Not too long ago I wrote about this school-within-a-school that three African American men are trying to implement. I made mention of it here, here, and here. Since then, the program has changed from taking approximately 50 of our AA male students and relocating them to another building where two teachers would be responsible for them to identifying 28 AA males who will remain in our building with the support of these 2 extra teachers. The best part of this stems from the fact that the ball is back in our court and we will be responsible for creating this program with additional staff members.
A liason has been appointed to come to visit our 6th grade teachers during their planning time to disseminate information, take questions, and have a general “sit-down” to make sure everyone understands how this will work as well as be able to offer input. For each meeting, I sit quietly behave like my verbose self with my puke-of-the-mouth disease but I also take notes and gather as many particulars as possible.
Since I am considered “support staff” who researches best teaching practices and offers professional development during team plan and teacher in-service workshops, it’s natural that I be invited to these meetings. Some of the things we’re planning on doing to ready ourselves for this school is read books and articles and visit a KIPP school (on which they’ve based this school). The most difficult part of this is getting information second hand and trying to understand the philosophy behind this as well as trying to appease their original intentions of working with African American males who aren’t performing well.
Some of this time has been spent in “Wait Mode” as we anticipated the state scores of the 5th graders in our district so that we could identify those African American males who didn’t perform well so we could identify them and then invite them and their families to an informational meeting. When looking at the data of the lowest performers after the dust settled, we learned something entirely different.
The common denominator for the low performers was NOT that they were all males. Nor were they African Americans. It was nearly a 50/50 split of Caucasian students who were also about 50% female. Quite the conundrum, wouldn’t you say? Our meeting with the liason prompted not only a discussion of this new piece of information, but questions as to exactly what these students had in common.
I’d love for you to guess exactly what that is. You don’t even need to be in education to figure it out, either.
While you’re coming up with your guess, I’ll let you in on the extraordinarily lamebrained comment that came out of my mouth as our liason was getting his things together to leave and that got me a surprise invitation.
“Well, I could have told you that. But no one ever seems to ask me. No one ever invites ME to these meeting with Those Men who are making decisions about the things we’ll be required to do next year. No one has ever come to see what kind of programs we already have in place to improve achievement for our students.”
The meeting is at 9:00 next Tuesday. I’ll let you know how it goes.
November 29, 2006 @ 4:02 am | Filed under NaBloPoMo | Permalink |
javajabber Said,
November 29, 2006 @ 5:05 am
Just off the top of my head I would have to say that the common denominator is not with the students at all … it’s with the way they are taught.
Or am I way off-base here?
juli Said,
November 29, 2006 @ 6:35 am
Oh, I would’ve guessed weak parental involvement.
inthefastlane Said,
November 29, 2006 @ 6:38 am
At least at my school, the common denominators seem to be the amount of money a family has, the parent’s educational levels, and the family’s commitment to the educational process. Are any of these the same in your case?
deannie Said,
November 29, 2006 @ 6:43 am
Family income generally equates to access to resources outside of school, so I would guess THAT.
deannie Said,
November 29, 2006 @ 6:44 am
And excuuuuseee me, stop YOU?!? You are on your own my good woman. You are doing just fine.
hugs,
Tracey Said,
November 29, 2006 @ 6:50 am
My guess would have been parental involvement…, as race, and gender aren’t it right now…
Go to it friend!
Good luck
T
tanilan Said,
November 29, 2006 @ 7:11 am
Good Luck to you in your meeting. And Have a great time in Texas (sniff). Wish you were going to be so far away or I would come have a cuppa with you…maybe even lunch. Oh well, maybe one day.
Much Love
kay Said,
November 29, 2006 @ 7:46 am
Attendance
Jungle Mama Said,
November 29, 2006 @ 8:48 am
I’m gonna go out on a limb here and guess English as a second language. Sorry, I’m just all too familiar with the struggles lately. Although I hear and should know by what I’ve witnessed that those who gain a second language actually become better students in the long run. Well, there’s my guess and I’m sticking to it.
