Looking Through Another Glass

The links below sound inviting to me.

I don't know enough about any hidden agendas that may be behind this plan, so I am not saying I endorse it.

I am planning another IBEA post that deals with the word "trust".

How many of us trust the system after it wasn't "friendly or inviting?"


What about a whole community that finds the system not friendly or inviting, except in the terms of the linked-to author:

"The usual way schools try to get parents involved is by saying, “Come to us and we’ll teach you what to do.” That’s an educator’s natural response, but it can come off as lecturing or preaching. It can sound condescending."

My words for condescending are cavalier or arrogance with ignorance.

Think school systems will have this as a check-mark for parental engagement?





Florida & Tampa Bay schools blog - The Gradebook:

"Another group was just very intimidated. Maybe school hadn’t been a friendly or inviting environment for them."

IBEA - Part 5 - Behavior

To paraphrase Don Henly, this is the one that started it all.

In my 5th series of exploring the need for a new federal funding program named the Individuals with Blackness Education Act (IBEA) which would be modeled after the Individuals with Disabilities Education ACT (IDEA), it was the subject of behavior that spawned the concept.

Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Do highly qualified or better yet, highly effective teachers avoid schools with a large populations of minority students?

Then, there were these statements:

Euclid said...
The more interesting question which the study did not seem to ask is:
Were the effective teachers in Charlotte/Mecklinburg compensated based on the performance of their students? If so then their departure may have been to avoid losing bonus money because of the expected poor performance of the minority students. Which clearly indicates that the promise of additional teacher compensation tied to student performance probably does not promote effective teaching. Even here in Florida we reward A schools with additional compensation which is usually distributed to the staff. However, the schools with large minority populations struggle to earn A's. The "top teacher flight" might be something that SDHC wants to look hard at as we proceed toward rewarding "effective teachers" with additional compensation a la the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Goader said...
I don’t think teachers leave or avoid schools because of race or school grades. They do so because of persistent incorrigible behavior problems.

Anonymous said...
Behavioral problems are a huge reason for most teachers! Those "bonuses" aren't a possibility for effective teachers whose students are constantly suspended or worse- those students that are allowed to continually disrupt classrooms. Administration is overwhelmed at these schools. Parents do NOT care in many instances!

Anonymous said...
Let me see if I have this correct? As an effective teacher I can work at a school with a positive environment and students that are more likely to meet the benchmarks that determine my bonuses, including AP, with fewer behavior problems, and get paid on the same scale as my counterpart that is banging their head against the wall everyday at an at-risk school. Did I mention the overabundance of meetings and trainings required at these "problem" schools? hhhmmm...NO THANKS!!

July 8, 2009 8:12 PM
Anonymous said...
Until students of all ethnicities and backgrounds come to school with appropriate attitudes and behavior, it will be so.

July 10, 2009 9:33 AM
Anonymous said...
OK-- I read the piece on D/schools that have heavy minority populations. Until the powers that be get it--that they can workshop/mentor teachers to insanity, change admin time and time again, build fabulous new building equipped with the newest tech, yet not work with parents and students in those schools--NOTHING will change.

*******************

Substitute the word "minority" for "students with disabilities".

Look at how behavior is addressed in the IDEA: Regulations: Part 300 / E / 300.530


Sec. 300.530 Authority of school personnel.

e) Manifestation determination.

(1) Within 10 school days of any decision to change the placement of a child with a disability because of a violation of a code of student conduct, the LEA, the parent, and relevant members of the child's IEP Team (as determined by the parent and the LEA) must review all relevant information in the student's file, including the child's IEP, any teacher observations, and any relevant information provided by the parents to determine--

(i) If the conduct in question was caused by, or had a direct and substantial relationship to, the child's disability; or

(ii) If the conduct in question was the direct result of the LEA's failure to implement the IEP.

Working backwards, we can throw out .530 e (ii) because no conduct in question is ever, I repeat ever, the direct result of the LEA's failure to implement the IEP.

