Posted on 01/03/2010 8:29:38 AM PST by detective
In 10 years on the job, Montgomery County Superintendent Jerry Weast has watched graduation rates slip, SAT scores decline and the racial achievement gap linger.
His school system — once hailed as the best in the Washington area and among the top in the nation — has fallen by some measures in comparison with its neighbors in Fairfax County, Howard and Calvert counties.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonexaminer.com ...
Student there in the 60’s and 70’s. Glad I’m not now.
Taxes will continue to go up until the schools are held accountable and the unions are controlled. In California, just try and fire a teacher. It’s almost impossible and takes about 10-12 years. People need to realize that with unions are in control and the idea that you can’t get rid of teachers, it sets up the perfect situation for teachers of the wrong kind to teach socialism to our kids. Right now there’s not a dam thing parents can do about it except put the kids in private schools. This would take money away from the public schools. But keep in mind, the schools can push to raise taxes to make that money up. The whole system has to change.
I was there in the ‘60s and ‘70s also. It’s sad to see how things have gone downhill.
Graduated from a MoCo school when Paul Vance was still the superintendent. IIRC it’s not like he did a much better job.
OK, let’s blame the public schools exclusively. But DID YOU READ this part?
“By the time the 2004 class of third-graders reached eighth grade last year, reading scores improved across demographic groups, but their math scores diverged. White and Asian students stayed about the same, with about 90 percent of them passing standardized math tests by 2009. But not even 60 percent of their black and Hispanic peers achieved the same results, falling almost 10 percentage points since their third-grade highs.”
It’s politically incorrect to mention this data, but I think tha it has a much more relevant impact on ‘failing schools’ than anything the schools are doing or not doing.
Liberals place the failure on Black and Hispanic students solely on the (racist) schools and staff. But, can’t we ever discuss innate differences in group IQ levels and sub-cultures?
We’ve tried to blame the public schools exclusively for years now. Nothing much has changed—except for the ever growing numbers of poor Black and Hispanic kids. And deep-down, we all know that private schools only take the best of the best of Black and Hispanic students, and then showcase their scores, masking whether a private school could really do a better job with the same overall Black and Hispanic clientele as the gotta-take-em-all public schools.
How about a Communist-style aptitude test after sixth grade? If your kid doesn’t show any aptitude for education at that time, the State stops spending money on his ‘education’. Then nothing but cheap vocational and paramilitary training for these kids thereafter.
And there are plenty of public schools all around the nation that get excellent overall results, and have very low enrollment of underachieving minority groups.
The Bell Curve.
2. The migration of the large Jewish population either to private schools or across the Potomac to Virginia.
Right. Montgomery County’s problems (not just the schools) track closely with accelerating demographic change. You could get rid of the liberals, the teachers’ unions, and all of the other undoubtedly bad elements that aggravate the situation, and declining student quality still would lead to declining achievement.
There are other factors. The system has become more urban and the county is sadly part of the sanctuary movement. MCPS is declining due to demographics.
I thought it might be the classes in homosexuality they are teaching there.
Enormous amounts of money and resources are wasted trying to close the "achievement gap" between white and minority children. Teachers are hired using affirmative action and good teachers leave and bad teachers stay. Administrators and teachers don't care about parents concerns just about liberal goals. Teachers and administrators act bored and evasive when you talk to them about the poor learning environment, the lack of common sense rules and the poor teaching. Gangs are allowed to hang around the schools and start trouble and teachers and administrators are scared to do anything.
Demographics is part of the problem, but it is a lot more than that.
It is not class size or (usually) teachers...If you moved a class of 40 suburban kids into the classroom they would achieve there.. If you put the inner city kids in the successful school system they would still not come up to the basic standards.
The problem is character and self discipline
It is not class size or “self esteem” it is not a problem that can be solved throwing $$$ at it.
Personally I favor a return to tracking so productive students are not distracted or held back waiting for the others to catch up
Hey, don’t confuse me with facts, my mind is already made up.
Ah, I see the negative utopia continuing to come of age in Monkey County.
Maryland “Freak State” PING!
Dr. Thomas Sowell seems to think that lower IQ rates correspond with poverty. And you can see why that might be: the Hispanic community is full of poor illegals, and the African-American community appears dominated by poverty-stricken single mothers of illegitimate children who are afraid of “acting white.” Dr. Sowell is optimistic that, should the African-American community become more prosperous, the average IQ would rise as well, just like with other ethnic or national groups, IIRC.
Any racial disparity is minimal at birth.. but the culture of poverty is ,as someone else noted, has as its greatest fear “acting white” .meaning actually paying attention and doing your homework or reading a book.
Our IQs are not fixed at one point at birth, I believe there is a maximum and a minimum . Unfortunately in the black/hispanic communities the kids rarely reach their max, and usually function at the minimum Then they whine and call it racism.
I worked in the inner city for many years. The brightest and most articulate black co workers I had, had a couple things in common..they came from 2 parent homes and were educated in the south under Jim crow laws.
I am not advocating for a return to Jim Crow..but I think it was a distinct advantage for them not to be held back by acting like “whitey” and to be taught by black teachers that they could not use race for an excuse with.
I went to high school in MoCo in the 1980s. Heaven only knows what it’s like now.
Maryland “Freak State” PING!
Gotta be the sub-cultures. Daddy’s missing, Momma’s the patriarch, gangs, drugs, a lack of will to better oneself.
I read stuff by Thomas Sowell in which he reflected growing up in Harlem a long time ago. He apparently went to a decent school (not saying it’s decent now, if it still exists) and people could sleep outside on balconies and fire escapes on hot summer nights because crime rates were lower.
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