Take with as much or little LOL or /s as you please
Posted on 05/17/2011 9:09:01 PM PDT by bgill
Higgin's eight-year-old daughter Destiny was called over the loudspeaker into the Bastrop Middle School Library, February 8. Inside, according to Bastrop ISD, Principal Teri Watson told every African American student in the school -- 24 students -- their TAKS test scores were too low, putting the school at risk to fail state standards.
Higgins says her daughter now sees a counselor to deal with the humiliation at the hands of school administration. Since the incident the school has released numerous apologies to the community both in print and in person. Still for some, it has been too many words and not enough action.
The plan would change teacher training including a focus on diversity sensitivity.
(Excerpt) Read more at kvue.com ...
I don't know why this was at the top of the news tonight when it happened back in Feb. It will be interesting to see the TAKS broken down by grade, sex, and race when it's posted on the TEA site NEXT year (not this year as in the article). Makes me wonder if someone doesn't want the breakdown published what with the timing of this. I also wonder who all approved the specific group be called in and if the school thought the kids had intentionally made low scores. The girl's mother says she passed but doesn't say the actual score so it may have been anywhere from excellent to one point above failure. Lots of questions so there must be more to the story. If not, then the principal needs to be shown the door.
2010 Scores - http://ritter.tea.state.tx.us/cgi/sas/broker?_service=marykay&_program=perfrept.perfmast.sas&prgopt=2010%2Faeis%2Falltyped.sas&year4=2010&search=distback&year2=10&topic=aeis&gifname=g_aeis10district&title=AEIS+Report&level=District&ptype=HTML&sublevel=dist&distback=011901
Uh oh...
Oh the humanity!
Still for some, it has been too many words and not enough action.
Meaning I guess the district hasn't cut them a check yet.
The headline is misleading, implying that parents in general are upset with the district and not just a special interest group.
Boo-freakin'-hoo! Real self esteem comes from accomplishment, so once mommy's precious little angel learns that she has expectations to meet, maybe she'll start accomplishing some things and feel good about herself.
Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!
IOW...
What a load of crap. These folks want to spend all of this time and energy talking about this one incident where a school administrator made some announcement in a way that was perhaps overly embarrassing for some of the students. Yet no one seems to want to talk about student performance. If it is true that the black students all did poorly on this standardized test then that’s the real problem.
So here’s a question: Will restructuring the teacher training in order to “focus on diversity sensitivity” result in higher future test performance by black students? How?
Other accounts have the daughter passing the test (even if just barely) so why the fuss by school administrators? Is it considered insufficient for all students to simply pass? Before looking with scorn at the student alone, it would pay to understand the story as a whole. There seems to be too little here to lay positive blame.
Since those scores have not been (officially) released yet, this begs the question, "Did the school do its own scoring of the tests to get an early look at the results?" (I don't see that as, necessarily, wrong -- but if it is true, the school should say so...)
BTW & FWIW, bimodal and multimodal score distributions on TAKS test scores in "diverse" schools are not uncommon. That need not necessarily be so: in my (Valedictorian) granddaughter's 8th grade ("Exemplary" school) class, approximately 30% of the top 10% of the class were black.
~~~~~~~~~~~
It appears that school performance is, indeed, measured by the TAKS...
(bgill -- belated courtesy ping to #8...)
I've not seen any other accounts, so all I have to go off is this one, which says nothing about the girl possibly getting a passing score. However, it does say that the district is looking into "diversity training" for teachers. So rather than this "teaching moment" being one in which students and parents could learn something about the concepts of personal responsibility and living up to expectations, it likely will be yet another pandering moment. The only thing that will be reinforced is the lesson that if you scream "racism" loud enough, chicken-sh** whites will bend over backward to give you whatever you want.
Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!
Well the event didn’t pop into reality fully formed as the lede... follow some comments just below yours for folks who have seen more or researched more. “Likely” as applied to a single event appears a parlous term to apply. Looks way too pat of a way for the loser group to appear — not all black kids are that dumb, neither are all white kids all that industrious. Jumping to conclusions can result in a political suicide. Maybe a racist pocket DID stick their foot in it. And yes, I would expect that coaching the weak students would be a reasonable way to address any problem, and yes, I think it was stupid to call them out to the library during class — much better to give them notes and, ultimately, special drill assignments from their teachers.
Take with as much or little LOL or /s as you please
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