Posted on 06/17/2009 5:09:20 AM PDT by Islander7
A startling number of children are falling through the cracks at one Chicago Public School. More than half of the kids didn't even pass the eighth grade. As CBS 2's Jim Williams reports there is fierce debate about who's to blame.
It is a debate that gone on for years in poor communities: do you blame the schools for the students' poor performance or do you blame their parents?
The mother of a one student who failed eighth grade says she got no warning her son was struggling. The school says she was notified, and other parents insist she did not do enough.
(Excerpt) Read more at cbs2chicago.com ...
1. "It's horrible because these kids were under the impression they were graduating and they let them know at the last minute that they wasn't," Billingsley said.
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2. "You have to be in your kid's life, you have to know what's going on in their world," said parent Vanessa Ewing. "I'm up at the school. The teachers know me. I stay on them. I stay on my kids."
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I suppose the kids of #2 did just fine in school.
Were these schools previously under the direction of the present head of the Dept. of Education? ;-o
More community organizing ought to fix this...
hh
It's accounts like this that remove any credibility from teachers who claim that homeschoolers are not qualified to teach their own kids and need to go to public schools.
Good for Vanessa Ewing. It’s time parents become more involved as they did years ago. They HAVE to. There are a lot of kids for the teachers to teach and a lot of problems in the classroom that don’t belong there. There are discipline problems, kids suing teachers, threatening teachers etc...it’s up to the paretns to ask if there is homework, help them with it and make sure they are getting everything out of school that they can. I’m tired of everyone blaming everyone else for their own failings. That’s what comes of the government telling everyone to do. Everyone EXPECTS someone ELSE to take care of their problems. It begins at home. Rich, poor...doesn’t matter. It begins at home. It doesn’t take money to teach right from wrong, respect and goals. I feel sad for the kids though cause they are the ones that will suffer. Aren’t they always??? God help the world.
You can’t hustle smart people with a government check and a handful of bullshit.The education system is working exactly as the union intends it to.
“under the direction of the present head of the Dept. of Education”
You have to dumb them down to lead them properly.
“You can’t hustle smart people with a government check and a handful of bullshit.”
I don’t know, an awful lot of WS contributed to and voted for Obama.
60% maybe a number where you say...why bother.
They’re already “dumbed down.” As an educator, I am VERY aware of this.
It’s cuz whitey keepin’ ‘em down.
Future welfare recipients.
Why is the word PARENTS used? How many of these students have PARENTS and how many have a PARENT..one, singular, lone.
Despite the social theories of the modern times, the total breakdown of the traditional FAMILY is a major contributing factor in the disaster befalling the youth of the inner cities.
More important than the failure rate in graduation statistics is the DEATH RATE among these kids. Doesn’t Chicago have a youth murder rate that would put the violence of even Al Capone to shame.
I’d wager that, even in the most crime ridden area, where the schools have the highest failure rate, there are youngsters from traditional families, youngsters with discipline of a caring father, home at a decent hour, homework done, parents known to the teacher and involved with the age old question “homework done?”
Success in schools begin at HOME, as the success of some of the people cited in the article prove.
If you haven’t seen Idiocracy, I recommend it with the caveat - it’s vulgar.
Homeschooled kids are going to be the people with normal cognitive skills in a world of complete imbeciles.
“Homework” is racially insensitive.
The kids don’t have a home life conducive to doing homework.
/leftist BS
That is, if they had all been enrolled at the most exclusive private school in metro Chicago, all expenses paid, and required after nine years to pass exams in arithmetic, algebra, basic geometry, natural sciences, English, history, and year 1 of a foreign language (that's what 8th grade means) - how many do you think would graduate?
40% seems high to me -maybe the system is working well.
“The kids don’t have a home life conducive to doing homework.”
Hmmm... maybe “’hoodwork”, “streetwork”, ah! “Cribwork!”
I’ll they did just fine.
In a lot of our public schools, the black kids just don’t try because they think that getting good grades, paying attention in class and doing your homework is too “white.”
My God, how do you overcome such hopelessness and stupidity?
I see these kids out at all hours.
Alexandria, Virginia makes many excuses for them.
I wonder where the parent(s) are?
“Future welfare recipients.”
Future? Nope....already and totally convinced that government will rescue them from all bad decisions. They are taught this by ACTION in the public school system....which continues to pass them along, whether they have mastered sufficient material or not.
The schools have the children for six to seven hours! These are the best and most alert hours in a child's life. Why on earth after six to seven hours should parents or child have to do anything related to school work after that?
Why should the kid? After riding the bus and 30 to 35 hours in school this is already full-time job for a child for heaven's sake! And...the government expects the child to work even more at home when he is the most tired? What is this? Child labor abuse?
It begins at home.
Ah ha! And this is the true. Anything that happens at school is a complete waste of time! The **only** effective learning a child will get is at home by his parents or himself.
All academically successful children are homeschooled or afterschooled. The only thing a government school does is send home a curriculum for the parents and child to follow, and totally waste 35 or more hours of a child's life ( more if busing is taken into consideration.)
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