BGoaB Said,
November 29, 2006 @ 9:56 am
Why didn’t I stop you? Oh, I’m sure that there are several good reasons, but my favorite is this: If I protect you all the time, how are you ever going to learn from your mistakes?
kari Said,
November 29, 2006 @ 12:32 pm
i say IQ and standardized test scores. ’cause those are infallible and unquestionable indicators of academic potential and performance. always. never wrong.
sorry, is my sarcasm getting too drippy? did i spill any on your cute shoes?
still in my student teaching, and already so bitter. isn’t it sad? that’s what i get for teaching an AP class. stupid standardized tests…
Elizabeth Said,
November 29, 2006 @ 12:50 pm
This is so far out on the limb as to be damn near falling off of it: Single parent families?
RWA Said,
November 29, 2006 @ 1:45 pm
I’m not going to guess - but I am glad that they are involving you in the next meeting. What’s that old saying, “Be careful what you ask for because you just might get it”?
Mocha Momma Said,
November 29, 2006 @ 2:01 pm
Hmm. I see a few people have hit the nail on the head. If I had more time to comment (at conference. in Texas. should be sleeping before first meeting. bad Kelly. baaaad Kelly.) I would address everyone’s answers. They were all so good!
Poverty is the common denominator. Poverty.
More later. Off to conference…zzzzzzzzzzzzzz (wait… not in that order)
dragon-mum Said,
November 29, 2006 @ 4:36 pm
Dang it, you said poverty before I could. I know from experience that I missed out on a hell of a lot at school because my parents simply could not afford it. I never got to go to the study camps. I never got the tutoring help that I needed so much to help with my maths and science.
If I couldn’t borrow it from the library, I was stuffed. I spent countless days copying from texts that were not allowed to leave the library, purely because we couldn’t afford the photocopies. And there were multitudes of programs at school for kids who were smart, or falling behind, to participate in….. yet they all involved MONEY.
The only free programs were so basic, they were stupid. They would have been a great help to kids who had difficulty reading or writing, but they left the rest of us in the dark. Unless you were able to bribe a “smart” kid into helping you, you were on your own.
I barely passed math, due only to 6 months of trading my lunch to a senior student in return for secret tutoring of an afternoon so his mates wouldn’t see him helping a junior “girl” (of all things… a girl).
I wish you all the best with the meeting. And hope that maybe someone will take an interest in those young ladies before they too, fall through the cracks.
Love Yvonne
Sandra Wasielewski Said,
November 29, 2006 @ 8:02 pm
Hi Kelly,
I found your page by accident and I have to say I that I am H-O-O-K-E-D! You seem to be an amazing woman and I admire you. Your blogs are better than chocolate and cheese puffs! Keep them coming!
Sandra
Dana Said,
November 29, 2006 @ 10:53 pm
Ugh. I was thinking poverty. How incredibly sad!
Inquiring Said,
November 30, 2006 @ 2:40 am
Just off the top…socioeconomic status and parental involvement (or rather lack thereof)…
BTW: Kona Coffee is on the way:) should be there by the time you get home from Texas:)
DavidShag Said,
December 1, 2006 @ 7:00 am
Is it POSSIBLE - and I know I am the scum of the Earth to even think it - that ‘dumb’ has a little bit to do with some poor performance? I know from growing up in a small town where you were thrown together with the same folks in school and out, that it rarely came as a surprise to find which of your classmates were performing poorly, based on their performance outside school. It sometimes was the ones who couldn’t find their asses with both hands. Some of the ‘dumb’ ones did do well in later life - that is another benefit of small-town living - you get to see the rest of the story. I suppose these were the ones that a program of some sort might help - in our case it was the kids - usually boys - who loved cars or farming or something of that nature and just found school a horrible bore, which they couldn’t wait to get out of. My bro was one such - participated in nothing extracurricular and never graduated - his IQ tested in the 130-140 range - he wound up the go-to guy in town for everything and was elected justice of the Peace. But there were some others that couldn’t figure out how to open a window, then or now. Not sure anything would help them.
Hollie Said,
December 1, 2006 @ 8:55 am
Being a poor single mom who has a daughter who scores well above her classmates I say parent involvement or lack there of…I find creative resources no matter what for her to get her education.