It is very easy to focus entirely on education as it impacts us most directly -- what is going on in the Amherst and Regional Public Schools. But many of the discussions that we are having at a local level are also occurring on a national level. Here are a two pieces that I think really speak to the challenges public education now faces.
This first piece is from the New York Times, and examines Secretary of Education Arne Duncan's push to recruit new teaching talent (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/21/opinion/21friedman.html?_r=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss). Here's my favorite line: "Duncan’s view is that challenging teachers to rise to new levels — by using student achievement data in calculating salaries, by increasing competition through innovation and charters — is not anti-teacher. It’s taking the profession much more seriously and elevating it to where it should be." I could not agree more.
This next piece is from the Washington Examiner, and discusses the issue of whether teachers should receive higher pay (as they do in the Amherst and Regional schools) for having masters degrees in light of evidence showing no association between education and effectiveness in the classroom (http://washingtonexaminer.com/news/business/2010/11/economists-want-stop-teachers-degree-bonuses). This article notes that "The biggest losers will be university education schools, because they make a lot of money on master's degrees, Hanushek said. 'There's a relationship between education schools and teachers that is not particularly healthy,' he said." Given the increasing pressure on school budgets, I certainly agree that it makes sense to avoid spending money on things that don't improve education for kids.
This issue of whether higher pay should be given for teachers with masters degrees has also been raised by Bill Gates, as reported in Education Week (http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/state_edwatch/2010/11/bill_gates_on_school_budgets_cut_wiselyand_change_pay_schemes.html). Gates also makes the point that schools could save money by increasing class sizes, as long as those classes are taught by highly effective teachers. Again, these strike me as very interesting ideas to ponder for our schools.
Monday, November 22, 2010
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28 comments:
I wish everyone a restful and happy holiday weekend.
Catherine, the reality is that charters can get away with all kinds of things that public schools can't, and many higher achieveing charters serve self-selected populations.
As an example of the former, a charter in the area (I won't say the name or what town it's in) simply lets the lowest achievers languish. They are essentially driven out of the school that way. As a given student cohort moves up in grade, its population shrinks, with the lowest achievers from the previous year eliminated from test scores. They are SO happy with their higher test scores at upper grades. Gee, let's get them higher salaries because their test scores are good.
As an example of the latter, a different charter school in Springfield gets much better student achievement than the city's public schools. Here's the population they serve, with the public schools' population % after the backslash: first language not English 3.0/24.1; ELL 1.6/13.1; Hispanic 28.6/56.7; SPED 11.7/23.9; low income 46/74.9. Let's do cartwheels in celebration of how much better they do than the city's public schools.
Charters can boot out difficult students, some get away with not paying teachers what they've agreed, even boot out teachers with little reason.
Finally, there are so many pitfalls to a teacher merit pay system that it's hard to know where to begin. I volunteered to be on a subcommittee through contract negotiations under Hochmann that explored this issue. He was enthusiastically for such a system. I was interested too, because I hadn't taken many extra courses to move up the salary scale, yet had done a lot of extra work and study on my own, as well as getting pretty good MCAS scores with struggling learners. I would have been a poster boy for such a system. We studied districts like Denver and others that tried things out. Guess what: we found NONE that were fair, or that survived a town's finances. As long as teacher pay is tied to town taxes, that will ALWAYS be problematic.
Ken, I think where a lot of my disagreement with you is all I want is for my kids to get a superior education. Not just educated. I want to take care of my tiny piece of the puzzle, and have them grow up to be productive good citizens of the world. You want equity in the classroom, and have a "big picture" perspective. It was just too difficult to leave my kids in the public school, with disruptive kids, kids with loads of personal problems, large classes, and the worst...teaching to the bottom.
You're right to notice, the issue is here whether we all like it or not.
The idea of structuring compensation around desired outcomes is powerful and at the same time has the potential to meet steadfast resistance and obstruction by vested interests, the very people who do the important work.
This topic is one in which identifying champions among the the teachers will be necessary to move it forward. Phasing it in where benefits accrue first and teachers feel the assessment protocols will yield a fair result is essential for success.
