Posted on August 18, 2011 by kilroysdelaware
WILMINGTON – After 45 minutes in a crowded, hot gym, dozens of parents — who had come to hear the school board of the Delaware College Preparatory Academy talk about the dismissal of the elementary charter school’s founder and principal — stood up and walked out in frustration.
“We didn’t get anywhere,” said parent Andre Dorsey as he left the meeting.
“Unprofessional,” added parent Charles Hall.
At the outset, School Board President Yardise Jones told the crowd of more than 150 parents and students that she understood their frustration and wanted to say more. “Unfortunately I can’t,” she said, explaining it remains a confidential personnel matter.
Red Clay School District is the authorizing an oversight authority for this charter school and the sit in the dark not taking ownership of this problem. Just another reason school district should not be allowed to approve charter schools.
“You don’t respect us as parents,” said parent Katrina Younger.
That’s right, even at charter schools parents don’t have rights to know about possible corruption.
”Give me some reason,” demanded Marvin Hill, president of the school’s Parent Leadership Council.
Well now you know, you’re just a window treatment for this school and aren’t important when it comes to decision-making.
At one point Jones said that if Roberson — who was barred from attending the meeting — agreed to a public meeting with the board to have it explain why she was let go, they would do so.
It’s a public meeting and even fired employees have the legal right to attend. Did Roberson do something illegal that prohibited her from attend the meeting?
While Roberson said the board has never given her a reason, Jones said the dismissal was not something that happened overnight.
The board sat on long enough to kiss Red Clay’s ass to get their charter reauthorized. Red Clay needs to call this charter school in and put them on probation.
A former teacher, Kim Collins, also spoke to say that she left DCPA because of Roberson and felt the kids were not getting fair treatment under her leadership.
Should this have been reported to child protective services or to Red Clay the charter authorizing agent?
We’ll it looks like this Red Clay charter schools operates in the dark! Must have pick this habit up from the old guard of Red Clay.
At the close, Jones apologized for the lack of effective communication from the board to parents, promised it would get better and asked parents to stay with the school.
What bullshit but these parents will buy it and just walk away!
“Going forward, we have a plan. We have a mission — to make sure your kids are prepared for college,” she said. “Delaware needs DCPA. This will get better.”
Hello ! The school only goes to the 5th grade so how can this school be “college preparatory”?
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Posted on August 17, 2011 by kilroysdelaware
Every new reform launched by federal or state governments must be implemented by local school boards. They often have to cope with rising expectations, lower state funding and an ever-increasing number of state mandates. In the Obama administration’s Race to the Top, the federal and state governments are laying out the racecourse and setting up hurdles; school boards and their employees are the ones lacing up their running shoes.
Seems like local decision-making has come down to how to implement federal and state agendas. Reform needs to be driven from the local level.
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Posted on August 17, 2011 by kilroysdelaware
Why is the one school a student magnet and the others are not?
Where does state law afford such a disparity of opportunity to a high-quality academic education for statistically elected few?
Where is the help for existing traditional schools to come up to snuff with their assumed competitor?
Its critics allege the vo-tech district is being permitted to operate as a private school using state taxpayers’ resources. Successful charter schools in the state face the same envy, but none are so categorically tied to an age-old legislative mandate to serve a particular population of students.
Delaware Secretary of Education Lillian Lowery and Governor Jack Markell know the admission preferences allowed in charter schools and votechs are causing concern and may be discriminatory. I wonder if those community leaders call some Christina school board members criminal and racist will come out from under their rocks and address this issue?
The issue of admission to charter schools, votechs and even magnet schools open up some debate. Some charter schools exclude at-risk students because they rather serve high achieving students. OK, overachievers needs a place to expand. Votech, should they have something for all? The real question here is, is our public school system meant to be fair and equitable is splintering off to a academic segregated system that puts at-risk student whom many aren’t disruptive students and academically successful students into their own environment?
