Posted on 03/31/2007 7:24:02 PM PDT by Dog Gone
DALLAS — More than 40 teachers and one principal in Dallas might lose their jobs at five schools that received academically unacceptable ratings for two straight years, according to a district memo.
Three high schools and two middle schools fell into the academically unacceptable category, and under state law, must go through a process known as "reconstitution."
Only a handful of the state's 8,000 schools must go through this process, said Debbie Ratcliffe, a spokeswoman for the Texas Education Agency.
"When you reconstitute, you're cleaning house, basically," Ratcliffe said.
The Dallas Independent School District has identified 44 teachers who could be fired, based on state test scores, according to the memo. Principals are in the process of notifying those teachers, a school district spokesman said.
Teachers whose students have tested well have the best chance of keeping their jobs.
Under state law, principals who have headed their schools that have received unacceptable ratings both years must be removed from their campuses. One principal will be affected by this, although the district spokesman declined to name the principal.
Teachers asked to leave their schools will likely be used as permanent substitutes at other schools, said Steve Flores, the chief administrative officer for the Dallas Independent School District. If they have not found permanent positions within the district, their contracts are unlikely to be renewed after the 2007-08 school year.
The highs schools are South Oak Cliff, Samuell and Spruce. The middle schools are Rusk and Comstock.
Oh, good.
Won't be long before we'll hear from the teachers' unions complaining about abuse, and wait for it...wait for it...wanna bet the race card gets played within a day or so??
I sooooooo do not miss working for DISD!!
In some cases it isn't their fault. I know in my area in NC, we've had a couple schools that were always very good fail in recent years. Why? Because all of the sudden they have a population that is 30-50% hispanic (largely illegal) and those kids don't pass the language exax. They also have parents who are barely educated themselves and use the schools as a giant babysitter. Having to slow down to try to catch the hispanics up also means that the teachers can't do enough to teach the students who speak English well which impacts those kids education. Same teachers and same administration as when the schools were testing very well a decade ago and i'm sure they are doing exactly the same quality job. Its a bad situation and i'd imagine Texas has experienced something similar.
This is bad? What happens anywhere else, if a person isn't producing good outcomes?
Doesn't it say though that the ones to be let go, are from the same schools? Some are doing better than others?
No wonder school breakfast is so popular among high school kids. No wonder they're wolfing down oreo cookies that early in the morning.
GRRRRREAT news for children and parents! Bump-to-the-top!
This part of DISD has never had high testing scores on state exams, IIRC --when I worked there there were a lot of gang problems, that sort of thing. It's a majority African-American area, last I knew, but that might have changed by now because you are right, there has been a huge infusion of Hispanic students. Many were illegals when I was with the district a decade ago (I worked at an inner city school for 5 years) and with the government's lack of controlling illegal immigration in this area, I'm sure there's probably many, many more. That would, and definitely does, affect test scores, attendance, etc. BUT...IMO, so many good teachers have left the district, and they have this thing called the alternative certification program, where Joe Blow can come in off the street, they'll give them a waiver, and pop them into a classroom with very little training, etc. I dealt with some AC's when I was teaching--what an insult to real teachers they were! Of course, I am sure there's some good people in the program, but overall, I wonder at the quality and qualifications of the people teaching these kids.
I don't live in the Dallas area, and I'm not familiar with any of these schools.
Dallas is a landlocked city. It's downtown and largely black neighborhoods.
I doubt this is a problem relating to hispanics. Someone from the Dallas area can probably shed some politically incorrect light on the problem, if some needs to be shed.
I'm just glad that action is being taken at the state level.
Oh, the humanity!
Are you telling me that people in the employ of government who are incompetent may actually face termination from their jobs? How is this possible? What is wrong with America when a silly little thing like results gets in the way of being able to eternally feed off the public tit?
I went back to school last year and decided to take a couple of classes at the local jr. college because it was so much cheaper to take them than at my school, and the kids in those classes that just got out of high school were completely unprepared for college.
They don't know how to take notes, study, do research or write papers. I saw kids literally crying after test asking the instructors why there were question on the test that they had never even heard of. When the instructor explained it came out of the text they all said "you never told us to read the text book!" I'm taking one class this semester that I spend almost an hour after each class helping those kids understand what the lecture meant, what they should read before the next class, and even showing them how to write papers for other classes.
this semester I made a power-point on MLA format that I started giving away because I would get so many people asking me how to write a paper and do a source page.
I got lucky with my kids because they are both in the GATE program and they actually get to learn in school.
But this is really scary, you thought our generation came out of school dumb, wait until this one is voting!
The last census said that only 1 in 4 Americans have a Bachelors Degree or more. That scares the hell out of me!
South Oak has 8 whites out of a student populatin of 1353. 981 are black, 362 Hispanic.
http://schools.publicschoolsreport.com/Texas/Dallas/SouthOakCliffHS.html
Very true. I have a close friend who teaches at the University level. He says that kids come in sometimes without ever having written a five page essay and that the writing skills of incoming freshmen are down tremendously in the last fifteen years. Some of that is probably do to the testing fad. I believe in accountability but I do think we put too much emphasis on tests. I know that in my sons elementary school for instance the teachers orient a lot of their lessons towards EOG tests. I've talked to some of them about it. They don't like it and they don't think it serves the kids well but the orders have come from above them that they have to do it. So we end up with a bunch of kids who can fill out bubble sheets with the best of them but can't compose a simple history essay or think for themselves. Eventually I think we will realize that we've gone overboard with testing but before that happens we will be shortchanging a bunch of kids.
Too bad for the teachers, but I can't believe it's all their fault. Teaching a classroom full of sociopaths and drug addicts can't be the easiest thing in the world. On the other hand, the true NEA thugs deserve just that. Why not put them all in prison early and let the NEA types tutor the psychotics and maladjusted youth where they have better control. We'd all save money in the long run and the youths would be someplace where they could really learn something - like advanced burglary, strongarm robbery, rape, etc...
DISD has been barraged by political wranglings, corruption and ineptness...lots of internal strife too. Poor kids get subpar education and more attention paid to City Counsel Bozo's...
I'm not from Texas but I'm thinking if you could dump those 8 whites you'd straighten the problem out !!!
IMO, about 50% of college freshmen don't belong there. They should have taken another career route--trade school, community college, school of hard knocks, marriage, whatever.
American Indiana/Alaskan 6
Asian/Pacific Islander 1
Hispanic 766
Black (Non-Hispanic) 852
White (Non-Hispanic) 70
H Grady Spruce High School
http://schools.publicschoolsreport.com/Texas/Dallas/HGradySpruceHS.html
These students will simply be integrated into other schools. Where is the tipping point, at which the majority of the white students vanish? 30%? 40%? 50%? 60%?
American Indiana/Alaskan 2
Asian/Pacific Islander 7
Hispanic 1096
Black (Non-Hispanic) 948
White (Non-Hispanic) 86
W W Samuell High School
http://schools.publicschoolsreport.com/Texas/Dallas/WWSamuellHS.html
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