A sobering thought on the level of public education in Orleans Parish...

I would love to be a hero BUT I WILL NOT

RISK MY CHILDREN'S FUTURE FOR IT. Neighborhood schools will NOT WORK because the second a single one got over 50% white the folks who ruined the school system in the first place will demand INTEGRATION.

 

We have nothing to fear, but fear itself...and InVinoVeritas has just exposed the reason why things haven't been corrected sooner.

Neighborhood schools won't work, I don't believe, because of the fact you just mentioned. The Geographically diverse city that is New Orleans must have a school system that's torn to the ground and rebuilt...

I'd like to see a reworking of their magnet programs, to be honest. Some are successful, but by and large, most are deficient as well.

We need to get RADICAL. If you're dead last out of 66, in a state that's dead last out of 50, we need to SERIOUSLY look at what's going on. Hell, we should probably try to bring in some Montessori techniques and other out of the box ideas...

I heard on the radio the other day that the female valedictorian from John Ehret couldn't pass either of her exit exams...She mentioned in print that, "...they were tough. There was stuff on there I have never seen before."

Is there any need for another reason to level this school system with a wrecking ball? We're at ground zero here. There are no quick fixes, there are no silver linings, and there are no saviors as CEO's...

We need to go back to Square 1 in OPS...

 

You guys rant and rave about New Orleans, and your ranting and raving is probably justified. But the problem exists all over Louisiana. We are 50 out of 50 for a reason.

It defies all demographics, urban or rural, black or white. My home, Jackson Parish, is 63rd out of 68 school systems in the state. Jackson Parish is a very rural parish in the heart of North Louisiana, home to 15,000 people. 63% of kids in the school system are white. Yet in our last GEE21 testing, over 60% of the system's high school students failed the Math section of the test.

So what's our excuse?

I'll tell you what it is. I hate to sound like a snob, but the vast majority of lower middle-to-working class folks in this state DO NOT VALUE education for their kids. They just don't. They are perfectly content to keep their kids in public school systems that are sorry, the white folks thinking that "Little Johnny" can go to vo-tech and get a welding certificate or get a job at the local paper mill or chemical plant, and "little Suzie," why, what does she need education for? She's gonna marry little Johnny's best friend from down the road and have babies and keep the house in order and they'll live happily ever after, fighting to keep their heads above the poverty line. And the black folks, well, I honestly don't know what they're thinking, but they are obviously not valuing education for their children either. And for the parents who do care, daily life is such a grim struggle for survival for the momma, and there isn't a father to be found anywhere, so she just doesn't have time to check homework in the evening or make it to school board and PTA meetings. And our heavily politicized school boards keep into politics instead of education, and nothing ever gets better. The parents who can afford it who care, get their children into private schools. They are unwilling to sacrifice their children's best interests on some damn-fool crusade to save public schools "for the greater good." Can you honestly blame them?

What can we do about that? Well, I'm not much for social engineering or the state compelling people to change their attitudes. We need major changes in the culture, morality, and values system of this state, so that every parent drills into the head of their child the paramount importance of knowledge and education. But that takes time. Granted, more people in this state value education than did 40 years ago, but still not enough. What we can do is make sure that even if these kids are not being taught about the value of knowledge and the importance of going to college to have any kind of bright future, that they are learning about it EVERY MINUTE they are in a schoolhouse. And to that end, I'm with TE; the system is broken. It cannot be fixed. Statewide, every underperforming school system must be burned to the ground and rebuilt from scratch. MFP is completely screwed up; scrap the current formula and write one with this simple principle; DIRT POOR SCHOOL DISTRICTS GET THE MOST STATE MONEY! How hard is that?

Slash and burn the educational bureaucracy. Give the state and local systems greater power to hire and fire incompetent teachers and administrators. Introduce vouchers and/or put multiple schools in the same district to make schools compete for students.

Make it a requirement that candidates for School Board must have children in the system to be on it. And term limit them! That's always been an idea of mine. Get career politicians off school boards. You want to weild awesome power simply because you get off on that, fine, take your circus act to the Water and Sewer Commission. But leave our kids alone!

Do SOMETHING! ANYTHING! GET RADICAL! GET REVOLUTIONARY! But we must have reform and soon. The future of our state depends on it.

 

Re: I would love to be a hero BUT I WILL NOT

One more rant, before I let this go; this (the race thing), in a nutshell, is a problem in most of our school system's; white's desperately wanting to NOT go to school with blacks "because the blacks ruin everything" and the blacks desperately wanting to go to school with whites "because white schools are the best schools." This is how white flight works.

1. School system is segregated. Whites go to all white schools, blacks to all-black schools on the other side of town.

2. A few blacks move to white neighborhood or get re-zoned to go to "much better" white schools. White folks get nervous, but it's just a few of them. No problem.

3. More and more blacks move to "white side" of town to go to white schools. Their numbers creep to 50%. White folks really worried. A few disciplinary problems happen. All black kids are immediately stereotyped as trouble. A few black kids don't perform as well on tests. All black kids are immediately stereotyped as "stupid." School administrators at white school try to crack down hard on black kids who cause trouble and put black kids who perfrom poorly in intensive learning "special" classes. Black community screams racism, forcing school admin. to back off and let black kids do whatever they want and let them fail without any appropriate help.