How can we effectively hold our teachers accountable if we suggest one group of teachers take the at-risk students which includes many trouble-makers and another group of teachers take high performing and overachiever students? How can’r we be fair about teacher quality ratings?
When Jack Markell was a candidate for Delaware governor he took issue with “skimming and creaming” of students aka known to some as cherry picking. Yet once in office like many politicians Markell forgets about what he promised.
You know they say at times we must think outside the box. Perhaps we would be better served if our politicians and appointees didn’t live in that box.
We see social unrest through the world and much has to do with employment and the distribution of wealth. Here in Delaware there seems to be a trend in the distribution of education. Is it me or is there a sense the fuse for the next civil rights movement has been lit? When the Race to The Top grant expires who will be left at the starting blocks? Arne Duncan supports closing poor performing charter schools but yet Jack Markell fails to put safety-nets in place as what to do with students from charter schools forced closed. What’s really sad is , those schools with preferential admission practices are held high as if they are successful when then the fact is they are only successful at cherry picking. Schools who open their doors to all and target at-risk students are penalized for willing to take students that other treat as trash.
Markell and Lowery are jumping for joy because Delaware will get the NCLB wavier that resets the accountability clock. They won’t be forced to close poor performing charter schools and continue to sow in the lies to their reform agenda.
Federal intrusion with the help of the likes of Jack Markell has dictated standards for which teachers and schools are labeled. This political inspired agenda which fuels the call for privatization of Delaware public schools will cause a social backlash within the next five years. Emerging civil rights leaders will see the light and demand social justice. The academical segregation of our schools is the seedbed to severe social unrest. If you are reading this, I assure you, you will be alive to see this event unfold.
What’t the answers and cure for what’s going on? The first step is, Delaware needs to take responsibility for its own mess and ask the federal government to but-out. We have deep-seeded social issue affiliated with unresolved issues going back to desegregation, force busing to some. Many of today’s parents were students during the desegregation years and harbor internal animosity associated with personal experiences. Others in more twisted elitist circles carry the spirit of a culture that must stay pure. Some can’t get through their head that all at-risk students aren’t bad disruptive students.
The federal intrusion into our local public schools is cultivating a political takeover of shard decision-making and rendering our local school boards irrelevant. School boards fixated on serving external political agenda are a disservice to the community. Those boards participating in agendas that allow discriminatory admissions based on intelligence factors are fueling a civil rights movement that will be the beast that eats them. If it’s truly about the kids why are district administrators more focused on appeasing politicians and their appointees?
Yes we need diversity in public education to meet all student’s needs. But that shouldn’t come at the cost of discriminatory practices penalizing academic at-risk students who aren’t disruptive .
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Posted on August 17, 2011 by kilroysdelaware
Much has been said about the ineffectiveness of No Child Left Behind, the sweeping, decade-old federal education law that uses student performance on standardized tests as the barometer for academic achievement. Standards mandated by the law were supposed to increase school accountability on a national scale, but they are now often criticized for unfairly penalizing underperforming schools.
Fuller says NCLB was the result of a compromise between “federalists who argue that only Washington will be able to set high standards because they’re immune from state governors, versus a states’ rights perspective.” Since the Constitution gives states authority over public education, “states’ rights people say that the law is intrusion.”
Thanks Greg for the link. Folks the above link is worthy of reading.
The big question of the day is, why should we allow such federal intrusion for 15% of public school funding in which 19% of that funding goes towards state and local administration cost? Get’s better! that 15% of federal money doesn’t belong to the federal government! The money is yours from your payroll tax deductions and other forms of federal taxation.
It’s time to keep Washington out of our local school classrooms and out of our public school teacher’s heads. Delaware (Markell) takes 8.2 Million dollars of the Race to The Top grant and sends it to Rupert Murdoch’s Wireless Generation for data coaches.