That leaves us with with .530 e (i). We have all heard that there are double standards of behavior when it comes to students with disabilities. If you haven't heard any of these anecdotal stories, I can provide you with some. One concrete example that most should comprehend would be where two kids are running down the hall and a figure of authority, say an SRO, yells "Stop!". Both kids keep running. Now, not only can they be charged with disorderly conduct, they can be charged with non-compliance or disobeying an order, attempt to escape arrest or whatever. However, after the handcuffed kids have been hauled off to the local detention center, someone finally states that one of the two kids is deaf.

Oh, shit. Try overturning an administrative decision.

I actually witnessed a scene that had a lot of similarities to this tale. Since I was there, the results were a little tamer.

In my example, everything past the charge of running would and should be considered a manisfestation of the deaf kid's disability. Despite how pissed off the authority figure is that both kids openly and outrightly challenged their authority, it doesn't change the fact that the deaf kid could not hear the command. Consequences for running, assuming the deaf kid had the cognitive ability to understand that there is no running in the halls, would be appropriate as it would not be considered a manisfestation of his disabilty.

From the comments I have been reading (see previous series on IBEA) it appears that schools with high minorities have a high incidence of violations of code of conduct. From what I am gathering, the kids and the parents don't know how to behave or don't care, and the administration is afraid to back up the teacher's request for intervention of repeated and repeated and repeated violations of the code of student conduct.


Within IDEA, if the parent doesn't know how to deal with their kid, and how many do, guess what?

Regulations:

Part 300 / A / 300.34

(8)

(iii) Helping parents to acquire the necessary skills that will allow them to support the implementation of their child's IEP or IFSP.

Double Oh shit. According to 300.34 8 (iii), it's not PC to bash parents of kids with disabilities openly, and it looks like the school system has an affirmative action to help parents, even the parents who are told they are in denial, and they should leave the education to the professionals and especially those that are told that the professionals know more about the kid's disability than the parent.

Therefore, it seems reasonable me that the federal government needs to step in and develop the IBEA.

If it worked for overcoming the obstacles for families that had kids born with disabilities, it should work for families that had kids born with blackness.

IBEA - Part 4 - School Systems Have Been There - Done That

My idea for the Individuals With Blackness Education Act (IBEA) follows the same thinking that public schools systems have toward the Individuals With Disabilities ACT (IDEA).



Check out the public comments on these two links.


Breakthrough-in-legal-dispute-over-black-students-in-pinellas



New Gibbs High principal vows to take the Pinellas school from an "F" to a "B" - St. Petersburg Times

Then, put on your comprehension hat and check out this link:
Over-Identification of Students of Color in Special Education:
A Critical Overview


Chew through the statistics and implications of same. Don't stop in the middle after assuming you get the gist of the opening pages. Since 1975, when our professional public school systems were forced to try to educate students with disabilities, some 20 years after they were forced to try to educate black students, school systems have over-identified students with blackness as special-ed students and under-identified students with blackness as gifted.

Think about the numbers of students who have been mislabled and "taught" on a false premise. How does one develop a specialized set of instructions designed to meet the individualized needs of a student with a disability when the disability does not exist. Yet, I dare say that the number of appropriate individualized education programs designed every year are deemed 100% appropriate.

What may be missing in the discussion about why the black population is not measuring up to current public education and standards may be based on the fact that the public education system does not know how to accurately evaluate, and therefore teach, black students.


What may be of more importance is that the prejudice of the system actually creates or fosters low expectations and creates or fosters low outcomes for black students. Thousands of parents yearly are told, by professional educators of exceptional ed students, that, when confronted with evaluation results that indicate the student's need for special education services, that the parents are "in denial" if they disagree with the findings. Few should doubt the arrogance of the public school system.

If the school system has been wrong for so long regarding special education and black students, what leaves us to believe that they are right regarding regular education for black students?

IBEA - Part 3 - Pinellas County May Be The Pilot Program

In my third missive regarding my proposed Individuals with Blackness Education act, I may have found a pilot program.

Florida & Tampa Bay schools blog - The Gradebook:

"Breakthrough in legal dispute over black students in Pinellas"

If you read the memorandum, I think you will find that it mimics the IDEA fairly well. Similar to the development of PL 94-142 for kids with disabilities, the memorandum claims that the school system did not adequately meet the needs of kids with blackness.

