Compare this to the Asians with delayed puberty.

And you wonder why Shanikinika and Tyrone don’t do so well in Algebra. So is the reason for this “cultural” or does it have something to do with generations of the black women hitting puberty near age 10 or 11? Even a 6 month average difference has an effect. And the Black vs Asian difference is a lot more than that.

The effect on the girls of early puberty is clear, but on the boys, study the mortality charts for Blacks vs Asians. Look at the cause of death percentages for children. The differences in rates of trauma vs illness. The boys have issues also. Physical differences. Physical differences that drive behavior.

So now we have Charters with a different racial mix than the town. Is this because the Charters are somehow “racist” or evil, or is it the different needs of the racial groups and how those needs are being handled?

Having said that there is room for manipulating individuals to get them an outcome within the range of their potential. Sometimes this manipulation is pleasurable for the subject, sometimes it involves whooping that ass literally or figuratively and it’s not so pleasant to the subject but directly leads to an outsome greater than what would have been expected otherwise.

I believe the reason we have the problems we do with the black students behavior and outcomes is largely genetic having much to do with physical things such as age of onset of puberty and health, height weight issues as well as IQ which is largely predetermined based on parentage and subsequently affected only to some degree by nutrition (prenatal and postnatal). Ditto for the Asians who are not going to be on a football team. Each group, and people within the groups, have different sets of advantages/disadvantages. That’s life and this is not anything to cry about. Most people like being themselves – Michael Jackson excepted.

Our schools are expected to take what comes through the door and get the best for each student. Telling them they are the same and therefore they should be ashamed of themselves if they don’t score the same on each task is not doing anyone any good. Are the Charters cherry picking students? I wouldn’t be so surprised. Charters aren’t in business not to show results.

Since the public schools are married to the assumption that all are the same, they are floundering when faced with a multicultural students body. They do not serve the left side of the bell curve well since they don’t adjust anything to their needs. They may even go so far as to run them off by requiring algebra at 8th grade when the left side of the curve are struggling to handle basic math at 8th grade (as well as Dick and Jane readers).

Charters are by definition more nimble, more flexible and now they’re going to have to be more exclusive. Because they are not here to fail (like the publics).

There are some charismatic school administrators who are gifted with enough energy and the strong instinct for managing student behavior without being at all abusive. It would be interesting to figure out if this quality can be instilled, or if those types of people are just born that way. Maybe it’s a case of nature vs. nurture.

Nextset: When talking about human potential, don’t you pretty much go with the “nature” theory?

Another thing to speculate about is how many years can we expect someone to realistically have the stamina to “be on” all the time in this way? Although perhaps once the tone is set, only a maintenance mode would need to be employed. Successors would have to be able to carry it on.

Also, maybe there is an important downside to having a school run by this type, such as even reasonable people getting unfairly dinged by the aggressive mode. There would need to be some balance.

I consider Joe Clark’s tactics to be something I’d use when all the other curses didn’t work. Send him in to clean up a ghetto school you want to become a real school. I don’t see him being used in an existing good school. In other words, too ghetto for my tastes.

Caroline: I agree the school should make it’s standards clear (although not repeat them often). beyond that I think a good school should run out those who have no intention of conforming to the rules. They should be gone – publicly run off. And that is not hard to do. As far as where they go, that’s obvious. They go to the BAD school. Every district has/needs one. the school that collects the losers until they go to jail or get themselves killed or whatever their fate is. OUSD should get one and start moving the kids who don’t intend to change for the better there.

Debora: I read your post with interest about the family with the “Mother, aunties & grandmother”. Typical. Female headed households… I’d like to think that if the school authority explained to the women they way things are and the way they are going to be, they could all decide if they wanted to keep the kid in the good school or would just transfer it to the bad school and get it over with. Sorry if I’m not feeling very PC at the moment. The reason OUSD is having these problems is that they do tell these people that they are going to respect their “culture” and this is the sort of problems that result.

I am not preaching the Catholic School way is the solution to everything. I’m not at all religious. BUT they didn’t have these problems no matter how blue collar the families were. The school has to set the tone from the beginning about what is expected and what the rules are. Sure you can have emergencies and make exceptions – but if the family doesn’t intend to follow the rules at all – or try to set their own agenda – send the kid to the bad school – the lowest common denominator school – the place for the kids who do things their way.

OUSD needs to establish “real” schools and protect those (along with the “real” teachers in them). Let these non-comformist non-compliant kids and families go elsewhere. It’s free choice. And the other families can choose not to have their kids associate with the screw-ups.

Jonathan Kozol wrote about this in his book “Savage Inequalities” — having lent the book out, I can’t confirm whether that’s where I read that Clark had gone into prison management.

In fact, most of the well-known “it’s a miracle!” films about supposedly incredible school reforms don’t hold up to scrutiny. Even the famous Jaime Escalante of “Stand and Deliver” was never able to replicate his achievement in subsequent positions at other schools.
It’s even a little questionable how exaggerated that story was at the time. It was promoted by Jay Mathews, then a business reporter in Los Angeles, who “discovered” Escalante and wrote the book and the screenplay. Mathews then became the most prominent and successful education reporter in the U.S., for the Washington Post and Newsweek. So he was boosting his own career and income by telling Escalante’s story. Did it benefit him to pump it up a little or a lot? Is the Pope religious?

