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Post by Arch on Feb 5, 2008 15:17:58 GMT -6
Heres a thought for ya Arch, lets keep the Brach Brodie boundaries: * send those in the WV boundary to the "new MW" * send those in the MW boundary to the "new WV" * send those in the NV boundary to the "new NV" That way we all are new and we all feel the pain, equally. You submitted those, right? They already did say they are going to change them, so those are out the window. However, you do point out something that I was thinking about too for this. Since it seems that while trying to apply 'benefits' to areas, they can not be applied equally, perhaps the 'screws' or 'pain' should be equally applied. Those pains are split MSs, Going to furthest of 3 schools, being part of a start up that will have things and programs that are not established completely or even missing, etc. Distribute the 'hurt' around equally in equal parts for each area for each thing seen as a 'negative' and people might be more accepting and it might be seen as more fair. Saying "Oh, by the way, you're going to the farthest HS *AND* things will be missing is a double screw. Make sure each other area gets two, and we're in business.... otherwise, give everyone ONE.
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Post by doctorwho on Feb 5, 2008 15:23:15 GMT -6
Heres a thought for ya Arch, lets keep the Brach Brodie boundaries: * send those in the WV boundary to the "new MW" * send those in the MW boundary to the "new WV" * send those in the NV boundary to the "new NV" That way we all are new and we all feel the pain, equally. You submitted those, right? They already did say they are going to change them, so those are out the window. However, you do point out something that I was thinking about too for this. Since it seems that while trying to apply 'benefits' to areas, they can not be applied equally, perhaps the 'screws' or 'pain' should be equally applied. Those pains are split MSs, Going to furthest of 3 schools, being part of a start up that will have things and programs that are not established completely or even missing, etc. Distribute the 'hurt' around equally in equal parts for each area for each thing seen as a 'negative' and people might be more accepting and it might be seen as more fair. Saying "Oh, by the way, you're going to the farthest HS *AND* things will be missing is a double screw. Make sure each other area gets two, and we're in business.... otherwise, give everyone ONE. Add not going to the closest MS and we have the 'Hat Trick' already -- visions of hats flying down from the 3rd level at old Chicago Stadium and the organ blaring ! btw-- I still like the idea of a sorting hat - ala Harry Potter -- everyone's area goes in and one repreentative draws out a MS and HS - and that's where you go -- Waubonsindor Mateanpuff Neuqitherin
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Post by 204family on Feb 5, 2008 15:23:16 GMT -6
Heres a thought for ya Arch, lets keep the Brach Brodie boundaries: * send those in the WV boundary to the "new MW" * send those in the MW boundary to the "new WV" * send those in the NV boundary to the "new NV" That way we all are new and we all feel the pain, equally. With the cost of gas those in Tall Grass would have a real complaint about driving to the northernmost part of our district to go to school. TG will be fine...thanks for your concern
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Post by forthekids on Feb 5, 2008 15:49:03 GMT -6
With the cost of gas those in Tall Grass would have a real complaint about driving to the northernmost part of our district to go to school. TG will be fine...thanks for your concern I wasn't looking for your thanks. It would be ridiculous to make subdivisions in the far SW portion of the district drive to the far NW portion.
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Post by steckmom on Feb 5, 2008 17:48:13 GMT -6
As a lifetime Warrior-- I couldn't agree more. I like optimizing. Those that think we need a 'new WV' should just go a tad more north and make a 'new mv' If you mean Steck should go north, I think that's probably going to happen anyway. Last time I checked I didn't have any say in it. But for the record, I don't think we need a 'new WV'. I think you can have achievement balance as a factor without it being an insult to current WV students.
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Post by brooksmom on Feb 5, 2008 18:04:17 GMT -6
I have been giving this achievement gap problem a bit of thought after talking to a mom of a preschooler yesterday who said she assumed when he was born that their school was good since it was in 204. It turns out that her child will go to one of our lower-achieving elementary schools. I offered the perspective that in other districts, our "low achieving school" would be the All Star shining example of achievement.
This conversation made me think about the causes of the gap though given the standard curriculum across the schools. Obviously, there are some socio-economic factors at play, but I wonder if there are other more "fixable" issues as well. I've certainly experienced a range of teacher quality from grade to grade and child to child in my excellent ES. Perhaps rather than moving the kids, we should move the teachers. Could we have a teacher-to-teacher mentoring program? Maybe swap a teacher per grade from a high-achieving school with a low-achieving school for 1 school year which would allow the teacher swapped into the higher achieving school to see how the grade level team functions differently and maybe for the teacher swapped into the lower performing school to offer a new perspective?
