Wednesday, May 09, 2007
The Miseducation of Inner-City Children...
Most folks are aware that I am an advocate for volunteerism and on a weekly basis I tutor a fourth grade student in math who attends West Middle School in Hartford CT.
On my last visit, I noticed a bulletin board in the hallway of the school that outlined how each of the teachers did when it came to their students taking the CT Mastery Test and the results were shocking. While I did find out that my particular student passed the exam and he had one of the better teachers in the school that the results overall were abysmal.
The target was for each teacher to hit 70% of all students to pass which absolutely none of them hit. My student's teacher hit 45% of their students passing while the lowest in the school was 15%.
If we are spending more on inner-city schools for education yet the results don't reflect the spend and parents don't even have the sense to be outraged then what does this say about America's future? Even though most will acknowledge that Bell Curve Compensation is evil, it sure would be an improvement in our school systems.
On the way to the parking lot, I ended up passing a spanish-only Kindergarten class where I got to observe the most horrific teaching I have ever seen in my lifetime. The teacher was encouraging the kindergartners to learn how to count in Spanish by yelling. As I further observed the teaching style to my disgust I realized that in comparing my own son's Kindergarten experience that these students aren't just behind in terms of knowing English, they are also behind in terms of their own native tongue which I believe needs further exploration.
If we are to save America, we have to figure out how to wake up the Hispanic population and get them to learn how to become more outraged...
| | View blog reactionsOn my last visit, I noticed a bulletin board in the hallway of the school that outlined how each of the teachers did when it came to their students taking the CT Mastery Test and the results were shocking. While I did find out that my particular student passed the exam and he had one of the better teachers in the school that the results overall were abysmal.
The target was for each teacher to hit 70% of all students to pass which absolutely none of them hit. My student's teacher hit 45% of their students passing while the lowest in the school was 15%.
If we are spending more on inner-city schools for education yet the results don't reflect the spend and parents don't even have the sense to be outraged then what does this say about America's future? Even though most will acknowledge that Bell Curve Compensation is evil, it sure would be an improvement in our school systems.
On the way to the parking lot, I ended up passing a spanish-only Kindergarten class where I got to observe the most horrific teaching I have ever seen in my lifetime. The teacher was encouraging the kindergartners to learn how to count in Spanish by yelling. As I further observed the teaching style to my disgust I realized that in comparing my own son's Kindergarten experience that these students aren't just behind in terms of knowing English, they are also behind in terms of their own native tongue which I believe needs further exploration.
If we are to save America, we have to figure out how to wake up the Hispanic population and get them to learn how to become more outraged...