Anonymous 6:50,
I think everyone wants what is best for their own child. I think the complexity lies where some people, like you and me, are able to advocate for their child's needs. We can even opt to try to get into a charter or pay for private school, because we have the know-how, the perspective, and the education. But the best possible education should not only be left to the children of those parents who are most highly educated and empowered to begin with. So I try to advocate on behalf of students whose families cannot do that on their own. Anyone who, because of that, thinks I'm for mediocrity in education a) does not know me at all and b) is totally misunderstanding what I say. I'm for an accurate interpetation of available data, and the best response to it for ALL students, based on the notion that equity does not mean equal in a public school setting. This is a public school system, which means the need to think about the best interests of all children, though you have the luxury to think only about your child--as all parents do. I think anyone who wants a private school education for their child is entitled to spend the all the money they want on it at whatever institution they choose, and all power to them.
The article Catherine posted on was on the value of charters. I merely posted about the reality of many charter schools. It is a crime, I think, when public school dollars get syphoned off to create a more "private school-y" environment at a charter school, often for the parents whose children would do better ANYWAY in a public school setting. Of course, there are some very, very bad school systems where charters can be a valid alternative. But the number of those kinds of charter schools is far outnumbered by charters that merely suck money from public schools without offering a better educational alternative other than serving a more controlled population, often comprised of self-selected higher achieving populations, and who play under a different set of rules that public schools CAN'T play under--ironically, rules often set by the very folks who lift those rules for charters!
Anon 9:02, I have no idea what you mean. Here's a way to look at it. You can sort MCAS scores from high to low pretty much by the household median income of a district and school. Let's just arrange a graduated salary scale based on that, and save everyone a lot of time.
Ken -- I didn't read any of these articles as being exclusive to charter schools, and as to the elimination of the MEd step, that is almost entirely a non-charter-school issue because -- as you note -- the Charters pay their teachers whatever they feel like.
And the issue of how charters treat their teachers is a real one -- I am not the technology teacher for a charter that will remain nameless because when I saw their application and all the things I was supposed to agree to waive, the application went into the trash....
But Ken, you seem to believe that the bright kids from upper-middle class backgrounds will be fine notwithstanding a s****y schooling and that is simply not true. I have seen too many -- far too many of these kids as messed up college kids who flunk out (if not become suicide risks) because they never were challenged in classes that were taught to the bottom, have no study skills and suddenly are in way over their heads with neither a lifeline nor their familiar community/parental support network.
Maybe the bright kids would be better off just let to go to the library on their own to learn without teachers forcing them to slow down to the least able of their peers -- heaven knows I would have been -- but then why don't we just do this and fire a full third of the teaching cadre?
It would be like asking everyone to go to an OB/GYN when half of us simply couldn't benefit from that kind of medical care. It would be an expensive waste, as is the current practice of warehousing lots of bright/bored kids while you teach to the bottom....
Catherine,
I wanted to go the math council meeting but couldn't find any information posted about it on ARPS. Aren't these meeting supposed to be open to the public and posted on the ARPS website? Also, I could find no minutes of meetings after about 2008. I would welcome your input as you seem to know the ARPS 'policy' very well.
Ed, I think you are touching on one of the fundamental tensions in a town like Amherst, which serves neither predominantly more higher-achieving nor more lower-achieving students, but rather many at both ends. It is a HUGE challenge to meet both sets of needs well. But I do think it is a misconception to assume both sets of needs can't be met well.
I want to reset yet again the context of education in Amherst: we are an above-average-for-Massachusetts-achieving district for ALL subgroups of students, and the average of all subgroups in MA is the HIGHEST of all 50 states, and at the elementary level in particular, very near the top of the WORLD at the last such measurement (2007). That is REAL data. So I have to scratch my head a bit when I read a post like Anon 6:50 who describes some sort of chaotic and impossible classroom norm, implying that that is the norm in this town, which caused her to move to either a charter or private school. Her situation may well be true, but I have to rely on data, not anecdotes, for a sense of what really is happening. Of course there may be individual classrooms that are more problematic than others--there are everywhere. But I have coached teachers all over the state and I have to tell you, it's like a different world in our schools. Not that improvements aren't needed (as they are everywhere, there being no such thing as perfection anywhere), but I think people have really got to get a grip and dispassionately look at what the full range of data REALLY tells us about student performance, not some idealized perspective on what it should be like, or would be like if only.... The data tells us that we have an achievement gap more than anything else, and our expected-to-achieve-highly students achieve at levels near the very top of the state.
This is a PUBLIC school system, and as such, equity MUST be a part of the discussion. Anon 6:50, and perhaps others, seems to disagree. But equity does not mean teaching to the bottom, or even to the middle. It's only that way when teachers are not helped to do it differently.