This would probably have to be a voluntary program due to teacher contracts, but I think other ideas are needed besides chalking it up to income or foreign language issues. Any other thoughts?
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Post by gatormom on Feb 5, 2008 18:14:39 GMT -6
I have been giving this achievement gap problem a bit of thought after talking to a mom of a preschooler yesterday who said she assumed when he was born that their school was good since it was in 204. It turns out that her child will go to one of our lower-achieving elementary schools. I offered the perspective that in other districts, our "low achieving school" would be the All Star shining example of achievement. This conversation made me think about the causes of the gap though given the standard curriculum across the schools. Obviously, there are some socio-economic factors at play, but I wonder if there are other more "fixable" issues as well. I've certainly experienced a range of teacher quality from grade to grade and child to child in my excellent ES. Perhaps rather than moving the kids, we should move the teachers. Could we have a teacher-to-teacher mentoring program? Maybe swap a teacher per grade from a high-achieving school with a low-achieving school for 1 school year which would allow the teacher swapped into the higher achieving school to see how the grade level team functions differently and maybe for the teacher swapped into the lower performing school to offer a new perspective? This would probably have to be a voluntary program due to teacher contracts, but I think other ideas are needed besides chalking it up to income or foreign language issues. Any other thoughts? Actually since my children both went through one of the lower achieving schools, I can honestly say that our district is attacking the problem and making headway. Check out the scores for these schools, they are steadily improving. ESL and low-income, students coming into our district from school districts that do not have the curriculum we do. A lot of reasons but our district is not using them for excuses, they are succeeding at catching these children up. I volunteered a lot in the classroom and with some kids it was just jumping into a classroom behind and then it was the school's job to catch them up. Very bright children who had a disadvantage. The dashboard program is giving the teachers a tool to assess who is learning what and identifying students who are struggling early enough to make sure they don't get lost. All day K has been a wonderful tool for some of the students who are behind socially and educationally.
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Post by hopefull on Feb 5, 2008 18:36:39 GMT -6
I wonder if our administrators have researched what our neighboring districts do to bolster acheivement in their schools with higher mobility and low income rates. The one I have in mind is Johnson school in dist 200 warrenville. They have a low income rate of 40%, a 17% mobility rate and yet managed to score an 89% meets and exceeds on '07 isats. I also noticed that their class sizes are 15 for K, 16 for 1st grade, and 18 for 3rd.
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Post by casey on Feb 5, 2008 19:27:34 GMT -6
All day K has been a wonderful tool for some of the students who are behind socially and educationally. Don't forget that all day K in the past was designed to help those students/schools with lower achievement scores or identified early as needing extra help. Now that the whole district will be all day K, that advantage disappears. The lower performers will now be lumped in with everyone and they are not given that advantage. Yes, they get more instructional time but so does everyone else. It will be interesting to see test scores after a few years to see how all day K impacted kids down the road. I still think that our SD jumped into that decision way too quickly.
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Post by gatormom on Feb 5, 2008 22:01:30 GMT -6
All day K has been a wonderful tool for some of the students who are behind socially and educationally. Don't forget that all day K in the past was designed to help those students/schools with lower achievement scores or identified early as needing extra help. Now that the whole district will be all day K, that advantage disappears. The lower performers will now be lumped in with everyone and they are not given that advantage. Yes, they get more instructional time but so does everyone else. It will be interesting to see test scores after a few years to see how all day K impacted kids down the road. I still think that our SD jumped into that decision way too quickly. Thank you casey, I am quite aware of that. I have the concern that creating all day K for all will hurt that program but that was not my decision to make. By the way, the point of my post was to give a perspective from first hand knowledge of what our district is doing to address the achievement gap. I got the impression from some of the posting going on in this thread that people think the district is not addressing it. That is just not the case.
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Post by Arch on Feb 5, 2008 22:08:53 GMT -6
Don't forget that all day K in the past was designed to help those students/schools with lower achievement scores or identified early as needing extra help. Now that the whole district will be all day K, that advantage disappears. The lower performers will now be lumped in with everyone and they are not given that advantage. Yes, they get more instructional time but so does everyone else. It will be interesting to see test scores after a few years to see how all day K impacted kids down the road. I still think that our SD jumped into that decision way too quickly. Thank you casey, I am quite aware of that. I have the concern that creating all day K for all will hurt that program but that was not my decision to make. By the way, the point of my post was to give a perspective from first hand knowledge of what our district is doing to address the achievement gap. I got the impression from some of the posting going on in this thread that people think the district is not addressing it. That is just not the case. Count me in on believing that All Day K will suffer from the Law of Diminishing Returns when they try to spread it out around the district.
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