According to the Ohio Department of Education, the Governor of the State of Ohio, and the Ohio Superintendent of Schools, Debra DeLisle, Jennifer Walker is the Ohio Teacher of the Year. She is also a National Board Certtified Teacher.
"Reforms" initiated by the state legislature have failed to improve urban schools, and have in fact, caused harm.
The presence of more than a dozen charter schools, vouchers, and open enrollment have encouraged parents to move children from school to school. It is now not uncommon for every child in a 5th grade class to have attended 3 or more schools. In fact, a good number have attended 5 or more schools.
This kind of mobility has been shown to cause delays in achievement.
Actually you don't have to pull numbers from the air. You can get them from the ODE website, and if you get a CUPP report in excel, sort the columns by scores or demographics.
While added factors like value-added points have changed the scores somewhat, the districts do line up by parent income, or housing starts. (The more new housing developments the better the scores.) Districts in the middle in income are in the middle in scores. It's the districts that don't follow this pattern that stand out.
This doesn't mean that education isn't influenced by other factors, just that these tests aren't.
There is a big difference in districts with 60% poverty and districts with 90% poverty. As a child, even by 1960's standards, my family would have fallen in or close to the poverty lines.
However, many of the children in my school were from more affluent families. My family was rich in supports like extended family and Church. We lived within walking distance of a library, nature center, and playground.
There was a sense of hope and opportunity, and competition in that school. My siblings and I couldn't compete in the clothes or toys category. But we sure could in academics and sports.
My siblings were driven to get what our classmates had. They gave us ideas about how to do it.
But the kids in these cities are becoming very isolated. Programs that meant to improve education only increased that isolation as vouchers, open enrollment, home schools, and charter schools separated students into groups.
Well, you might have something there. I was looking at Y-towns scores compared to the scores of the state as a whole, and other local districts. The Youngstown kids hold their own through 3rd and 4th grade, not that much below the average.
All over the state, scores drop in 5th grade, when a whole slew of higher level thinking skills is added, like algebraic expressions, graphing trends, etc.
But in other districts the scores rebound better over the middle school years to eighth grade.
So something changes in middle school. Maybe the students hit a ceiling of ability. But maybe they get more interested in out-of-school activities. Or maybe it is something altogether different, but it happens in 5th grade.
(All over the state, OGT scores are higher than the younger kids' scores. I think going to the ACT is a good decision. The OGT doesn't seem to be much of a test.)
Sorry, I didn't mean that last sentence as it came out. I mean that they should take first come - first served until they are filled to the quota they set.
Viewpoint, we have taken these steps, except for pepper spray. Our student dress more formally than the student in the picture.
Also, your idea of classes separated by gender is still followed at Alpha Middle School. The girls are on a different floor from the boys. By the way, this is one thing that Wendy Webb and you agree on.
I just can't believe that considering the numbers of students that Struthers and Lowellville have taken out of Youngstown, that Struthers enrollment of Black students is 5% and Lowellville's is too small to count. Austintown is doing this, as well as McDonald.
This is making our schools more segregated than they were before the civil rights movement began. It's ridiculous that these schools don't take all students that apply.
HEY! Mondo is right! Where are the posts from the participant named "god"?
They were by no means as disgusting as the ones ProAmerican posts on these forums on a regular basis.
He had complained about this, and I disregarded it, but now I think even that post is gone!
That is pretty low, Vindy.
Stan, I have to tell you that every defined benefit pension plan I know of is "under funded" according to new regulations that require them to have assets available equal to liabilities 30 years into the future.
These regulations came into being after shenanigans of corporations like Enron.
The pensions are now facing problems with this funding because of the drop in the stock market.
A pension plan is still a wonderful benefit for workers and not some way they have been robbed.
I committed the dread double-negative in my last post! I meant, "Do you want to deny that poverty and high minority populations are a factor?"
Apparently, Ytownnative does deny this. It's a free country. But we've talked about this before: all of the schools at the bottom of the rankings have high poverty. Nine out of ten have high minority populations.
Well that's interesting. I didn't look them up. The CUPP Report has the number closer to 59%, but close enough. It also says they have 13% minority students, so maybe they didn't have to account for achievement of groups.
I don't know where you are going with this. Do you want to deny that poverty and high minority populations are not a factor?
Are you aware that Struthers is one of the main open enrollment districts segregating our students? Do you know that when they accept students they refuse any student who has had any kind of special services for 3 years, including speech?
I don't mind changing administration, materials, etc. in Youngstown, but let's not put blinders on.
Westsider, There have to be less expensive options than the one you propose about boarding students.
God knows that we don't want to get into a situation of running an orphanage where we would be seen like the administrators in "Annie" or "Oliver".
We have to hear about the achievement gap as long as "No Child Left Behind" is in effect. Remember that the year before last, Boardman was knocked down a ranking because their minority achievement didn't match general student achievement. So there you are. The demand is a reality.
Posted on September 8 at 11:26 a.m.
According to the Ohio Department of Education, the Governor of the State of Ohio, and the Ohio Superintendent of Schools, Debra DeLisle,
Jennifer Walker is the Ohio Teacher of the Year. She is also a National Board Certtified Teacher.
