Comments on: California’s schools, ranked again

By: rosa rodriguez

rosa rodriguez — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 05:25:47 +0000

j.r no its not a typo’s he was taking AP clasess (Advance Placement clasess). For his hard work and dedication he was awarded full scholaship to university.

Thank you,

Proud Mexican mom

By: J.R.

J.R. — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 19:34:07 +0000

My math may be off but that GPA would have to be 3.75(that’s OK, typo’s happen to everyone).Hats off to you for steering your child in the right direction, you have a right to be pleased.Congratulations to you and your child.

By: charter mom

charter mom — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 18:39:22 +0000

hello, i’m a parent of a student that graduated from AIPHS he is a part of the family since he started the 6 grade recently graduated from the school now attending college out of sate. we ourselves live in the ghetto of Oakland. he graduated with GPA of 4.75. with that said ppl stop blaming poverty and parents teachers get paid to TEACH! not to be making excuses for students and what’s worst underestimating their success… kids can handle hw they have enough energy “TEACH them and they will learn” teach them to make excuses for themselves and they will do that for the rest of their lives.

Example:
Q: why are u using drugs?
A: cause my dad never paid attention to me or my parents were always working and didn’t spend time with me.

excuses are for losers!don’t be afraid to discipline the student, for you are doing him/her a favor she will have a better chance in life.

I thank OCA, AIPCS, and all the schools that have the strength and desire to make a change with our children and youth, god-bless you for all your hard work and dedication.

Proud Mexican mom

By: Teacher

Teacher — Wed, 19 May 2010 22:23:08 +0000

It’s the KIDS and the FAMILIES stupid !

By: Skyline Teacher

Skyline Teacher — Mon, 17 May 2010 18:20:49 +0000

Gordon: Skyline didn’t cancel the senior project, many students are still doing it. What they did was make explicit what was true: It is not mandatory for graduation. At the ceremony, students will receive special recognition (a tassel, their name announced), and it will be in the system with their graduation.

As for AP kids playing cards after the test, that may be bad but it is completely THE NORM at suburban schools. Those kids work insanely hard before the test. If it bothers you so much, lobby the AP national folks to move the tests back to the end of the school year. (disclosure: I have never taught AP).

By: Nextset

Nextset — Mon, 17 May 2010 04:41:07 +0000

Jenna – re your post #22 –

Do you really think that the magical teaching of this school or any school obliterated the gap in racial scoring? Do you think it’s that easy to make everybody the same?

Study the situation a little more. How many “white” students and minority students are involved here? And who are the “black” students – Ethiopians, Nigerians, Mixed marriage Kids, Immigrants?

And you should know from all the stats, the racial gap between Whites and Asians (As well as Blacks and the other groups) is fixed, durable and measurable when you are dealing with large numbers of people over time. If a school has managed to turn in numbers that are off everybody else’s, start looking at why.

Do they know something about educating Blacks/Whites/Asians that no one else has learned, Or are the white (baseline) numbers atypical – or what? Or is at a case of small numbers of people. Schools at military bases run different numbers because the student population of every race is preselected for IQ scoring of the parents (dulls excluded from serving).

Or is this another case where you are trying to use pre-puberty performance as proof that we are all equal? You do know the (cognitive) differences become more pronounced after puberty. You wouldn’t try to pass off childhood stats as evidence of anything, would you?? Is that honest?

If there is a Silver Bullet for the Gap, we’d all like to know. Any attempt to goose learning and performance results in simultaneous gains in the other groups that keep the Gap (test scoring) fixed and stable.

Good Luck with your research. It’s been tried before.

By: Steven Weinberg

Steven Weinberg — Mon, 17 May 2010 00:51:12 +0000

Peter, scores are revised each year to reflect the new rules for the coming school year. This year the revised (base) scores for middle schools went down because the new APIs will include special education students who took the Modified test. Since last year was the first year the Modified middle school tests were given the state did not have a system in place for deciding how many correct would result in which scores, thus the scores of many special ed students were not included in last year’s APIs for middle schools. A year ago the base APIs in middle schools went up because they refigured the year’s before scores without including the special ed students, since they knew this problem would arise.
If these test were really criterion-referenced tests, as the state claims, it wouldn’t be neceassary to see how students did on the test before determining what a passing score would be, so this whole procedure just shows how phony the state testing system is.

By: Gordon Danning

Gordon Danning — Sun, 16 May 2010 17:35:39 +0000

Gee Yu:

When Oakland High had a principal vacancy last year, there were something on the order of 4 applicants, but there were 5 vacancies. We were told that OUSD pays its principals pretty poorly (90K or so, I think). Plus, with small schools there are many more principal positions than back in the day.

By: gee yu

gee yu — Sun, 16 May 2010 17:03:06 +0000

Hey has anyone gone on the ctc license website and checked out the principals for the failing school ther eare a lot of interns and prelim principals who are learning on the job ( 50 out 0f 100 that I saw)… why ? when I when to Oakland schools we had real principals that had admin creds

By: Sharon Higgins

Sharon Higgins — Sun, 16 May 2010 14:16:20 +0000

Yastrezemski: Registered nurses with only associate degrees (ADN) are working in many hospitals and and other settings across the country. I have a B.S. in Nursing but my R.N. sister does not. As you mention, management positions and the more challenging specialty areas will require higher degrees, but a lot of nursing positions at the RN level don’t require a four-year college degree at all. http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos083.htm