Comments on: SJ 2020: Will districts work together? http://toped.svefoundation.org/2009/11/02/sj2020-will-districts-really-work-together/ Analysis, opinion and ruminations on California education policy Mon, 21 May 2012 15:52:26 +0200 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 hourly 1 By: Tere http://toped.svefoundation.org/2009/11/02/sj2020-will-districts-really-work-together/comment-page-1/#comment-23 Tere Wed, 04 Nov 2009 06:24:46 +0000 http://educatedguess.org/blog/?p=132#comment-23 I maintain that the achievement gap is a manufactured educational smokescreen designed to keep the testing companies and consultants in business. Measure kids using the yardstick of creative thinking and you will find no such gap. Yes, there are deficiencies, but as long as districts continue to operate the same way and expect different results, insanity will continue to reign. In classroom performance I see less of a "gap" than what is being publicized. But continue to supersize schools and overcrowd classrooms and run budgets on "two buck Chuck" finances and see how much motivation there will be for them to do well. And as long as the curriculum remains uninspiring and rote, kids the drop out rate will continue to climb. Let's face it, education reform is more, much more, than solving a contrived and distorted "achievement gap. I maintain that the achievement gap is a manufactured educational smokescreen designed to keep the testing companies and consultants in business. Measure kids using the yardstick of creative thinking and you will find no such gap. Yes, there are deficiencies, but as long as districts continue to operate the same way and expect different results, insanity will continue to reign. In classroom performance I see less of a “gap” than what is being publicized. But continue to supersize schools and overcrowd classrooms and run budgets on “two buck Chuck” finances and see how much motivation there will be for them to do well. And as long as the curriculum remains uninspiring and rote, kids the drop out rate will continue to climb. Let’s face it, education reform is more, much more, than solving a contrived and distorted “achievement gap.

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]]> By: Debra Watkins http://toped.svefoundation.org/2009/11/02/sj2020-will-districts-really-work-together/comment-page-1/#comment-22 Debra Watkins Tue, 03 Nov 2009 20:42:00 +0000 http://educatedguess.org/blog/?p=132#comment-22 It even happened in this blog! As the Founder, President/Executive Director of the California Alliance of African American Educators (CAAAE) and a member of State Superintendent Jack O'Connell's P-16 Council charged with helping close the state's racial achievement gap, I was deeply disturbed at last week's SJ 2020 Launch because there was not one person who looked like me speaking from the agenda yet it was an initiative about our children, too. Leon Beauchman, president of the Santa Clara County Alliance of Black Educators, declined an opportunity to speak at the end of the launch because he felt like he was an afterthought. He had not been involved in the planning and had only learned of the initiative a few weeks earlier, yet he is one of Chuck Weis' bosses as a member of the Board of Directors of the Santa Clara County Office of Education! I spoke to a number of African American leaders who were at the launch and we all felt marginalized just as our children are marginalized in these schools. This blog reinforced how truly invisible we are as a people in San Jose and in Silicon Valley. I am disappointed that John emphasized that the majority of the students to be impacted by this initiative are Latino. Those children definitely deserve to get special services and their numbers are large, but do not leave out children of African descent. By some estimates, 43% of African American students drop out of high school annually in CA. Of those male drop-outs, 60% will end up in prison before the age of 30. Is that a population that deserves our attention or what??!! If San Jose is to close the racial achievement gap by 2020, we must include ALL children residing in it. It even happened in this blog! As the Founder, President/Executive Director of the California Alliance of African American Educators (CAAAE) and a member of State Superintendent Jack O’Connell’s P-16 Council charged with helping close the state’s racial achievement gap, I was deeply disturbed at last week’s SJ 2020 Launch because there was not one person who looked like me speaking from the agenda yet it was an initiative about our children, too. Leon Beauchman, president of the Santa Clara County Alliance of Black Educators, declined an opportunity to speak at the end of the launch because he felt like he was an afterthought. He had not been involved in the planning and had only learned of the initiative a few weeks earlier, yet he is one of Chuck Weis’ bosses as a member of the Board of Directors of the Santa Clara County Office of Education! I spoke to a number of African American leaders who were at the launch and we all felt marginalized just as our children are marginalized in these schools. This blog reinforced how truly invisible we are as a people in San Jose and in Silicon Valley. I am disappointed that John emphasized that the majority of the students to be impacted by this initiative are Latino. Those children definitely deserve to get special services and their numbers are large, but do not leave out children of African descent. By some estimates, 43% of African American students drop out of high school annually in CA. Of those male drop-outs, 60% will end up in prison before the age of 30. Is that a population that deserves our attention or what??!! If San Jose is to close the racial achievement gap by 2020, we must include ALL children residing in it.

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