Focus on Education Solutions Aug.31,2010 TuesdayMorningBreakfastForum 1 Focus on Education...

Focus onEducation Solutions

Aug.31,2010 TuesdayMorningBreakfastForum 1


Sarah Stevenson called on Forum participants to identify problems in public education, then offer solutions. Below is the real-time record made during that conversation, with subjects appearing alphabetically, not in the order in which they came up during the discussion.


The Forum is open to the public and 49 people were present during this discussion. To encourage free flow of debate, the policy of the Forum’s website is to identify by name all invited speakers, but not to identify Forum participants when they speak. Thus, no names are attached to comments below.


Curriculum


– Textbooks include lies and omissions.– Teachers need to be educated on black heritage (see work done in NJ schools).


Desegregation


– With exceptions, whites did not want desegregation to succeed, and so we have resegregation.– Blacks had unrealistic expectations: Expecting your enemy to educate you.


Equitable distribution of resources


– Goal should be that every parent would be willing to send their child to a school. – There is not enough money to strategically staff every school that needs it. There are 69 Title 1 schools but 20-some strategically staffed schools.


Force-outof students


– Prime method of forcing children out is through discipline.– Use parent and info training; know due process rights; if they had info, parents could get angry enough to show at school board meetings.– At DTM (discipline team meetings), lawyers barred; could lay people be trained to help parents understand what’s going on?


Homeless Children


– These children belong to us.– Our chiefs have left the village.


How judgescan play role


– Judge recalls asking a teen his life goals. Answer: ‘If I’m alive.’– Judges should ask teens for their gifts. Judges can order meetings with school officials.– Some young people who come before the court have great potential.


– Judges want to have adults to call on as mentors.– Judges should sit in on conferences at schools.– Think about neighborhood reps, court officials.“It is about saving our children.”– “If they see it they can be it.”


ParentUniversity


– Parents need instruction on Parent Education Plans, access to honors class.


ParentalInvolvement


– We have lost community involvement.– Focus on Head Start and Bright Beginnings.– Challenge school board to define diversity.– Taxpayers should challenge officials to do the right thing.


– We gave away control after civil rights movement.– Get parents more involved.– Can’t reach parents through existing structure.


– Need parent education handbook with more data on student achievement.– Young parents have relinquished their monitoring responsibility to system. “I didn’t know that was happening.”


– A lot of parents have tried to be involved but have been beaten down.– EC (exceptional children) system has legal procedures requiring parent involvement.– Teachers: Be innovative. Have a cookout with parents. Parents: Help teachers do what you as parents want for your children.


– Many classrooms have long-term substitutes.– Many parents don’t know how to go to school (how to be effective when they get there). – School officials push students out of school.– Become involved.– Attend meetings, bring parents.– Talk to former CMS employees who have lots to say.


Alternativesto Retention


– Teach all children to read early.


– Can students be retained in kindergarten? Answer: Principal has discretion. [Retention in elementary years is better predictor of dropout than retention in later years.] For the most part, retention doesn’t work. The first year they catch up, fall back later.– Partnership with parent essential to success.


– 2nd retention virtually dooms student to drop out.– Student who is retained needs during the next year a teacher who will reach out and support family. Emotional connection to a caring adult is vital.


SchoolBoard


– Contact other board members.– Put issue in an e-mail and send it to all board members.– Speak at board meetings.


– Would return to at-large school board solve the problems?– Historically, at one point all board members were members of one white Myers Park church.– Has climate changed since then? [No]


– Don’t be afraid to look at it. – We have power that we never had before.Look at different solutions to same problem.


School Closings


– Send letters and e-mails, press conferences, get word out that closings are not what we want. Meeting with Eric Davis Thursday, may say that in 2011 we will find three at-large candidates who are sensitive to African-Americans’ needs.


VocationalEducation


– Improve to end force-outs. [CTE Career & Technical Education]– Create other career tracks.– Strickland feasibility study approved for career and arts training program; then nothing happened. Read “Making the Impossible Possible”


– Could lead to a two-tiered system. That’s how it worked in the old days.– Head of voc ed should report to Guy Chamberlain [Auxiliary Services]– Programs good, but are open only to students in a defined geographic area.– High schools should be citywide.


Wrap-up


– Mayor Foxx collaborating with Ron Leeper on West Charlotte Mentoring Coalition to mentor freshmen.– Education groups should get together.Offer solutions where they need to be offered.


“There is more oppression in the mind of the oppressed than there is in the mind of the oppressor. We suffer from a belief we cannot make progress unless we’re fighting someone, unless we see ourselves as oppressed.We have to will ourselves to power.”





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