This is a bit long, but bear with me, it's important. I am cautiously encouraged by this "gift" and intend to keep a very close watch on how this unfolds.
The Whittier Community School for the Arts finished at the bottom of the heap in test scores last year. I haven't read the questions on the tests but I imagine that they have been constructed with the usual cultural influences...."Nancy was at her parents cabin. The dock was in the water. How long was the dock?" Most kids in my neighborhood wouldn't know what a cabin is let alone a dock. I am curious about how culturally aware or should I say considerate the test questions are that these kids take? Or, are we once again trying to force kids from other cultures to learn the "great white way" and then saying they don't measure up when they don't. Not sure. Just a hunch. I have already reported to this list that I am on the Whittier Community Leadership Council for the school and that we sliced $700,000 from their $3.2M budget. That was painful. The positions that were cut were mostly the ones that provide additional services to students. I attempted a year and a half ago to let the public and more importantly the school board and school administration know that the new transportation policy was going to have an adverse affect on an already fledgling school. I was given a polite meeting with the Asst. Superintendent of schools and the transportation person. They were apologetic but were unyielding in their willingness to address the concerns. They knew it wasn't good but there was nothing they could do about it. I remember something to the effect of "buses go straight across, they don't turn right or left". HUH? Anyway, my concerns went completely unaddressed by the school board. The school board administrators went on a "witch hunt" trying to root out the staff person at Whittier who gave me the information I had instead of trying to address the issue. At a meeting I was at in another neighborhood, one school board member told me that Whittier School was the biggest mistake the school board made. That felt real supportive. Well, the points I was attempting to make in my public plea were proven in only one year. If you take a school that is already suffering from bad test scores and jack it around even more the test scores will get even worse. Now, this year we have placed them in a position where they either improve or they get closed down. But, we asked them to do this with 22% less funding than they received the previous year. The Whittier School is comprised of mostly first generation immigrant children whose parents have very limited English skills. In addition, 96% of the children in the school qualify for the free or reduced lunch program denoting a significantly high percentage of kids in poverty. Of course, there is also a large group of children who have behavioral issues associated with living in war torn countries, poverty or with parents who are not parenting. The later not being automatically synonymous with the first two. On top of this you take the "guaranteed" area for the Whittier school and slice is so small that less than one half of the neighborhood is in the guaranteed area. The area that was drawn for Whittier attendance is an economically diverse area. Unfortunately, the higher end of the economic scale is so advantaged that only 32 kids from the northern 1/2 of the school area actually attend public schools. The remainder of the attendance comes from an established economically disadvantaged area. That means that Whittier cannot draw is full potential attendance from the neighborhood which was the whole purpose behind the neighborhoods attempt to get a school built in Whittier. The rest of the attendees of the school are the children who have just moved into the district or whose parents didn't register them in time to have any real school choice. I would wager a guess that well over a third of the Whittier school comes from areas well outside of Whittier. So, Whittier is a revolving door school for the district. You add these issues altogether and you have one gigantic deficit to overcome. I am absolutely enraged that Gov. Pawlenty thinks the problems at schools like Whittier are present because the teachers don't measure up. Give me a break! I am convinced that Whittier already has some of the brightest and best and has since the school opened in 1996. I am also convinced that most of these teachers really care about the students and want them to learn. They are dealing with students that have significant deficits. Language deficits, stimulus deficits, behavioral deficits, physical and mental deficits. With 25 or so kids to a classroom there is no time to deal meaningfully with these deficits. I don't care how bright you are. On top of that you add the "giant brick wall" of 807 Broadway and a school board that is completely disconnected with reality and you don't have a real good recipe for success. I wish these funds could be used to bring in significant tutoring assistance and special services in a way that we can truly say "no child will be left behind". I wish the school staff and parents could direct how these funds are used instead of the decisions being dictated from on high by people who never set foot inside the place. The State Legislature and Governor made sure they "slashed the supposed fat" out of the budget. Those slashes have left Whittier School in a position where "there will be several children left behind". I will follow the results of this big gift closely. A small fraction of those funds could make a MAJOR impact and believe me the Leadership Council could derive a plan to use every cent of it in a way that would make a difference. If these funds don't make a measurable impact on the kids at Whittier than it is nothing more than "politics as usual". For the sake of the kids at Whittier, I hope I get proven wrong. Barb Lickness Whittier ===== "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has." -- Margaret Mead __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com REMINDERS: 1. Think a member has violated the rules? Email the list manager at [EMAIL PROTECTED] before continuing it on the list. 2. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. ________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Un-subscribe, etc. at: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
