By: Diane Benjamin
As a graduate of ISU I am continually appalled by their lurch to the far left. Below are two examples.
Both articles were in a newsletter meant to extol the great research done at ISU. Instead of common sense solutions to educating kids, both want to change how teachers teach.
We know schools in poor neighborhoods don’t educate students. We know nationalized test scores are lower in inner city schools. We know these kids don’t have access to the same education as suburban kids. We know it isn’t fair. We also know who is blocking access to a better education.
Who always opposes Charter Schools? Who always opposes school choice? Why are kids required to attend schools based on their address?
Part of the first article talks about a pipeline from school to prison for black students. The article says 92% of students receiving an out-of-school suspension were black. The article doesn’t say that school district is over 80% black. This link says 82% but doesn’t include the year: https://www.freep.com/story/news/education/2019/06/17/racial-disparities-in-schools/1333607001/
ISU should be explaining why the misleading 92% was used? When the school is overwhelmingly black obviously suspensions of black kids is going to be high.
The same arguments and demands for more money have been recycled for years. Microaggressions have been added now as contributing to the failure of black students. Instead of re-training teachers: Abolish the schools. They are why kids without opportunities grow up to be adults without opportunities. Education is the golden ticket out of poverty. We need a study on who doesn’t want to provide that golden ticket to minorities!
Make schools compete for kids by giving parents choices. ISU scholars are ignoring the obvious. See the link below to this story.
The link to a second story is below too.
This researcher set out to prove we aren’t capable of a color blind society. Khyati Verma grew up in India where she claims the cast system no longer exists when in reality it does. She set up an experiment to see if black boys would be judged harsher than white boys in pictures of them doing inappropriate behavior.
Quote:
Even though this study proved many Americans are colorblind, Verma doesn’t believe it:
Evidently Verma believes all whites are covert racists.
Verma also believes teachers have to be retrained to teach black kids. No Verma, black kids need good schools. Study why they don’t have them in cities like Chicago instead of blaming teachers.
Very soon Martin Luther King Day will be erased from history. Judging people on the content of their character worked too well. Those attempting to divide people based on color should be erased instead. Americans care about character, not skin color. Verma didn’t believe her study results, ISU evidently agrees.
Links:
So I am very vested in this topic because of my career and my child. There are many studies that show high numbers in all types of schools and locations that has minorities and disabilities receiving poor services. This stems from poor reading curriculum, funding and the federal system of how special education is set up. The student has to fail before they give help. It also stems from poor special ed administrators not supporting teachers and students to help the kids who need the most. For example, my son has a dyslexia diagnosis among other things. He has never been given help for it. The school stated his composite score needs to be below 10%to receive Intervention. Do you know how low that is? Even though he has subtests near that and all his other scores not related to dyslexia were above average. Huge discrepancy. Luckily we have the means to get him private help. Most don’t. The system is also set up that due process must happen for a parent to fight for their child to get the needed services. It is in average $10-20k to do this. The schools bank on parents not understanding their child’s rights and not having the means to fight. Right here in our town this happens everyday. Advocates, in our area, are getting so burned out having the same battle over and over to help students. School choice won’t fix this. These same students begin to have social emotional issues (some already did) around feeling dumb and this leads to behavior problems and then enters the school to prison pipeline. Our local districts would rather feed these kids into Ill equipped “behavioral” schools costing thousands per student each year than to change their reading curriculum to one that helps all students (they are available) and giving kids the help they need to circumvent the social emotional problems. They would rather send the kids out than change their social emotional strategies. I am pro police but I am not for SRO in the school. I have seen first hand how easy it is for staff to just say “well I don’t want to deal with it so I am referring to the SRO”. I will say most of our local ones are good but admins have also filed charges on kids for things they could have prevented or for a student filing a complaint that was warranted. It makes it too easy to send kids down the pipeline. We definitely need to fix the way we teach. Appropriate academic and social emotional curriculum is where to start and then let’s get admins in that want to help and know how. Not ones that keep doing what isn’t working.
Who decides appropriate? School choice means you do.
Appropriate should be for all kids. it is all students legal right to have this.There are reading curriculums that teach you all types of reading readers yet our local schools don’t choose those either. How do you transport kids to school choice? How do you know good teachers will spread out? How do you have a room for everyone? There are too many issues with our current school system and too many layers to make this one idea need to fix all.
Therefore mediocre education continues because dollars following kids is too difficult.
Basically. The system needs to change as a whole. Money won’t follow kids. Everyday kids, in our town, are denied FAPE. The burden is on the parent to prove this and that takes an attorney and $$$. It is sad. The big districts have their attorney on retainer. A local district spent around $5000 (retainer already) to their Chicago special ed attorney to take us due process because I asked for an outside evaluation to prove my son needed help . Student’s are entitled to an outside eval but for the school to deny it they have to go due process. I also had to give in or pay my attorney to fight it. I fought it. The evaluation would have cost them $2500 yet they spent double to fight it. There isn’t a school in our area that I would choose to send my child to. We are in a desired school(s) and they sucked. They don’t have an appropriate reading curriculum, refuse to give the right intervention (in my kid’s case none), and have poor “behavior” management strategies. Typical kids do fine and get by. It doesn’t mean they are taught correctly or given the right content. I agree in school choice done right but ALL kids are entitled to FAPE so let’s just do it right everywhere.
Combine the Illinois Board of Education with the Teachers Union and an oppressive political machine and what do you get? Anything BUT education.
We must give our kids an escape route.
I think you are cherry-picking. She never said that the caste system doesn’t exist. She was relating the similar attitudes of a color-blind society (the existence or non-existence) vs attitudes of the people India regarding the caste system (the existence vs non existence). Taken as a whole, there are alarming disparities and a lot of it has to with perceptions and attitudes. This study, although two-years, does a good job taking into account the myriad of factors that influence out-of-school suspensions and expulsions.
https://www.childtrends.org/publications/black-students-disabilities-out-of-school-suspensions
School choice is not the only solution, especially when you have private and charter schools enacting discipline for hair styles that have cultural significance
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.chalkbeat.org/platform/amp/2020/1/16/21121830/states-and-cities-are-banning-hair-discrimination-here-s-how-that-s-affecting-schools
How about people resolve to quick being assholes and wanting to control people over the smallest of details?
A