The Following Quotes Are Taken From Blackboard Vista: Folder 13

Quote 1-“The Seattle School District allowed students to apply to any high school in the District. Since certain schools often became oversubscribed when too many students chose them as their first choice, the District used a system of tiebreakers to decide which students would be admitted to the popular schools. The second most important tiebreaker was a racial factor intended to maintain racial diversity. If the racial demographics of any school's student body deviated by more than a predetermined number of percentage points from those of Seattle's total student population (approximately 41% white and 59% non-white), the racial tiebreaker went into effect.” Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1 (2007) 

I think it is important for students to choose which high school they want to apply to. It gives students hope about having a successful high school career. However, even though students are applying to specific schools it doesn’t mean they will be accepted. The tiebreaker helps to make the schools more diverse and equal for students. To be honest I am not sure I how feel about this tiebreaker rule that is being applied. Yes, I strongly believe that schools need to be diverse, but I am not sure if this is the right way to go about it.

Quote 2-“MARTIN: Why was it so important for your daughter to go to Ballard High School?

Ms. BROSE: My daughter was, you know, denied access to three different schools. And we would have been satisfied with not her first choice, but her second or her third choice. But she was actually assigned to her fourth choice. And that didn't work out, so she actually went to her fifth choice. But the reason that we wanted Ballard as our first choice because it is the school that is closest to our home.”  NPR: Supreme Court Revisits School Segregation

I think that many families want their children to be enrolled in good schools that are located near their homes like Ms. Brose describes. I think that if Seattle wants to use this tiebreaking system to make their schools diverse, then they should at least students their top three choices. This is a very hard process for the schools to figure out how to divide students, create diversity, and to keep everyone happy at the same time. I give them credit for trying, but again I am not sure the tiebreaking strategy is the right system to determine each child’s high school education fate. Perhaps, the reason being the tiebreaking strategy reminds me of the lotto system that is used to determine if children are accepted or denied to charter schools.

Quote 3-“MARTIN: What do you make of the district's position that diversity is an important educational goal, and that these are among the steps that are necessary to ensure that diversity is achieved?

Ms. BROSE: Well, first of all, I want to say that we're not against diversity. We like diversity. We're in the public schools. Our argument is that there is lots of diversity in our schools without using the racial tiebreaker and that, you know, diversity means more than skin color and that, you know, the school district was really looking at having a ratio of white versus nonwhite kids. And the way they used the tiebreaker was clearly a form of discrimination.” NPR: Supreme Court Revisits School Segregation

I agree with Ms. Brose statement that diversity is more than just skin color; it is about economics, religion, beliefs, traditions, everything about one’s culture and ethnicity. I that Seattle’ district is really trying to create diversity and equality for all children, but if they are only focusing on skin color than that is not right. Because then the district is discriminating against certain skin colors. For instance in this case Ms. Brose believes they are discriminating against white, because her daughter could not get into her top three choices.

Quote 4-“LARRY ABRAMSON: The student in this case remains anonymous, known only as T.A. in court documents. But his story is a familiar and painful one to parents and educators. As a high school student he began having attention problems. The Forest Grove School District near Portland, Oregon evaluated him but decided he did not qualify for special education help. The family's attorney, Mary Broadhurst, says this is exactly when the school district should've jumped in.” NPR: Supreme Court Rules on Special Education Case

In my special education class here at CCSU, I learned that parents really have to fight school systems if they believe that their child is not receiving the assistance they need. It is sad to say that some school systems don’t always want to put the extra money into a child if they feel like that child does not need help, when in reality they do. If I were the parents of this child, I too would have pulled my child out from the school because clearly the administration was not doing their part. It is the teacher’s job to notice patterns in students and to do everything in their power to help children and parents. I wonder in this case if the teacher was supportive of the child’s needs.