"Reforms" initiated by the state legislature have failed to improve urban schools, and have in fact, caused harm.
The presence of more than a dozen charter schools, vouchers, and open enrollment have encouraged parents to move children from school to school. It is now not uncommon for every child in a 5th grade class to have attended 3 or more schools. In fact, a good number have attended 5 or more schools.
This kind of mobility has been shown to cause delays in achievement.
Posted on August 31 at 4:51 p.m.
Actually you don't have to pull numbers from the air. You can get them from the ODE website, and if you get a CUPP report in excel, sort the columns by scores or demographics.
While added factors like value-added points have changed the scores somewhat, the districts do line up by parent income, or housing starts. (The more new housing developments the better the scores.)
Districts in the middle in income are in the middle in scores.
It's the districts that don't follow this pattern that stand out.
This doesn't mean that education isn't influenced by other factors, just that these tests aren't.
Posted on August 30 at 4:10 p.m.
There is a big difference in districts with 60% poverty and districts with 90% poverty. As a child, even by 1960's standards, my family would have fallen in or close to the poverty lines.
However, many of the children in my school were from more affluent families. My family was rich in supports like extended family and Church. We lived within walking distance of a library, nature center, and playground.
There was a sense of hope and opportunity, and competition in that school. My siblings and I couldn't compete in the clothes or toys category. But we sure could in academics and sports.
My siblings were driven to get what our classmates had. They gave us ideas about how to do it.
But the kids in these cities are becoming very isolated. Programs that meant to improve education only increased that isolation as vouchers, open enrollment, home schools, and charter schools separated students into groups.
Posted on August 28 at 8:08 p.m.
Well, you might have something there.
I was looking at Y-towns scores compared to the scores of the state as a whole, and other local districts. The Youngstown kids hold their own through 3rd and 4th grade, not that much below the average.
All over the state, scores drop in 5th grade, when a whole slew of higher level thinking skills is added, like algebraic expressions, graphing trends, etc.
But in other districts the scores rebound better over the middle school years to eighth grade.
So something changes in middle school. Maybe the students hit a ceiling of ability. But maybe they get more interested in out-of-school activities.
Or maybe it is something altogether different, but it happens in 5th grade.
(All over the state, OGT scores are higher than the younger kids' scores. I think going to the ACT is a good decision. The OGT doesn't seem to be much of a test.)
Posted on August 28 at 6:25 p.m.
Sorry, I didn't mean that last sentence as it came out. I mean that they should take first come - first served until they are filled to the quota they set.
Posted on August 28 at 6:23 p.m.
Here's a link to the complete article Viewpoint suggested:
http://www.tampabay.com/news/education/k...
Viewpoint, we have taken these steps, except for pepper spray. Our student dress more formally than the student in the picture.
Also, your idea of classes separated by gender is still followed at Alpha Middle School. The girls are on a different floor from the boys. By the way, this is one thing that Wendy Webb and you agree on.
I just can't believe that considering the numbers of students that Struthers and Lowellville have taken out of Youngstown, that Struthers enrollment of Black students is 5% and Lowellville's is too small to count. Austintown is doing this, as well as McDonald.
This is making our schools more segregated than they were before the civil rights movement began. It's ridiculous that these schools don't take all students that apply.
Posted on August 28 at 3:24 p.m.
HEY! Mondo is right! Where are the posts from the participant named "god"?
They were by no means as disgusting as the ones ProAmerican posts on these forums on a regular basis.
He had complained about this, and I disregarded it, but now I think even that post is gone!
That is pretty low, Vindy.
Stan, I have to tell you that every defined benefit pension plan I know of is "under funded" according to new regulations that require them to have assets available equal to liabilities 30 years into the future.
These regulations came into being after shenanigans of corporations like Enron.
The pensions are now facing problems with this funding because of the drop in the stock market.
A pension plan is still a wonderful benefit for workers and not some way they have been robbed.
Posted on August 28 at 1:53 p.m.
I committed the dread double-negative in my last post! I meant, "Do you want to deny that poverty and high minority populations are a factor?"
Apparently, Ytownnative does deny this. It's a free country. But we've talked about this before: all of the schools at the bottom of the rankings have high poverty. Nine out of ten have high minority populations.
Posted on August 28 at 12:43 p.m.
Well that's interesting. I didn't look them up. The CUPP Report has the number closer to 59%, but close enough. It also says they have 13% minority students, so maybe they didn't have to account for achievement of groups.
I don't know where you are going with this. Do you want to deny that poverty and high minority populations are not a factor?
Are you aware that Struthers is one of the main open enrollment districts segregating our students? Do you know that when they accept students they refuse any student who has had any kind of special services for 3 years, including speech?
I don't mind changing administration, materials, etc. in Youngstown, but let's not put blinders on.
Posted on August 28 at 12:18 p.m.
Westsider,
There have to be less expensive options than the one you propose about boarding students.
God knows that we don't want to get into a situation of running an orphanage where we would be seen like the administrators in "Annie" or "Oliver".
We have to hear about the achievement gap as long as "No Child Left Behind" is in effect. Remember that the year before last, Boardman was knocked down a ranking because their minority achievement didn't match general student achievement. So there you are. The demand is a reality.