-
creed33 08/20/2010 12:41:00 PM
0 Have you ever heard a child having more than 18 names? He can be called by a name on the daily basis. This happens in the Tiwi societies who are the early Australian people. Names for the people are nevertheless an important aspect in their culture.
--------
government auctions
-
Crash 08/20/2010 3:04:00 AM
Hey, Catherine. Knock that shit off!
-
New air max 08/19/2010 6:11:00 AM
nice
-
Elizabeth Isralowitz 08/18/2010 4:13:00 AM
As a teacher and someone who cares deeply about public education, there is no denying the truth in this article. The dumbing down of curriculum in poor areas has been documented for decades, see "Savage Inequalities: Children in America's Schools," Jonathan Kozol. Although Kozol does talk about the actual physical environment of schools he and many other professors of education acknowledge that the classroom is a place but the curriculum and the teacher teaching it is where students learn.
While I agree that students from all backgrounds should be taught the same rigorous standards, I also believe that students miss out on a golden ticket if they do not develop their Spanish skills. In so many area's of industry and human services people who are fluently bilingual are hired over their monolingual peers. This is especially true in fields such as medicine and counseling.
In the end I believe that we need to foster a foreign language from an early age as many upper class elementary schools do. We should give students and families a choice whether they want their children to develop their home language or another language with the clear realization that we are living in a global marketplace. But this should not detract from our goal that all students can think and learn. The difference between a rich home life and a rich preschool curriculum isn't that students learn or do not learn but what they learn. With either as a background students come to use ready and willing to learn and excited to excel. It is our job as educators to expect the best, prepare for the worst, and always push our students to meet their highest potential.
-
Susana Benavidez 07/31/2010 2:33:00 AM
Mr McDonald
I write to thank you and commend you on your story "Educating Maria". It brought back memories for me as a child growing up in Boyle Heights and being frustrated by the lack of rigorous curriculum or sometimes any curriculum at all. I remember too many days that I spent at the back of the class reading on my own or copying pages of the Webster's dictionary as a punishment for finishing my classwork too soon. Thank goodness for that teacher's lack of common sense to think that it was a punishment; if it had not been for those books and dictionary I would have never grasped command of the English language.
My education experience did not improve as I went on to Belvedere Middle school and it became even worse when I started at Roosevelt Senior high. One 9th grade English teacher used to give us one sheet of crossword puzzles as he read his newspaper for the entire duration of the class. If it had not been for my counselor, Ms. Rodriguez, I would have spent the entire semester pulling my hair out in frustration.
As I read your article I felt a wave of anger that almost drove me to tears- these kids do not stand a chance if they are being led by a principal such as Ms. Barry. I have met with Ms. Barry now as a parent when I was looking into elementary school options for my two daughters since we live in downtown Los Angeles and were zoned to that school. Her lack of understanding of her demographic of students and her lofty ideas of art and expression instead of the necessary and vital skills of reading and writing were appalling and stomach turning.
My two girls will be attending Solano Elementary which I found after researching schools for over two years. Principal Hickcox (who retired this year) and Ms. Garrison (who is a Milken Educator award winner) are absolute gems and the kind of people that drive LAUSD forward. The test scores at Solano Elementary (which has a score of 9 on the Great Schools Website) attest to the fact that Latino immigrant children can and will learn as well as more affluent students if and when the teachers and administrators at LAUSD take the time to educate them.
Included is a link to a story I wrote about Solano Elementary, I hope that you highlight their work so that they can become the norm and not the exception at LAUSD.
http://blogdowntown.com/2009/11/4868-school-search-solano-elementary
Sincerely
Susana Benavidez
Downtown L.A. Parents
-
Ann Meere 07/30/2010 1:45:00 AM
I teach a class that is 99.5% English Language Learners in LAUSD. My class is English immersion, while we also have dual-language classes from k-5 in Korean & Spanish. The English immersion classes were large 25plus last year, the dual-language classes were reasonable with some as small as 16 up to 19 students. Also the best students were skimmed from my class & put in dual language classes. SO THE BEST RESOURCES go to the dual language students, and the least to the English immersion classes. Apparently, some are more equal than others. This steals resources from some most students & gives the resources to a few when neoptism like this is allowed and encouraged to flourish.
