Apparently, according to a story in Monday's edition, they would still be scratching their heads and puzzling over why so many students fail the state English language arts exit exam! [See Exam Illustrates Literacy Hurdles.] It seems that "two-thirds of the Charleston County high school students who flunked the state English language arts exit exam entered high school unable to read better than a fourth-grader."
In fact, according to the article,
"Of the 447 students who failed, officials could find the eighth-grade reading scores for 329 students. More than 30 percent of those students read on a fourth-grade level, while 20 percent read on a third-grade level. Twenty percent were either on a beginner, kindergarten, first- or second-grade reading level. Only 3 percent of the students who failed read on a ninth-grade level or better."Ask yourself this question: how did more than 60 students failing the exit exam get through high school (presumably passing their English classes) when their eighth-grade reading scores showed that they "were either on a beginner, kindergarten, first- or second-grade reading level."
Scary, isn't it?
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15 comments:
Gee, wouldn't it be nice if all parents would put their kids to bed every night by reading bed time stories to them. Not going to happen. It never did and never will. There have always been kids whose parents have been less than perfect, or worse. A lack of parent participation doesn't cause a school system to fail. It just makes success a little harder, but not impossible by a long shot.
I'm tired of hearing the excuses. Kids need to learn. Kids can learn. Kids will learn. If only those in charge (not just parents) would stop making excuses. We pay these experts how much to tell us this? They're telling us it's the parents' fault that Johnny is in high school but still can't read beyond 4th grade!
So what if the parents aren't doing what they should be doing? We still have to live with the results, unless the rest of us start doing something to change the way things are. There are too many apologists for for failed public education systems and the well paid people who run them who are looking for scapegoats. Sorry, but McGinley is one of the worst. If it's not the parents who are preventing them from learning, it's the buildings that are scaring them to death.
There's nothing more descriminatory than writing off kids before they are out of kindergarten. Sounds like bigotry of the worst sort. We don't need to import outsiders to do this for us. Nothing can be more disgusting than a so-called professional who wraps her bigotry with edu-speak. And she thinks teaching to the test (exit exams) will solve the problem. Maybe for her by moving her statistics out the door. But what about the long term prospects for these kids she left behind at story time twelve years earlier?
Someone needs to shake McGinley. These aren't stupid kids, but their current situation is the direct the result of a system which neglected the most basic and fundamental educational needs. I'm even less impressed that those who are responsible now seek to blame others for having failed those very same kids placed in their care a half dozen or more years before. McGinley is no hero and the P&C is providing the rest of us no service by tossing McGinley so many softballs.
Taxpayers should be outraged by this. Good parents have long felt betrayed for many of the same reasons. Kids eventually discover they've been robbed.
If only we could be so lucky, McGinley and the crowd at CCSD headquarters might learn to feel some of our pain, by becoming personally and individually aquainted with unemployment...soon. It would be poetic justice for their having been paid so well while so many kids on their watch still can't read.
Well said Anonymous 8:41
Some folks need to do some research...
A child's ability to read has a window between 3 (really, birth) and approximately 7 years old. Any time after that, it is a slow process, the child will have a difficult time picking it up, and will learn to read at a progressively slower rate. This is why remedial programs are needed, unfortunately, however they are largely ineffective because of established brain patterns.
Since parents are in charge of their own children from birth until 5 years of age, that means parents have 5/7th of the usable time to set the roots of reading.
This is why socio-economics plays a large part in a child's ability to read. Children from middle to high income households are more likely to have been read to, exposed to 10X the number of words by age 5 (7000:700 on average), and provided with books before school.
But it's the schools, of course...Make sure none of the responsibility is given to parents
Of course the parents have a major responsibility. Even though everyone agrees on that, it doesn't solve the problem. There are plenty of lousy parents out there. We can force only minor changes in them; the children still need to learn to read, and school is the place to do it. "Established brain patterns" as an excuse is throwing in the towel--and all of society suffers the consequences.