Abbie - the Math Curriculum Council is not necessarily an open meeting ... my understanding is that this is a group appointed by the superintendent, and thus it is not a School Committee subcommittee (in which case requirements of the open meeting law apply, such as posting meeting times and posting minutes). I would encourage you to contact the superintendent to see if you would be allowed to attend a meeting, and if so, when such meetings are held.
According to Policy IL, however, the superintendent is required to appoint a group of teachers/parents/administrators to work on curricular review, and that would include the current math review. I have asked the superintendent when she intends to appoint this group - because announcements soliciting participation are then posted on line and all members of the community can apply to be appointed - but I have not yet learned when she plans to appoint this group (or post an announcement). I can certainly check at the meeting on November 30th. As of now, the superintendent is simply using the already appointed Math Curriculum Council to assist with the math review (e.g., they met with Dr. Chen multiple times and I believe assisted with creating the survey).
Please let me know if you have more questions.
Re Math Curriculum Council meetings not being public -- thus it is not a School Committee subcommittee (in which case requirements of the open meeting law apply
You may or may not be right Catherine -- I am neither a lawyer nor on campus right now and would have to check carefully because you are dealing with multiple municipal organizations when you are talking a curriculum (and technically three different superintendents (all of whom happen to be Maria G) so - arguably - any report made to her would be made to THREE of her which itself might make it a public meeting.
Notwithstanding this, if the Sunshine Act doesn't apply, FERPA does! Any parent can go in and get any record relevant to the education of his/her/its child which (IMHO) would include the minutes of this curriculum committee.
Remember that they can't charge to look at the records, only to copy them, which means that every parent can go in and individually look at every thing which would be a real administrative hassle that I doubt that either the Supt or teachers want to deal with.
Q.E.D. it would be WISE for the Supt and Curriculum Committee and rest to VOLUNTARIALLY make the meetings open to the public. Forget whether or not you have to and just DO IT as a sign of good faith. If you have nothing to hide, you will want everyone to see what you are doing and the more who do, the better....
If you just tell people things, often it won't be a big deal. It is the secrecy that gets people suspicious and makes them then never trust you on anything else either....
Ed, I think you are touching on one of the fundamental tensions in a town like Amherst, which serves neither predominantly more higher-achieving nor more lower-achieving students, but rather many at both ends.
This is a combination of three different things:
First, Amherst is increasingly becoming like Greenwich CT (a cousin taught down there) where you have just the very rich and the very poor -- the middle class can not afford to rent in Amherst (where the AHA pays 120% of FMR) and it was cheaper to buy in Belchertown (etc). This is hidden because many of the rich kids are minorities -- eg Charlena Seymour's kids, JoAnne Vanin's kids -- all black but from homes with 6 figure incomes and both parents having terminal degrees.
It isn't that there are poor children in Amherst (poor being 200% of the poverty rate) but that there are REALLY REALLY POOR children, that being 20% of the poverty rate. And very rich kids - who for some reason aren't all in private school YET.
Yes, if Amherst was only educating the children of the janitors and single mothers living on welfare, that would be one thing (and it well may come to that -- but forget about any overrides if no one paying taxes has children in the schools...
The second issue - and it is at both ends of the economic schism but far easier to understand at the upper end - is the unmotivated student. These are the kids who usually wind up "in trouble" (drugs, pregnant, crime, etc) and it is neither lack of economic resources nor parental love but something else -- sometimes SPED or Psych issues, sometimes other things, but we all know decent and wealthy parents whose kids have had real problems.
And then the third rail is the third division between those who can and those who can't. I will never be a champion figure skater - I can skate backwards and do a few minor things but I simply don't have the ability. I don't have the coordination, I don't have the balance, and I don't have the bone structure -- I would be considered anorexic at 30-40 pounds *more* than what the ideal male figure skater weighs...
The same thing is true of schooling, some kids are smarter than others and holding them back is the same thing as forcing those with skating ability to only learn at my ability -- and to the limits of my ability....
Ken, that is every bit as undemocratic as the stuff you seem to be worried about.
But the best possible education should not only be left to the children of those parents who are most highly educated and empowered to begin with
Ken, respectfully, what century are you living in? My experience is that the parents you are referencing are actually the LEAST EMPOWERED of all the parents and usually wind up with the hassles related to charter/private school precisely because they are not empowered.
Who has access to a lawyer? Who is the school afraid might sue? Who would be able to be on Ch 22/40 if disgruntled? Ask yourself this - why does Amherst not have tracking, whose parents threatened to sue? (Or did sue, this was 20 years ago or so now and I only heard of it after the fact...)