-
Andrea 07/28/2010 9:01:00 PM
I too, was a teacher at Ninth Street School for the last nine years. Like Damon, I never experienced any teachers "dumbing down" curriculum, but working hard to promote excellence and stability in an ever changing LAUSD bureaucracy. It disappoints me once again, as it did many times in our community, that instead of working as a collaborative team to support our families, it was and is a finger-pointing blame game. I think that Alice Callaghan and her organization could have been promoted and appreciated just as well without taking shots at a hardworking staff at a school that has long been underfunded and overlooked. I am happy that she has been able to help families in our community, all educational philosophies aside. What should matter to everyone is our children. If that were the case, there would be no time for blame, only time for change. That would mean finding people in the area to work together to do it. I wish I could say that Alice had reached out to teachers at our school who would have gladly supported her program and worked tirelessly to help our students the way she has. We probably could have worked smarter not harder. Instead, we were met with legal aids, finger pointing, and animosity. I believe that if Alice and anybody wants to make a difference in this community, it's going to take the "village". She is going to have to be willing and open to let the past go, and move forward with people like herself that love our kids and want to make a significant difference. We should be doing this together.
-
ofelia carbajal 07/28/2010 2:28:00 PM
what i have been reading is wonderful! it sounds like her children are really learning! so what is happening to the LAUSD? i really believe this lady should be running the los angeles unified schools she would do a great job! then maybe all the kid would get a decent education in the state of california.
-
Damon Miller 07/28/2010 7:39:00 AM
I am a former teacher at Ninth Street School. I taught there 12 years. I felt obligated to respond to a few thing the auther of this article, Patrick McDonald, said. I agree that LAUSD is in terrible shape(which is why I left), but I can't get on board with him bashing the hardworking teachers at Ninth Street School. He made some bold statements such as"years of second rate teaching", and the totally false statement that in 1999 Ninth street "balked again at teaching phonics and grammar." I was there. Everyone taught Open Court, which explictly teaches phonics. He also stated that teachers "resisted teaching reading and writing in English." Who?? Give me a name. I was there. Mr. McDonald doesn't say if he interviewd any teachers from Ninth Street. No teachers have a voice in the article. If he didn't then this article is IRRESONSIBLE journalism. To make these statements without observing the school or its teachers at all is poor research on his part.
-
Catherine 07/27/2010 11:44:00 PM
Another good website for houses for sale by owner in Los Angeles is www.acewebads.com
-
Nicole 07/27/2010 8:32:00 PM
Amazing story. Any "educator" who denies that it is easiest to learn a language in the earliest years of life knows nothing about child development. Any politician who insists that learning the language of the country in which you live is denigrating and deprives you of your culture should perhaps return to their own culture.
-
Herb 07/27/2010 6:26:00 PM
Saxon math is not mediocre. We used it at San fernando High School in the early nineties, and it was the only program that significantly raised test scores on the ELM test used by CSUN to place entering freshmen. The stereotype of Saxon Math is that it is drill and kill, but Saxon believed that if the student achieves automaticity in manipulation, the concepts come very easily; we found that to be true. Then the district found out about our use of Saxon and forbade our use of the books. The reason was that the books were not on the approved list and did not have pictures of minorities and handicapped people achieving. Well, these were math books, so they had no pictures of people at all, in contrast to the district's current goofball approved books, which look like Time Magazine with math in them.
-
Jack 07/27/2010 10:43:00 AM
CLOSE THE BORDER, AND SAVE OUR AMERICAN CHILDREN. THE LANGUAGE OF AMERICA IS ENGLISH.
