, "tossing additional dollars" doesn't work? This is just one more version of socialism --- for the rich -- which is the only kind of socialism this country has ever really seen.
Capitalism is what has brought us the two-income family, since the decline of jobs for average working Americans that pay enough that a mother or father could stay at home, if they wanted to, is a product of union-busting, job-exporting free traders.
Besides, since Bush has already given his rich campaign contributors two tax cuts, why hasn't he seen fit to give working people a tax cut, as if that would help anyway? There are lots of people who don't earn enough that a tax cut would help in any significant way. Are you asserting that these children do not deserve a quality education because their parents can't afford it? We all end up paying when society skimps on education.
People already have a choice. They can send their kids to public school or they can pay extra money for a private school. No one has ever denied a parent that right.
Perhaps it is time that this country adequately funded its public schools. If adequately funded schools are good enough for the wealthy, they are good enough for the rest of us.
Finally, the idea that market forces can bring anything positive to the table if the objective really is universal education is inimical to that very idea. Market forces imply winners and losers -- and assuming that there must be losers means we all lose when children are purged from a system on the basis of denial of access to quality education due to economic factors. We already have that built into the present system, with schools being financed increasingly by local property taxes as the state fails to do its part to even out access to financial resources, replicating and increasing this inequity. Rich districts win and poor districts lose -- and the children who attend each do likewise. The problem truly is that market forces are _already_ at the root of the problem. Building in even greater disparity by such ill-designed and ill-intentioned schemes as vouchers and charter schools (and it must be noted that where these have been attempted, no diescernable increase in the quality of education has been demonstrated) is a recipe for making things worse, not better.
And I greatly appreciate the fact that you are able to post without resorting to insults. |
|
Re: C-U Branch of AAUW presents: What Champaign Schools are doing to Close the Achievement Gap |
by 2
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
22 Mar 2004
|
5,
I believe you judge to quickly. I have attended a private school and there were children who attended the private school who had mental disabilities. There were kids who were currently living with foster parents. Where are you gettting you info.? |