Sorry to poke holes in optimistic views, but skepticism is unfortunately warranted…

All that said, I’m not opposing firm disciplinary standards, of course. A particularly tough situation involves the cultures that, as Debora says, “consider visiting relatives a priority over schoolwork.” I have friends who teach in schools that are mostly Filipino, Mexican and Central American, and close family ties are very important in those cultures — which can indeed translate to making visiting relatives a top priority. (This does mean weeks-long visits to the home country during the school year at times, which is infuriating for the teacher and devastating to the student’s education.)

Yet it’s rather a tough situation for the school to tell those families to make close family ties less of a priority — by definition, the families are likely to heed their cultural/family traditions rather than the directives from the school.

Collaboration seems to be the word of the year with the new principals and superintendent. Trust seems to be another. Yet, it is my experience that we do not trust parents, ourselves or our students enough to sit down as a group beginning in early elementary school to say that reading and language arts are taught in the morning more often than any other subject. When you bring your student in late to school they are unable to participate. For those who have difficulty getting here on time, their students will often have difficulty learning. Since the student is not in the class learning during regular school hours, how should the missed learning be handled?

This is where the collaboration should take place. It would then be a reasonable expectation of everyone in the group, including the student beginning in second grade to offer some suggestions. Anything less that that type of collaboration is saying that we do not trust that families are able or willing to support their students so we will leave them out of the equation.

I watched the two film clips. I thought they were reasonable and balanced. You had the drill sergeant principal who was not effective with learning, but created order and safety by nearly any means necessary balances against the snarky upper middle class white guy who has never taught or administered in an urban high school but who had enough education to say how it should be done. Seems like a reasonable balance. Nothing accomplished, but plenty of soap boxes for standing around the room so that everyone could have an opinion.

The second clip was from a Hollywood movie based on the drill sergeant and and a bunch of people who seemed to care for students but had a chaotic environment that seems to have little control or order. As a student, I would have had a difficult time learning in that environment, much less feeling any pride about the school attending.

I believe that we want to keep students in school, so we pay the price of lower the behavior standards and expectations, but as a person who is asked to hire these “graduates” I am telling you for an absolute fact, they carry their lack of work ethic, time management and lack of order into the work world. Principals, teachers, schools, districts and parents who do not handle the problem in school are pushing it on the the community at large to handle the problem. Which is no different than the high school teachers who complain that these students were not taught to read, compute math or work habits in middle school, elementary school and home; which is no different than the middle school teachers who complain that these students were not taught to read, compute math or work habits in elementary school and home; which is no different than the elementary school teachers who complain that these students were not taught to sufficient language and proper behavior at preschool and home. Passing it down the line . . . .

Here is an interview with Joe Clark, the principal who took reigns of Eastside High School in Paterson, New Jersey back in 1983. Morgan Freeman depicted him in “Lean on Me.” Just where the 300 kids he kicked out ended up going and doing, no one ever says. If they were just hanging out on the corner, that would have caused problems for the Paterson police force.

Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4BR7Uz0Y-o&feature=related
Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xk8xXcfeZw

Nextset: You’re absolutely going to LOVE those clips! I can tell that the two of you are cut from the same cloth. Maybe you could whip up some donations from your associates, and sponsor Joe Clark for a visit to OUSD so he can set everyone straight.

If a much more severe method of managing schools is our country’s salvation, why has it had such a hard time gaining traction? If it’s such a guiding light, why won’t more people follow? Perhaps there is something about the approach which is just a bit off-kilter.

And don’t take me wrong — I do like discipline and compliance and wish there was more, too. Every teacher would be happier if the students and their parents were more compliant. I think school climate issues are our schools’ biggest problem.

But also, I don’t see how Joe Clark’s way could be practically and widely imposed at this point in this milieu. I would also guess that his effect on Paterson HS was only temporary. I think the problems are much more complicated and deeply rooted, and I don’t believe in any magic bullets.

I think if our entire district held students accountable in ALL schools, more families would expect the strict structure of a school like AICS. In our district, my experience is that students who are tardy under the 31 minute rule have very few consequences and their parents / guardians have none. If homework is not done, students are not required to have consequences for behavior. We teachers, other parents, volunteers and staff fear parents retaliation from parents for being “harsh” or “racist.” However, not holding ALL students accountable is creating its own set of problems, namely students who are not keeping up with others.

Some of this is cultural. Some cultures consider visiting relatives a priority over school work, others create an environment where students must first do the work of a student because that is their job, before visiting relatives. This is part of the reason that Lincoln Elementary, with nearly all Asian students, the vast majority of whom live below the poverty level achieve in such high numbers.

We need to decide as a district whether it is an important part of OUSD education to hold students accountable for not arriving on time with work complete. Our handbook says there are consequences. I often find the opposite to be true.