Notice: this post was to have been published in May 2006, but I never got it out of the draft pile. Rather than publishing it retroactively to the May 2006 archive, I'm publishing it now. The Save High Tech High School Blog is at http://savehightechhighbayshore.blogspot.com/
Ukiah Coach Brown has a post on his status vis à vis No Child Left Behind (NCLB).
The Reflective Teacher wonders about the status of some of her students vis à vis their actual English language mastery.
Brett says talking about parents' shortcomings is "the third rail".
Hi Tech High opened to great fanfare. But is it really serving Hispanic students?
Although the intentions are excellent, NCLB is still a mammothly flawed
game that still manages to sluff the problems of education to the
teachers, without treating them with any sort of respect.
The Reflective Teacher wonders about the status of some of her students vis à vis their actual English language mastery.
The Problem: Many of the Hispanic students are not allowed to test with the other students — they’ve been deemed ESL or ELL or LEP, according to their scores on the Woodcock-Munoz test of cognitive abilities. While these differences are necessary for state records (thanks NCLB!), it’s also worth mentioning that our district also (and I don’t know if this has anything to do with the NCLB Act or not) has allowed for a change in the testing situation for ESL/ELL/LEP students based on their Woodcock-Munoz scores. In previous years, before I started teaching, we allowed students with a W-M score of 3 or below to test as ESL; this year we’re allowing students with scores of 3-4 and 4 to test as ESL.
While I do no understand what these scores mean (other than the fact that a lower score on this test would affirm the likelihood of a student coming from a household wherein the primary language used was something other than English), I do know that we’ve lowered the bar by raising the scoring level to meet ESL requirements. For example: I have several students who come from immigrant families. Many of these students were born in the US and they primarily speak English in the home. Some students cannot speak or read the language their parents brought with them to the States, yet they still test as ESL.
By testing these students as ESL, we are required to test them apart from the rest of the student body. But, of course, for NCLB measures, we must include their scores, and this leads to a larger problem:
Brett says talking about parents' shortcomings is "the third rail".
Research has clearly shown that parental involvement - parents seen reading in the home, parents reading to their children, parents ensuring that children have an array of reading materials available to them - is one of the most critical indicators of success in helping a child learn how to read.
And the education community treats this as an unmentionable secret.
Sure, we address it to an extent at the local level: schools send home tip sheets, bring parents in to sign reading compacts, and do their best to keep parents apprised of kids’ progress through updates and report cards. But we’re asking too late – so many of the building blocks of literacy happen before a child ever walks into a formal school – and I think we’re probably beating around the bush, hinting and cajoling without ever laying things out in black and white.
My jaw would drop – DROP – if I ever saw a public figure call us on this.
Hi Tech High opened to great fanfare. But is it really serving Hispanic students?
After inquiries from the community and the Sequoia Union High School District that students were inappropriately and possibly illegally being expelled from Redwood City’s High Tech High, the San Mateo County Office of Education took a closer look at the school’s policies. The Board of Trustees was confused by a policy which gives students who are falling behind the option of summer school and/or repeating a grade or leaving the school. There were also concerns students were strong-armed out of the charter school.
The county’s charter only has seven weeks left and it will pass on its finding to the state, the new chartering district. In addition, the board asked the school to write a clear policy on its expectations and provide accurate Spanish translations of the policy and letters to parents.
In March, County Superintendent Jean Holbrook asked staff to look into complaints that High Tech High was making students leave school because of low grades. On April 10, Tom Fitzpatrick, supervisor of administrative services for the county Office of Education, released information that 56 students have transferred out of High Tech High during this school year. Of those students who left, 16 transferred because they were failing academically. Fitzpatrick found a disproportionate number of English learners transferring from the school as 47 percent of the students who left for academic reasons were English learners.
“While High Tech High Bayshore may be lauded for ‘raising the achievement bar’ for its students, there is insufficient evidence that they have provided the necessary support to give these students a chance to succeed. In the case of High Tech High Bayshore, the failure to provide such support is compounded by the school’s disenrollment policy which then asks the students to leave because they have not achieved the level of success for which they were not adequately prepared,” Fitzpatrick wrote.
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