So who holds the political power in the system? Is it (a) the parents who wish to see their children get the challenging curriculum that they need, or is it the parents who need to have the classes "taught to the bottom" so their children's needs are met? Which groups needs are being met -- that is the group with power in the system....
Which group of parents are having their children's needs being met at the expense of the other group's needs????
Unless you can show me that 10%-20% of the student body is being told to sit in the back of the class and simply shut up and be quiet -- with no pretense being made to help them keep up with the lessons (and this type of thing is done in Japan) then your whole argument falls apart.....
And we won't even get into the parents who quietly take their kids out of the system so that the child's SPED needs can be met....
Ed, I guess you're right. It's poor communities (of color mostly) that "own" our school system. I stand corrected. You can tell partly because of all the lawyers they use to make the system run according to their needs, and partly because it is those parents who bring pressure to bear on the school committee and superintendent for the things they want. The result is a sh**ty school system (to quote you) where the disadvantaged middle class and affluent students don't score the highest in the entire universe, merely very high in a state that is the highest achieving in the nation, and near the top of the world.
How silly of me not to have realized all this for so long! Oh my god, we're doomed!!
Ed: I think you should refrain from posting on this blog after midnight. I have read your last post over 5 times and for the life of me I cannot figure out what you are saying. Ken's posts are always very clear, whether you agree with him or not. Your last post is truly a puzzle. I can't figure out who you think is empowered and who you think is disempowere.
Want to try again?
disadvantaged middle class and affluent students don't score the highest in the entire universe, merely very high in a state that is the highest achieving in the nation, and near the top of the world.
Citations, please. I simply do not believe you -- I know my information is qualtative rather than quantitative but I have heard too much from too many parents to believe you.
Is that clear enough folk -- it is not if I agree or disagree with Ken, I simply do not believe his facts to be accurate. I do not believe the Amherst schools to be the best in the world, I do not believe that they are meeting the needs of their gifted students, and I am quite certain that on a dollar per scholar basis, Amherst is sub-modal.
So, Ken, your citation?
And Ken, perhaps you might care to address this: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/07/21/bias_and_bigotry_in_academia_106381.html. The underlying research on it is sound, even if this is on a political site.
Ken, you are dealing with parents who understand this reality, you can make implicit (or explicit) references to racism or whatnot but that neither changes this nor the fact that the Amherst schools are not meeting the needs of those whom you sorta imply ought to be educated by their parents.
The parents who care about education are making a fuss right now because they are not empowered and they will eventually pull their kids out of the Amherst schools at which point the fiscal bottom will fall out because those who care about education are very publicly not part of the public option.
As Yeats said, "the middle shall cease to hold..."
Ed is 1000% correct. "Amherst's" decades long plan to attract a certain type of people to fill its' town with children that fill its' schools, is failing.
One should not, however, underestimate the need of some, to continue believing in the "superiority narrative" that attracted them here in the first place... even when the dream is become a nightmare.
And one should not underestimate "efforts" to continue to attract/take advantage of them, shrinking ranks and all.
Because it is they (doing the advantage taking), who are most interested in the status quo, who have ~the most~ to lose...
It is they who have been, are and will be Catherine Sanderson's ~strongest~ critics.
Ed and Anon,
I sent s reply to Ed yesterday but apparently it got lost in etherspace. I rely on data supplied by the most prestigious international comparison of education, the TIMSS (2007 was the last one), the most prestigious national assessment comparison (NAEP), and MCAS data, where anyone can look at the data and draw conclusions for themselves about the performance of our non low income students, and any other group they choose. Without spending time doing year-by-year in LA and Math, here's the 3-6 MCAS comparison for our non low income students with the state: LA=93.0 vs. 92.1, Math = 90.8 vs. 86.4. And 7-10th grade, it's LA = 96.5 vs. 92.2 and 93 vs. 86.4. and this performance is set in the context of our at the top NAEP state performance and very high TIMSS performance. If these 3 sources of DATA re not good enough for you, then what can I do?
You could also list the colleges our most empowered students continue to go to, or any number of other indicators. So I have data to back up my claim that it's mainly an achievement gap in this town, not a deterioration of education here in general. And pray tell, what data do YOU use, other than anecdotes or feelings about the quality of schooling in the town?
I'll put it in simpler terms; in the lack of REAL DATA showing me the deterioration of education for students who achieve most highly in THIS town, it just seems like some of you are saying that the students who "have" the most in our schools don't have "enough," and what they've "lost" is at the expense of those pesky "others" who are increasingly filling up classroom spaces and forcing teachers to think about them too.