Then enlighten us Babbie......
You accuse some of throwing in the towel yet offer no solution....you are weak.
You are the one who is weak, even writing anonymously. Either you are suggesting that the problem is so difficult that it cannot be solved--and students will continue to enter ninth grade reading like kindergarteners, or you are hinting that these children must be taken away from their horrible parents and raised by the government. Which is it, anonymous?
No one is throwing in the towel Babbie, except those who continue to withdraw their children from "failing" schools because a letter comes in the mail saying that a school only made 16 of 19 AYP goals, or they deem a school failing based on test scores that may or may not meaasure the worth of a school, rather than continuing to do the research about all aspects of the school before doing so.
There are successful schools out there that see decreases in student performance measures because of mass outfluxes of students who may have shown improvements or high performance in metrics due to that very same failing school school.
Maybe you should be one of the open-minded folks who walk into some of the failing public schools, ask questions, see if you can look past the nice and tidy, packaged, Post and Courier or state-issued school report card data, and determine if there is something of value within that school before advocating for parents to make an exodus to charters and private schools.
Ultimately, aren't parents who withdraw their children from these schools "throwing in the towel"...?
As far as anonymity, Babbie, by all means, post using your real name, and maybe others will as well.
Or we can post under an infinitely identifying monikker such as, well, Babbie.
Charters ARE public schools. I advocate that parents make the choices that are available to them to see that their children get a good education. I certainly do not believe that school report cards tell the whole story, else why would I have been against the closing of the five downtown schools last year? You seem to be unable to discover the fine points of agreement or disagreement that you might have with me, and instead choose to attack. You don't like my using the nickname that I've had since I was a baby? Too bad.
Poor Babbie....."you choose to attack." Good lord, that is all that you ever do, the basis of your existence.
Hey anonymous 2:09....great points and very true. Politicians choose the data they want to see and much of it has little reflection on the realities of this system. Always helps to have the "bleacher creatures" crying foul and full of the most recent data to hopefully make thier case.
Very sad.....stay on the porch Babbie...doubt you have the answers anyway, but you sure in the world appear to love listening to yourself....
No, apparently I'm entertaining you.
No, I don't mind you using your monikker at all, Babbie, but it is largely anonymous, just named, "Babbie".
Where we disagree is on the value of charter schools...
A good charter school that is inclusive and has a new and novel way of teaching/instruction has value, such as perhaps the PSA, or the school of Math and Science, or arts infused charters.
What I do not like is how that school gets a free pass in the media (and you, unfortunately) with all that has transpired this year...the removal of the prinicpal, the mini-riot from earlier this year, money issues and possible criminal behavior...
Not sure how these passed your watchful eye...
...mini riot??
As for money issues, Michael Bobby isn't exactly open to answering questions about a financial system that is always crying for more money. Trouble is everything about CCSD's management is a one way conversation. Individual Charter schools are required by law to be open. Not so with CCSD. Imagine what would happen if CCSD were to be subjected to an outside audit like a charter school has to face.
I don't think charter schools are getting a free pass. Not like the one CCSD is getting from the local press. Investigative reporting here is a sometime thing.
Open? Required by law?
The high-profile principal of a Charter School who is paraded in the Post and Courier as a savant is removed from the Math and Science Charter school and there is nary a mention in the Post and Courier?
This is open? Supposedly there were monetary irregularities involved...isn't this my tax money? Don't I have a right to know about the postion and pay cuts at the school?
Where is the honest and open dialogue now?
Charter schools are public schools, right? Therefore they are open to public oversight, right? Not just a portion of the public who are the organizing committee/board, right?
Yeah, right...
Why doesn't the P&C cover such matters? Because it is a cheerleader for CCSD. It doesn't print anything that might affect the real estate market for the middle to upper class.
Wow Babbie, you have to get dizzy jumping on the other side of the fence only to jump back over when convenient.
You have bashed NJM for your "God-like" Colwell for a couple of years....just where are you with this saint?
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