-
Barbara 07/27/2010 1:43:00 AM
The issue is not bilingual education, or programs such as Saxon Math and Open Court, both of which are mediocre at best. The three issues of main importance are the insistence that public school students be judged on one multiple choice test score that favors stable upper class schools with little transiency in their population; LAUSD jumping constantly from one reform to the next and the economic segregation of schools coupled with Spanish being viewed as a lower prestige language by many people.
Dual langauge immersion is successfully taught in several districts in California, however it requires long term planning, at least one credentialed teacher plus a highly trained aide or two credentialed teachers in the classroom and lots of support. It is also quite successful in Canada where French enjoys equal prestige with English.
The problem with leaving Spanish up to the family is many parents have no more than a 3rd grade education themselves and cannot teach it well to their children. Children who have a firm grasp of their native language can learn English better. However, this requires the district be more focused on supporting teachers than building fancy schools.
In addition, Marion Joseph is a political hack and has almost no experience in education, thus she is not qualified to speak on this.
Open Court is a mediocre program at best that helps students get to about 6th grade level reading. It does almost nothing for their writing.
By 6th grade students should be reading novels and responding to them but alas, these are not the skills asked for on the STAR tests or the CST (high school level). As long as parents and communities fail to protest when their teachers and students are judged by an obselete test that does not test for skills needed in the 21st century, we will continue to see education decline.
Note South Pasadena is a very upper income area where parents have many more resources, are highly educated and can help their children with homework and pay for expensive tutors. So Callahan bringing this up is disengenuous.
Want to see teaching instantly improve? Start insisting on authenitic assessment. That means that students must show proficiency in writing, speaking, their use of some technology and subject content (multiple choice tests). But to judge good teachers on the latter only is ludicrous. To ignore poverty and economic segregation is ludicrous.
LAUSD students lack access to middle class and upper class privilege and experiences. Parents need to be educated to stop buying video games and cell phones for their kids and instead take them to museums and read to them. They also need to set aside what little extra money they can for a college account- even if it is only 5 dollars a week - and they need to tell their children they are doing so.
No magic bullet Saxon Math or Open Court will solve education issues. Students need more time to read a variety of materials, they should read the newspaper in class every day and they should travel outside their area. Instead of spending money on canned curriculum the district should see that students get more authentic and experiential education, in addition to more time to read for pleasure.
-
Catherine 07/27/2010 1:25:00 AM
I know this is a little off topic George Bailey, can anyone suggest a good website to find houses for sale by owner in Los Angeles?
-
George Bailey 07/26/2010 1:06:00 AM
Dear M Blasi: I'll make the acknowledgment that many LAUSD teachers work hard and well, and many deserve many times their salary. I know some and salute them.
Regrettably, there are also a significant number of uninspired plodders, time servers and worse, who are horrific teachers. They are protected by union rules that deter individual excellence, shelter incompetence and ultimately elevate the welfare of the teacher's union over that of the children who are supposed to be the primary reason we have those schools. The "rubber room" in New York and the ludicrous steps that must be taken to oust a teacher here all attest to the union's shameful role in dumbing down the schools and foisting awful teachers on our children. What other respected "profession" boasts a "rubber room" or requires years of litigation to oust a clear incompetent?
The continued existence of the union is a stigma on its members. Until it goes--for good-the LAUSD will continue to generate one desire in almost all parents--the desire to get their kids into almost any other school. Away from indifferent administrators and unaccountable teachers. That deprives LAUSD of good kids-- but the involved parents you lament as leaving LAUSD--the involved parents that benefit the entire school, but which LAUSD has seen fit to characterize as pests and to marginalize whenever it can. I don't minimize the effect of LAUSD's horrific administrators, but the unions enables it and you know it.
If teachers were as proud of their profession as they are protective of their pocketbook and benefits, they'd get rid of the Union and stand with other professions.
If teachers were as honest as they are defensive, they'd be ashamed that so many informed and involved parents would --if they could--transfer their kids out of LAUSD and into a small school--a storefront run by a former nun.