Or maybe I have it wrong, and data only matter when it backs up what YOU say? And Ed, your post absolutely drips with value judgment and almost contempt for the parents who are "different than you," by which definition they suddenly don't value education for their children. I appreciate your making my point that social justice is still a very big need in our schools.
Ed is 1000% correct. "Amherst's" decades long plan to attract a certain type of people to fill its' town with children that fill its' schools, is failing.
Long pause....
Children who have the ability to benefit from higher level education -- and I don't mean the busywork approach currently favored in Amherst -- do not correspond directly to either family income or skin color.
No more than children who have the ability to benefit from a higher level physical education (i.e varsity sports) do. And taking this issue of athletic giftedness the way we currently take academic giftedness, instead of being on a sports team, we would just make them run extra laps around the track for the same grade.
The point that absolutely everyone is missing is that having a school system with AP courses and the rest is that it becomes an opportunity for folk like Deval Patrick -- the minority children, the poor children -- these kids can be gifted too and if you don't have these options in the public school, they have no chance...
here's the 3-6 MCAS comparison for our non low income students with the state: LA=93.0 vs. 92.1, Math = 90.8 vs. 86.4. And 7-10th grade, it's LA = 96.5 vs. 92.2 and 93 vs. 86.4.
What were the median & modal scores, what was the range in the scores?
One other little thing -- what would the scores be if you adjusted for "high income" the same way that is adjusted for low income here?
If you separated out one standard deviation (both ways) from the median income of Massachusetts $65,304) or of the 5 Western Mass Counties ($41,739) -- remember this is total household income and half above and half below these figures -- then what would the scores be?
Amherst would have far fewer students in the middle than most schools, but how would they do?
And my reference to median & mode above is do we have all our non-poor kids getting the same score, or is there a dramatic range between those who do good and those who don't?
And Ed, your post absolutely drips with value judgment and almost contempt for the parents who are "different than you,"
And Ken, exactly how are they "different than [me]"????
You might be surprised at how wrong you are.... How REALLY WRONG you are on this...
I am merely reporting the CPI score, Ed, as MCAS reports it. CPIs can range from 0 (all students in a district or in a subgroup got a Warning score) to 100 (all students got proficient or Advanced). I didn't explain the figures as I figured you would know all about it, as you talk so authoritatively about academic performance. I believe the non-low-income category is required of all states to report through NCLB. Non-low income measures the performance of midle income and affluent students (those not on free-reduced lunch). As with all subgroups whose scores are disaggregated on the MCAS test, you can compare any group of students to any town or the state as a whole, (and in fact, that NCLB and DESE requires districts to do).
I'd made a point that our higher achieving students do very well, you challenged me to prove it, I have, by using figures that we are SUPPOSED to use, and contexualizing them, in the conext of the major national and international assessments there are. In contrast, I still have seen NO figures from you "proving" the sh**ty performance of the higher achievers in our schools, that you and others on this blog insist is the case. Only a lot of meaningless words, anecdotes, ax-grinding and political rants. So come on, now, how about your own modes and ranges with real numbers of students from THIS town and THIS school system.
Finally, Ed, HOWEVER different others are from you that causes you to judge and label their behavior as a group in the negative--in this case, the ignorant and completely un-empathetic "they don't value education"--that is what I mean.
Finally, Ed, HOWEVER different others are from you that causes you to judge and label their behavior as a group in the negative--in this case, the ignorant and completely un-empathetic "they don't value education"--that is what I mean.
Ken, if you have ever been in a classroom, you will know the difference between those who want to learn and those who don't -- and I have no problem saying that we should teach those who want to learn and not sacrifice them in attempts to pander to those who don't want to learn.
I don't care how many disadvantages you have or how terrible your background -- I was in the department where all the male teachers chipped in to buy a senior her prom dress, she was living with the female teacher in the department because her family life was that badly screwed up (and it wouldn't look good for her to be living with one of the guys).
My point is that there are a lot of kids who aren't interested in education -- not disadvantaged, not disabled, just not interested and I am tired of pandering to them at the expense of kids that I can do something for. Kids who WANT to learn, who COULD learn if we simply said "hey, we are here to teach those of you who want to learn."
That is why I got out of K-12 -- if you don't want to learn, then help everyone including yourself out and get the f*** out of my classroom....