Quote 5-“Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483 (1954),[1] was a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court that declared state laws establishing separate public schools for black and white students unconstitutional. The decision overturned the Plessy v. Ferguson decision of 1896 which allowed state-sponsored segregation. Handed down on May 17, 1954, the Warren Court's unanimous (9–0) decision stated that "separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.” Brown v. Board of Education

When discussing the picture of Ruby, in class with Dr. Clark  we talked about all the hardship she went to when schools became integrated. It was all happy and dandy right away it required a ton of effort, trial and error on everyone’s part. As a country we have come a long way in creating equality for all. However we still need to create more equality in our school systems. Over the years our schools have become more and more segregated due to demographics, economic status, and race; we see think in Kozol’s book and also in Joel Spring’s book. I think we can change this through reform in the education system. 

Quote 6-“In 1971, the San Francisco Unified School District attempted to desegregate the school system by reassigning pupils attending segregated schools to other public schools. The School District submitted a comprehensive plan for desegregation which the District Court approved. Some Chinese parents protested the move, because in the Asian schools the students could learn about their cultural heritage, and they would lose this if they went to public schools.”  Guey Heung Lee v. Johnson

I understand both sides of this court case. It is important for our nation to have integrated schools because it provides equality in the education system. However, I also understand why the parents want their children to learn about their heritage. Both sides of this case are important, but I think it is more important for schools to become desegregated. With this issue it is more important for all students to have an equal education.

Readings from Blackboard Vista

“Place-based education (PBE) immerses students in local heritage, cultures, landscapes, opportunities and experiences, using these as a foundation for the study of language arts, mathematics, social studies, science and other subjects across the curriculum. PBE emphasizes learning through participation in service projects for the local school and/or community.” Promise of Place

This little description that gives information on PBE is very interesting to me. I think that students learn best when they are hands on and engaged in experiences that connect to their lives. By having students become a part of the community they will learn in various ways. I never considered teaching all my lessons this way, but it seems like children would gain a lot from this experience. I like the idea that children will be studying all different subjects because many schools these days are only focusing on mathematics and reading.

“Education is in a crisis as America finds itself faced with unprecedented challenges in a global community of nations desperately struggling with massive social, economic, and cultural change. Education must find new ways of helping Americans learn and adapt in a multicultural, twenty-first century world.”  Cajete1994.

As we have been currently learning and discussing in our EDF class that American education need a reform. This is because of segregation and inequality in our nation’s school systems. We need to find new and better ways to help students achieve success in school, but yet we face so many challenges. How do we begin solving this problem?

“In tribal education, knowledge gained from first-hand experiences in the world is transmitted through ritual, ceremony, art, and appropriate technology. Knowledge gained through these vehicles is then used in everyday living. Education, in this context, becomes education for life’s sake.” Cajete1994.

I think it is so important for students to have hand-on experiences in the classroom. This strategy of teaching can be applied in all subject areas, mathematics, science, arts, music, language arts, and more. I think that most children learn best by actually doing and participating in the task. It helps them to remember better because they were a played a part in the specific experience.

“The ideals of this process were naturally founded on the continuous development of self-knowledge, on finding life through understanding and participating in creative process of living, on direct awareness of the natural environment, on knowledge of one’s role and responsibility to community, and on cultivating sensitivity to the spiritual essence of the world.” Cajete1994.

I think that it is important for students to know that they are part of a community, a classroom, school, and town community. It helps the students to understand what specific roles and jobs are in society. This can be mocked in a classroom by giving students jobs such as, line leader, paper collector, paper passer ect. Students can also learn by from the environment. But we are seeing this less because science lessons have been taken out of curriculums in many schools in order for more focus to be on reading and mathematics.

“The cultivation of all one’s senses through learning how to listen, observe, and experience holistically by creative exploration was highly valued.” Cajete1994.

I love this statement. It is important for children to learn things on their own instead of always having a teacher to guide them. By having students explore, observe, and listen it can create memorable experiences for the child. In a classroom it is good to encourage students to take risks because it helps them to develop and succeed in more complex ways. Creative exploration should be allowed in all classrooms, it is how students show their individuality among others. Students can learn from each other as well.

“The ideal purpose for American Indian education is to attain knowledge, seek truth, wisdom, completeness and life.” Cajete1994.

I really liked this quote. I think that over the years in America education has ran off the tracks.  This is all due to standardized testing, businessmen being a part of school boards, and much more that society forgets what is important in education. Children need to learn by having experiences and fun in the classroom. Results from testing shows that students do better when they learn in different ways. There needs to be meaning to what is being taught.