Similar to IDEA, the memorandum covers funding issues and the need for specific educational goals and, of course, increased tracking systems. Special Education teachers are familiar with the increased paperwork that comes along with the federal money.

This squabble between the Pinellas County Schools and the students with blackness has been going on for a very long time. Perhaps Pinellas could lead the way to another set of laws that mandates how school systems should meet the needs of a specific set of kids.

IBEA - Building The Legacy of IBEA 2009 -Part 2 - Manisfestations of Blackness

I keep reading in the local blogs that blackness is the reason that a lot of students' behavior interferes with their, or their peer's, access to their curriculum.

This is my second post on the the need for the development of The Individuals With Blackness Eduation Act" (IBEA).

As all professional teachers and administrators know, under the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act, students who are "covered" under IDEA are supposed to be afforded what is widely and well understood as procedural safeguards. The Procedural Safeguards notice, which all professional teachers and administrators are trained in, contains information in the following areas:

IDEA - Building The Legacy of IDEA 2004

After reading the comments on the local blogs, it only seems reasonable, in order for the public education system to carry out it's function, that we, as a concerned nation, develop similar procedural safeguards for students with blackness.

Note: Anyone reading this comment must read the other posts to put this concept in the proper perspective related to the pervasive opinion that blackness is the root problem of our education system.

IBEA - Building The Legacy of IBEA 2009 -Part 1

I've been thinking.

Be it based on race or be it based on disabilities, try this out.

Recently, I have been reading the local blogs regarding the issues related to schools where a minority (black students) is a majority. One postulation is that where the minority is a majority, education sucks.

Along with that postulation, there appears to be an exodus of 'effective teachers from these sites of majority minorities. There is an insinuation that the exodus of 'effective teachers' is composed of a majority of white teachers, a white-teacher-flight, so to speak. The assumption is that this exodus is based on race.

Another postulation is that the exodus of these 'effective teachers' is not based on race, but rather the exodus is based on a flight from dealing with the disruptive behaviors of the majority minority.

This exodus of teachers and reaction to disruptive behavior of minorities (black students) is all too familiar to families with children with disabilities.

This will be the first of a proposed series to explore this issue.

While waiting for the next post, I ask that the readers contemplate the need for developing the following federal law:

"The Individuals With Blackness Education Act".


For the purposes of this segment, school systems could adopt the language of the current IDEA regarding "highly qualified teachers" and apply it to the proposed IBEA.

More About Isolated Incidents

I have written before about how the public school system is blinded by numbers. I submit that that is why "they" like the phrase "isolated incident", because, in their mind, it minimizes the conflict.

Isolated incidents and insignificant percentages sound great, until it happens to you.

Here are the numbers provided by The Gradebook:

Hillsborough: Of 12,887 classroom teachers, 6,709 were rated Outstanding (52.1 percent), 6,088 were rated Satisfactory (47.2 percent), 62 were rated Needs Improvement (0.5 percent) and 28 were rated Unsatisfactory (0.2 percent).

Redisni sounds like they are an "insider" - wonder what will happen to him/her when they are traced down.

"The improbable numbers reinforce the old say "there are lies, big lies and then there are statistics. Administrators like to use statistical results to support their progress and planning, but this time the numbers came back to bite them.

By the way, those 28 low performing teachers from Hillsborough probably came from my school. Since those teachers were purged from the school, can Hillsborough now boast a 100% satisfactory+ rate?

Posted by: redisni | July 08, 2009 at 04:28 PM "

The public, and school employees simply have to trust the numbers.

How many thousands of students and parents are effected by those 28 teachers for the years that those teachers are there? How many of these students and parents will eventually turn against the system after their complaints are ignored? How many borderline students that may have been helped with their communication skills will instead end up being identified as what is wrong with the education system. We know the school system can't make a good salad with wilted lettuce and rotten tomatoes. Throw in some Po Boys and some Mexican jumping beans, and the system's production suffers.

But the numbers look good. Damn near 100% is something that damn near 100% of the people will believe.