-
M Blasi 07/26/2010 12:25:00 AM
The article fails to take into account the differences and challenges facing a publicly operated neighborhood school on Skid Row versus a privately operated one. Las Familias del Pueblo has a waiting list, no doubt in part to its connection to Brentwood Science Magnet School. That means they can draw from the families in the community with the most stability, who have been there longest, who most likely have a stable apartment. 9th Street had to accommodate kids and parents with little or no stability of shelter, who might drift in and out of school, while Las Familias del Pueblo can draw from parents who are around long enough to take advantage of the school. You are comparing apples and oranges among parents and children. While I do not support all the educational policy decisions made by the District over the years, and we can certainly learn from each other as educators. The arguments presented in this article to account for the success of one educational approach over another are incomplete and biased.
-A LAUSD Teacher
-
Jill Stewart 07/24/2010 12:43:00 PM
To Lupita and others whose Comments for some reason did not appear, we are trying to find out where they went and hope to restore them.
You can always simply put in your Comment again, which we welcome! And we appreciate your passion on both sides of this issue!!
Jill Stewart, news editor, LA Weekly
-
LAUSD teacher 07/24/2010 9:58:00 AM
Yes we are educators and most of us don't "dumb down" our curriculum and in fact fight the mile wide and inch deep standards administrators try to force us to teach. The issue is how do I teach a high school level novel to an 11th grader reading at a 5th grade level? I still do, with much support but understand that parents play a crucial role in education, just like my parents did with me.
And as someone mentioned above, we need to stop importing poverty. We can't support it.
-
Herb 07/24/2010 3:21:00 AM
But the larger issue goes unsaid: Why us? That is, why do we have to educate the world's poor? The flood of immigrants inundated us, beginning as far back as the late seventies, because our government cynically refused to enforce immigrations laws, because it was beholden to corporations that wanted to keep wages low and the labor market loose. The event that began in 2008 and has not yet played itself out may well not be an ordinary recession but a structural change reflecting that after three decades of importing poverty, we are now a poor society. Follow the money. Some people have done very well from the general dissipation of the affluence that used to characterize our society until the late seventies. If this country enforced its immigration laws we would not even be in the position of debating how to educate the children of poor, semiliterate subsistence farmers.
-
Marie Ketcheshawno 07/23/2010 12:39:00 AM
Excellent article! I attended schools in the Baldwin Park Unified and Covina Valley Unified school districts between 1968-1981 and I knew then that the bilingual education was not working. The bilingual students were being held back and it took 5 or more years for some students to learn English and then a lot of them can't make it to graduation. Whereas my father came to the United States when he was 10 and there were no bilingual programs and he learned English quickly and did well in school, graduated and started his own business. I am so glad I was not a student in the bilingual program and I wish the politicians would get the message that the experiment failed! It may have been started with good intentions, but it failed!
-
George 07/22/2010 11:32:00 PM
Same story, different year: Kids are a burden to LAUSD's administrators and clueless "educators" in their zeal to please LAUSD's political and union bosses. They may as well be trembling administrators trying to please the High Presidium in the old USSR. Principal Barry is, IMHO, ought to be at a poorly funded storefront and that nun ought to be at Ninth street. And here is this former roman catholic nun on a shoestring budget who brings more zeal and dedication to the primary mission than the entire downtown establishment (including the roman catholic church and its "PR Cardinal, Roger Mahoney)(I am a lapsed catholic because of people like Mahoney). In any decent city, the mayor would be cracking heads at LAUSD to get some fresh blood into LAUSD, and the old deadwood out. But I've lived here 35 years and know it won't happen. Too bad. Good for that nun! And good article!
-
Walter Moore 07/22/2010 8:27:00 PM
1. Immersion works. Good for the ex-nun!
2. The reason the LAUSD keeps building new schools -- which it cannot staff, and despite declining enrollment -- instead of educating children is to redistribute taxpayers' money to politically connected unions and contractors.
3. Imagine giving all parents the power, through vouchers, to find schools like this one, run by people who not only give a damn, but get results.
4. Great article.