I am willing to compromise and say give us your common core standards and a national standardized test but give the federal funding in us a block grant directly to the schools. Allow local schools to determine what program fits them and not a cookie cutter approach to reform. Tell us what needs to be don’t but don’t tells us how to get it done.
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Posted on August 16, 2011 by kilroysdelaware
Purpose
Establishes guidelines for employee conduct and employee-student engagement through social networking sites or through electronic media sites that are not hosted by or housed on the District server or monitored by the State Department of Technology and Information
Read through the new policy social networking policy and tell me what you think.
Personally I do think it’s a good idea for for teachers and students to engage in social networking such as Facebook. There are boundaries and teacher student relation should be focused of academics. Doesn’t mean a teach can’t be a mentor and try to help students with difficult personal situation but there comes a time to direct or assist students to other professionals trained if family crisis or personal crisis.
I am not really sure what the district policy is about teachers and staff involving themselves is students family crisis or individual crisis not related to school.
I wonder what the next step will be? Tell teachers, staff and board members to stay off the blogs?
Confidentially between teachers and students does have its limits. If the student communicates any signs of abuse by parents or other school staff, teachers are required by law to report that abuse or clear suspicion of abuse.
The real big question is, who will be monitoring teacher and student’s Facebook or Twitter accounts to make sure the policy is being followed?
So what do you think?
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Posted on August 15, 2011 by kilroysdelaware
Sussex County’s public school districts are continuing to press for an overhaul of the countywide Sussex Technical School District, saying the high school cherry-picks its students and emphasizes academics over vocational training.
As the school marks its 20th anniversary as a full-time program this fall, it faces a renewed and rising level of criticism, with six local districts taking their case to state legislators with a unified front.
Admissions to Delaware votech schools has always been a privileged not a right. If we’re going to address admission practices at votechs it’s time address the same at charter and magnet schools. We can’t hold one school more accountable than another if selective admission practices are permitted. End the school ratings or end the selective admission practices.
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Posted on August 14, 2011 by kilroysdelaware
A shortage of skilled workers is also driving up demand. Employee-wanted ads, like these in Beijing, now regularly promise benefits like free housing and health insurance.
But Liu is still living month-to-month. Surging along with salaries is the cost of living. Food and housing prices have ballooned. The simple house Liu shares with her husband has TV, but no running water.
Complaints about the rising cost of living are common across China. The government says it’s trying to help workers cope by forcing employers to hand out bigger salaries, but it’s a tricky balancing act: If wages escalate too much, manufacturers might leave China in search of cheaper labor elsewhere.
Wow ! Arne Duncan and Jack Markell talks up China as the leaders in education and America is losing the education race to them.
Hey maybe they’ll outsource some of their manufacturing jobs to America!
Tell me , if America’s schools are so F’ed up why is it the Chinese come here to attend our colleges and universities? Also, here is the big question! How is it Asian-American students can succeed and be at the head of their class is any school in Delaware no matter the school rating? Is there a correlation between one’s culture and morals within that culture and education expectation? How can Delaware’s so-called failing public school teachers teach Asian-American students at the same time as all students and have the Asian-American students outperforming the others? A) Is it Asian-American students know more then their teachers? B) Asian parents are better parents? C) Delaware public school teachers can actually teach when all stakeholders that includes students and parents engage?
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Posted on August 14, 2011 by kilroysdelaware
The point of data coaches is to help teachers make sense of the voluminous data created by all the tests students take. Starting last year, Delaware students began taking the Delaware Comprehensive Assessment, known as the DCAS, multiple times a year. Students also take other assessments, and all of these produce reams of data.
When will we see parent coaches that will train parents to be more engaged and accountable as their child’s first teacher? “Reams of data” only produces the means the skew the data. Nothing is Race to The Top provides discipline intervention.