Deadly Lies

The following quotes are taken from The Shame of the Nation, written by Jonathan Kozol.

“President Bush accuses those who disagree with him about the wisdom of these practices of being the unconscious bearers of soft bigotry, while one of the president’s advisers overseeing federal education research has said that it is racist nonsense to reject claims that schools accountability alone will lead to equal outcomes for our children.” Chapter 11, Page 265.

This quote is talking about the federal law, No Child Left Behind. I disagree with everything that is being stated in this quote. The federal law is not helping students succeed in schools especially students with special needs. Instead teachers have to push them beyond their limit because of the rules of the law. I also think that it’s wrong to accuse people of being racists just because they don’t believe in the law working for all students. Urban schools will have a difficult time, because schools are not funded properly to get the resources they need to teach students. Students will only fall further behind leaving the opportunity for equality behind them.

“The longer this goes on, the further these two roads divide, the more severe and routinized these race-specific pedagogies many become, the harder it will be to find a place of common ground on which children of the many ethnic groups and social classes in our nation’s public schools will ever actually meet.” Chapter 11, Page 273.

If our nation does not step up to the plate soon, the American education system will too far gone to help. There is so much we need to do to desegregate schools and create equality among all. We should not let the children to come suffer. Looking into the future I am scared to think what they education systems will be like in the next 20 years. Will things have improved or gotten worse? Parents, children, teachers, administrators, and more need to get out in the community and start “building bridges” to bring these two roads back together.

“The small school initiative, says Advocates for Children, offers the best hope for providing high school students in New York with an adequate education. But without careful planning small schools may merely replicate the problems of the past.” Chapter 11, Page 277.

I think that having smaller schools will help children get a better education in urban cities. By having smaller schools would also mean smaller classrooms. Teachers would be able to focus more on the students because of the lower numbers. I really like the idea of having smaller schools, but as a society we need to make sure that these schools systems are organized, have proper funding, and are focused to helping students.

“Yet hundreds of thousands of children who have made what urban districts claim to be dramatic gains in elementary schools where principals have readjusted their entire schooldays and school calendars, forfeiting recess, in order to comply with state demands-those students now in secondary schools are sitting in subject-matter classes where they cannot comprehend the texts and cannot set down their ideas in sentences expected of most fourth and fifth grade students in the suburbs.” Chapter 11, Page 281.

Why can’t politicians and administrators see that standardized testing has negative impacts in schools? Teachers are forced to teach to the test to help students do well, yet we clearly see this is not working. Students are becoming more and more behind because they are not being taught the basics in school. If politicians want a well working society in the future then they need to make changes in schools systems. It is sad to see that children have to suffer from the poor decisions that our American government makes.

“In 2004, The Washington Post has noted only 350 African American freshmen enrolled at the University of Michigan, out of an entering class of almost 6,000 students-the lowest number of African-Americans in 15 years and a decline from nearly 500 three years earlier.” Chapter 11, Page 282.

Why are there low numbers of African Americans attending college? I believe it has to do with the urban school systems and the low leveling learning that is occurring. In the quote above it says that principals are rearranging the schools schedules to let students have more time to practice for testing, but it leaves out all the other things children need in school. If students cannot write their ideas on a piece of paper because we did not teach them how, how are they supposed to succeed or even get in to a college? This is why the numbers are going down.

“The Post’s other explanation are increases in tuition costs and a restricted applicant pool of African-Americans because of very low test scores on their SATs. But, certainly the widening gulf in math and reading levels between minority high schools students and their white contemporaries-a devastating five year gap between the races, as the Education Trust observed does not pose an optimistic prospect for admissions of black students to our four-year colleges and universities during the years ahead.” Chapter 11, Page 283.

Tuition of colleges is also a huge impact to families these days. With the economy being down maybe families have to make sacrifices and put college off for a few years. If tuition keeps increasing little by little then soon nobody will be able to afford to go to college.  Low SAT scores are another reason why African Americans and minorities in urban areas are not going to college. Schools are not teaching the important things that students need to know. Schools are focusing more on reading and mathematics but still are behind.