It’s amazing to me that you have poor children with parents who may or may not be involved in their child’s education and you have three teachers teaching the same grade, one teacher, year after year after year has a very small if no GAP and the other teachers have a very large GAP – what makes the difference?

I think we don’t really want to know that the teachers need to have their classrooms open to students 1/2 hour or more before class starts and to have the room open to all children who want to study. I don’t think we want to know that we can’t fold up the school sidewalks 10 minutes after the final bell rings. I think we don’t want to hear that some students need to have Rosetta Stone English programs playing on walkmans that they can take home to practice.

I think we don’t want to know what works if it means that we have to alter our hours, the way we have done things in Oakland for decades, come up against the teachers union or tell the principal that we are going to keep the halls open to students until 4:30 every day so that we can make ourselves available. We certainly don’t want to meet with parents at the school on weekends after they finish their two jobs that week to tell them how they can help their children – because, then we would have to do things differently.

Other programs could deselect people without overt administration action. At the Jr College level for example nursing programs require chemistry with a minimum grade prior to enrolling, Police Academy will not accept a candidate student with a misdemeanor domestic violence conviction or any felony. There are many ways that people self steer into something suitable for them. People want more of things they are good at. People are willing to accept less comfort for something they want.

The Calif Jr Colleges seem to be doing a lot of what the High Schools should be doing. They don’t have the problems the high schools do because they don’t run their campuses like romper room. My local Jr. College accepts certain High School students in their classes. Some of those students were kicked out when they didn’t make the transition behaviorally. This is a form of tracking.

Has anyone looked into Achievement Gap stats for the CA Jr. Colleges?

At the post secondary level there are opportunities to gain job specific/vocational skills. There are continuing education schools, adult schools, junior colleges, etc. I would propose that some of this coursework could and should be offered to persons at the high school level.

We will all watch these numbers periodically on how the “Gap” is doing in CA.

Some of the stream of thought on the blog is due to the jumping on the computer during the day in the middle of other things – and the difference between posters with different occupations. I often go on between crisis management here and there. During the day I work with very very troubled people. Sometimes the best outcome for them is still a bad outcome.

You wonder if better education could have prevented much of the grief. I think if could have. But the people I see in the courts by and large – live life their way.

And all the time I notice the difference between the haves and the have nots – although haves aren’t exactly wealthy. They do have health insurance and auto insurance though. The Gap is visible here too.

Some of the points you make – about choice in education, the lack of vocational training in schools – are actually valid and interesting. This last post above me – it makes perfect sense. Not that I agree 100% but at least you’ve made your point without offending anyone. And it sounds like you actually care about the fate of these ‘groups’ of people on some level. But look further above. Your posts are erratic and frankly, you sound unhinged. Maybe you drink? It’s too bad the good points you make get lost in the mire of weirdness that reads like racism/determinism/crazy-talk. You will not win any fans with your ‘radical’ assessment of the proles and underclasses failure to thrive as indicator of sub-par intelligence. I suggest you go back to the drawing board to refine your messaging. Or just keep posting on the internet and get nothing done.

It is immoral for CA Schools to deliver the stats we bring in for the children in the large urban school districts such as LA Unified, Oakland, San Francisco and the other principal cities. Even worse to do what we are doing by claiming it was required so that a needle in the haystack might go to Cal and get a PhD in physics – impose college track on the whole district.

I do believe that for the most part the cognitively gifted can take care of themselves and each other. The purpose of the public schools is to see to the needs of the working class. The public schools are the last line of defense before the working class and their children are left to Calcutta type generational poverty. These schools are there to make sure the proletariat kids can function in society at all as a citizen and a legal equal to the rest of society.

I’m worried that the public schools don’t even teach the proles how to stay out of county jail, the county courts, county hospital (sanitation & disease issues). We no longer can count on the schools to teach conversational standard english, dress & deportment, and skills needed to get and keep a job. That must change.

While I and all of my cousins and siblings went to public high school and got UC entrance requirements I fear the percentage of students doing so is shrinking. I don’t see any other “education” transmitted to compensate. I see huge percentages of CA public high school students dropping out and not passing graduation standards while the schools flounder. People drop put because it seems like the best thing to them to do at the time.

Our schools can create a relevant program that is more attractive to the proletariat than dropping out and it doesn’t include Algebra 1-2. It should include the skills needed to excell in blue-collar, service work, and similar occupations, including above all behavioral skills.

You are wrong to assume that any of this means we would deny poor people med school. I have too many Ethiopian and Vietnamese in-laws who came here with nothing as children not even speaking english – who made it into the professions – to fall for that. If you want to take the prerequisites and go for the professions with appropriate test scores there are schools for you, plain and simple. The people I speak of are the blacks and browns who languish in the schools and drop out in droves because the existing programs promise nothing for them in the short time spans they live their lives – month to month. We need to offer programming, month to month – in the urban schools.

The families can pick college track or vocational – that’s their choice. But if you say you want college track you have to perform or go elsewhere. You can always comeback later after your late bloom.

And “The Gap” is growing. I believe the size of the gap is due to sheer incompetence and neglect on the part of the Educrats. If (San Francisco’s) Delancey Street can take addicts and convicts and make something out of them the schools can do better with adolescents. But not with the permissiveness that infests the schools currently. We need scoring, sorting, language & math skills, with the rest of the voc ed program following that. Those that want college prep can opt for it – see if there’s a stampede.

However, like you Sue, I was lucky enough to have teachers recognize my abilities that came after I began to group my thoughts about moving so much. As many teachers assumed that I would turn out like my parents, or as one teacher put it she’ll probably be walking the streets or dead with her history, several teachers saw the spark. I think about those teachers, often, thank them in my mind more times than I can count.

And, to everyone out there if anyone knows of a teacher named Diane Feinstein who taught in Walnut Creek, let her know that she was the finest teacher of all time.

Having somewhat lived that, it’s a very real concern to me. Luckily for me, I didn’t get slammed into some sort of European-style system that wouldn’t let me change tracks. Our system still has flexibility (or had it 30-plus years ago when I was growing up) and I was able to get a college education once I’d matured enough to benefit from it.

Unfortunately, I don’t think Nextset has ever grasped the question. I gave up asking it, because I don’t think s/he is capable of considering the idea that not every individual matches his or her group norms. And Nextset has said many times on this forum that s/he is only interested in groups, not in individuals.

When individual students don’t fit Nextset’s models, I’m afraid the only solution is going to be denying that these exceptions-to-the-rules exist at all. Everyone gets assigned in kindergarten – group A is already reading, group B recognizes their letters and numbers, group C does none of the above – and everyone will stay with their assigned group through the rest of school, and their entire adult/working lives. No exceptions.

Brave New World, indeed.