No one ever said teaching was going to be easy, Ed, and it's not. But I taught 25 years in classrooms, and thought I could teach ANYone, and in fact did. When a student didn't learn, 99% of the time I felt it was something I could do something about--and usually could. Sometimes there was a lot of sh*t to wade through, but wade through it we did. I know fabulous teachers at the elemntary and regional schools in Amherst who feel the same way.
By the way, I'm still waiting on the figures from the Amherst schools proving how poor education has become for our highest achievers. Not anecdotes, political talk, or unsupported belief statements, but real data--using numbers--that causes you and others such alarm, that demonstrate the diminished academic performance of Amherst's high achieving populations--its middle and upper income students.
Catherine, maybe you can help us out and post any data you are aware of that would clarify this issue.
Ed:
I am going to give you a very concrete example to help you see where your attitude has no place in the education field.
When my son was in high school he was going through ALOT of turmoil and angst. And he clearly was sending those signals you talk about that say "I don't want to learn, I have no interest in being here." And he was failing and on the verge of dropping out. One of his teachers stepped up and organized a meeting of me, my son, all his teachers and his guidance counselor. Got us all together in the same room to figure out what we could all do to help my son. We did make a plan, my son followed through and he graduated from high school He did not continue on to college right away...but he did go back to school several years later. He is now double majoring in college and has a 4.0 average. His goal is to graduate with a 4.0 and then go on to grad school and eventually get a doctorate in his field.
Now, if we followed your philosophy, he would have dropped out of school and who knows where he would be today. My personal philosophy is that there are no throw away kids!!! Every child deserves to get an education...the best we can give them. Even those who SEEM to be saying they don't care and don't want an education.
I am very thankful you are not an educator in the Amherst system and I hope you are not an educator in any system. Your philosophy does not belong in our schools. Finally, I am remaining anonymous to protect my son's privacy.
I get Ed's point. I think the case of your son doing well might be the exception and not the rule. Most of the time, the kids who don't want to learn, just want to hurry up and either drop out, or just graduate and get an hourly job at the mall in Hadley. I think what Ed is pointing out is that Amherst public schools do in fact neglect the higher achieving, focused kids. I've been in the schools and seen it.
Anon, I KEEP asking for real proof about what you claim, and Ed claimed, and NEVER see it. I was challenged to post data about what I believed, and I did: I posted data that shows quite the opposite of his and your and others' claims are about how higher achieving students' needs are not met. Our non-low-income students perform near the very top of the state, and our state performs at the top of the country and near the top of the world. Some folks may want even MORE attention paid to their kids, or resent the attention that's now being paid to other populations--but unless you show me data to back up your claim, you CAN'T claim that the education of the "have mosts" has suffered. It's just an echo chamber.
But we never get real objective data from your side. We get "I heard this," and "I saw that," and "I believe this." Even "So many people are moving out of the schools," but that doesn't prove anything until we know what % is moving for what reason--and even then, the people who move out because they "don't think the Amherst schools are good" just proves that they are acting on their beliefs, NOT that their opinion is fact.
So, please enlighten us.
When my son was in high school he was going through ALOT of turmoil and angst. And he clearly was sending those signals you talk about that say "I don't want to learn, I have no interest in being here."
There is a difference between a student at risk and a troublemaker. Any caring teacher knows the difference -- and Ken, once you have raped & murdered a 14-year-old (maybe she was 15, I forget) -- once you have done something like this, and I am thinking of a couple of students I had to deal with (not in Amherst) -- once you have done something like this with no remorse, at what point are the resources best spent on those students who haven't done this sort of thing?
Once you bring a loaded .357 into my classroom, I kinda take a negative attitude toward you -- I am sorry Ken, but I do....
For reasons I don't want to get into, I am more sensitive to the issues that students in crisis are dealing with than many can imagine. But there is a big difference between being open minded and having your brains fall out.
And did you all note above about the student who was essentially adopted by a Social Studies Dept? I am not saying that there aren't kids you go to great lengths for, only that at some point you have to ask if the kid wants to learn or not and go with that....
Ed, reread your original post about this and see how easily it is to get your intent. In any case, I work with DYS teachers. That is, teachers who work with kids in lock-up facilities all of whom by definition are troublemakers, and some of whom have done just what you write. You may believe they are not worth educating, but DESE says they have to be. So my hats off to the teachers that choose this path, as it's not an easy one, and I do what I can do help their task be more do-able.
Put another way, I really don't need any lectures from you, or lessons in how to discriminate between who is worth trying to teach, and who isn't.
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