4. White folks, tired of problems mentioned above and frustrated that School Board is afraid of being called racist, start private school or all move to the suburbs, leaving two 100% black school districts that are "academically unacceptable" and filled with violence. School Board, now majority black, whines about how white people won't go to public schools, yet screams racism for everything from discipline to "culturally-biased" tests . All the while doing nothing on their own initiative to better themselves.

The cycle has gone on in Baton Rouge, Shreveport, New Orleans, even in smaller school systems, and it's ridiculous. Why do white folks get itchy and flee when "their school" becomes more than 35% black? Are we that racist? Are we that shallow? Here's an idea; instead of running away from black people, try working with them and living with them to make better communities. I'm not asking you to put up with any BS, but guess what? Black parents, the ones who care deeply about what's best for their children, don't either, and if you joined up with them to crush any threat to good order and academic achievement in your local school system, they would willingly join forces with you. If Jesse Jackson and Cleo Fields come around accusing ya'll of racism, tell them to go to hell. It is not racism to stand on principle, draw a line in the sand, and declare zero-tolerance for chaos and mediocrity in schools, black or white.

To black folks; why is it that the only way you feel your children can learn is if white children are chained to the desks next to your kids? Here's a tip; you must have integrated COMMUNITIES before you can have integrated school systems. You cannot put the cart before the horse. Where in the great book on education does it say that majority black schools must always be failing schools? How about ya'll, just for right now, quit chasing after the white folks, and concentrate on making your communities and your school systems better. With just a little hard work, increased parental involvement, a commitment to excellence, and ZERO TOLERANCE for failure or deviation from the goal, ya'll can have for yourselves excellent schools. After one or two generations of putting forth excellent graduates, who go on to college and become outstanding upper-middle class citizens who move to the suburbs themselves, REAL integration and REAL assimilation will be achieved. Who knows, you may even build school systems so great, white folks move to YOUR neighborhoods to go to YOUR schools.

Just a thought.

 

Excellent post Jetstorm.

One other thing that happens (in other states): A few black people move into a white neighborhood. Then the racists ditch their houses faster than Tomm running from a question. Property values drop, forcing the school board to cut spending or raise taxes. The quality of the school system drops. The non-racists start to bail as a result. Property taxes drop further, forcing more spending cuts and tax increases. The school system ends up in a vicious cycle.

 

Socioeconomic backgrounds are what creates an educational achievement gap. Book it. People that make money make that money because they used either the education they obtained or they realize the value of it. People that scrape by are many, and few are the ones in that number who have the forethought to enable their children to have a better future than they did.

I will say this, though. A fricking 19 or 20 on your ACT is doable for ANYONE....I repeat, ANYONE...and to graduate your HS with a 2.5 is doable for ANYONE...I repeat, ANYONE.

BRCC, RPCC, BPCC, etc...they are good alternatives for students who make those minimum standards and benchmarks and quailfy for TOPS. They can take that tuition reimbursement and learn drafting, or construction management, or wildlife management, or even utilize BRCC's new program that gets students out of school in two years and qualified to be an operator in a plant, which is a very high paying and lucrative job that you can go all over the south with.

I will say this...There are a vast amount of rural graduates who would benefit from utilizing things like the programs in place in about 20 schools in EBRP and Plaquemine High in Iberville. Those students that its apparent aren't doing anymore than average in school and who don't plan on attending college or taking college prep courses. They're offering them the opportunity to enroll in a for credit welding course and small engine repair along with some basic surveying and electrician classes. They're usually paired with local businesses set up to offer entry level positions to graduates of the mini-programs. I think this is another viable option.

We've got to attach businesses to schools at a much younger age. We're doing a good job of educating our young people in college, but we need to catch the multitude of children who aren't going to college in this state. They need a safety net. With programs like the ones I've talked about, or the BRCC operators program, this can give young men and women something to fall back on, and help them be ready to support a family in less than two years.

Think about it. BRCC's tuition is $500/semester. Two semesters a year, multiplied by two years, equals a grand total of $2,000. Almost any kid can get a student loan, and disadvantaged kids can get a pell grant they NEVER have to repay. Two years, a short 24 months, and they can be hooked up with some of the most stable work and lucrative paying forms of employment this state has to offer.

We've got to do a better job of preparing our non college studenst for careers.

But, this is the classic problem in education....Should education be for the sake of education, or should it be more to prepare a young man to enter the work force and be vocationally ready?

That's the argument between the College of Arts and Sciences in college campuses across America and their respective engineering departments...

A liberal arts education promotes well rounded, expansively educated individuals who are articulate, cultured, as well as educated well. Vocationally oriented disciplines create a smattering of variety in their course offerings, but their main goal is to focus on vocationally necessary subjects during the course of a students career.

College campuses are a battle zone...Should they focus on preparing individuals for specific careers? Or should they shift their focus to a more traditional, well rounded, less specific variety of education?

Creating well rounded individuals or creating good employees? It's the contemporary question facing college campuses large and small...

It's a hard question to answer...but our economic situation dictates that we MUST help those that are educationally disenfranchised across the state. Go look at www.bobbyjindal.com and you'll see some honest ideas and some good ones, at that...

Just my $0.02...

P.S.--> Everyone has made good points in this thread...We'd all do well to take the highlights of this discussion, put them on paper, and send them off to our respective school board's to see what they feel about the situations and where they want to go with the future of our communities collective education.