The Delaware data coaches were hired and trained by Wireless Generation, a company credited with helping New York City schools navigate their data-driven classroom instruction. The cost is about $8 million. It will be paid for with the state’s Race to the Top federal grant. The need for its coaches will only last for the life of the contract — the point of it is to create a self-sustaining program, state officials say
Yea, that’s the ticket let Wall Street Rupert Murdock’s Wireless Generation subsidiary of News Corporation where Joel Klein is Executive Vice President be the Trojan Horse to privatize public education.
What has the University of Delaware and Wilmington University put in place in their education department to prepare teachers for this data driven movement? “Self-sustaining”, what evidence is there that the momentum will carry forward without future funding.
Many blame NCLB flaws as if it were responsible for the failed DSTP that produced previous data. DSTP was state crafted and state mandated. DSTP was the business round-table’s ansewer to reform but yet it failed and the same Delaware business leaders have there noses in this round of reform. Arne Duncan want’s to reset the accountability clock and throw out all the old data. NLCB isn’t really flawed as it is underfunded and not as flexible as needed. The states set their own test and curriculum. Now the federal government wants to set them. How is it possible for students to meet federal standards when they couldn’t meet state standards that appeared to be water-downed? We don’t need more funding but rather “school” flexibility to use current funding.
If our college educated teachers can’t analyze student test data without babysitters we have more serious problems. DCAS will produce a classroom full students with various intervention needs. But where are the triggers that require DEDOE and /or the schools to provide intervention is the way of supplemental services for those students a year below grade level? It’s fair to only hold teachers accountable for growth but a 6th grade student entering with a 4th grade reading level leaving the 6th grade at a 5th grade reading level didn’t do him any real service. Teachers will be held accountable for growth and I want to know who is going to be held accountable for those students failing to meet the standards?
If we want to stop lying to students perhaps we should end social promotion! You don’t pass the 6th grade until you pass a 6th grade exit exam. Every public school should have Saturday classes for students lagging behind and if the student doesn’t like giving up their Saturdays perhaps they can give a little more the other 5 days.
Allowing raw data in the hands of the Delaware Department of Education to manipulate into a desirable self-serving product is another disservice to children. The biggest education lies being told in Delaware comes form the Delaware Department of Education who lacks the capacity to provide real oversight and technical assistance. The Delaware Secretary of Education is nothing more than a political maid to Governor Jack Markell. The secretary’s position should be an elected position not partisan to a governor’s political agenda. From what many tell me, Lowery is a wonderful person who honestly cares. However, her intelligence and independent thinking skill are shackled but Jack Markell who couldn’t last one week in a classroom in a high needs schools.
Makrell supported House Bill 119 in 2009 but yet allows DEDOE to disregard and circumvent it. Delaware requires written yearly charter school reports but yet DEDOE fails to comply and complains they don’t like the process. Perhaps that process requires the truth in which is counterproductive to Markell’s agenda.
The biggest lies be told in the state and country come from government. A federal takeover of local schools and their school boards is a formula for real failure. Markell puts up $700,000.00 of his own money to run for governor and it wasn’t for the love of the people. It was for love of the man in the mirror.
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Posted on August 13, 2011 by kilroysdelaware
Currently Delaware parents and the public can go online to view their child’s teacher College Degrees, Delaware Teaching Credentials, National Credentials and Highly Qualified Status Via DEEDS. So why not add teacher effectiveness ratings?
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Posted on August 13, 2011 by kilroysdelaware
(For Action)
The Board of Directors of this school submitted a Modification Application seeking approval to relocate its middle school program from its current location to St. Matthews Catholic School, located at 1 Fallon Avenue, Wilmington, DE 19804. The Charter School Accountability Committee issued preliminary and final reports on the application. A public hearing was held on July 26, 2011. The Secretary will make her recommendations with respect to the application
Great location next to Banning Park and a few blocks from Conrad and DMA. Surely once relocated the next step will be will be add 8th grade as approved April 2008 . The charter school accountability committee has approved the relocation of the middle school 6-8 component. Surely the state board of education will approve.
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