Thread: TX- Principal places poor rating blame on Hispanic students

DISD principal places poor rating blame on Hispanic students

12:04 AM CDT on Thursday, July 16, 2009

By DAVID SCHECHTER


DALLAS - After her students failed the TAKS test, a principal in the Dallas Independent School District pinned the failure on Hispanic students at the school.

Once again, Jack Lowe Senior Elementary was rated "Academically Unacceptable."

Principal Connie Wallace sent out a newsletter to encourage her staff after the news was announced. However, she also wrote something that has spurred criticism from the Hispanic community. In the letter, Wallace wrote the poor rating "is a result of the underperformance of our Hispanic students in Science."

"The initial reaction was 'wow,'" said Beatrice Alba Martinez, director of the North Texas Chapter of LULAC, a Hispanic rights group.

"You should never target students, and I felt like the students were being targeted," she said.

A spokesperson for the school district would not say if it was inappropriate to single out Hispanic students, but a statement was issued.

"The language in question was part of an internal newsletter that was intended only for staff at the school," the spokesperson wrote. "The Texas accountability system requires (a breakdown) of scores by student groups."

Martinez said since the principal had that breakdown for the entire student body, she should have shared the performance of all student groups, not just Hispanics.

"It's not indicative of good leadership," she said. "... [The] administrator used poor judgment in what she wrote."

Martinez hopes DISD will use this opportunity to encourage more multi-cultural understanding at the school. The district will not say if this will lead to any punishment for the principal.


E-mail dschechter@wfaa.com


http://www.wfaa.com/sharedcontent/dws/w ... 59d43.html

Martinez hopes DISD will use this opportunity to encourage more multi-cultural understanding at the school. The district will not say if this will lead to any punishment for the principal.

Why should the principal be punished for telling the truth?!??! Our school district , which is multicultural, didn't pass assessmenet tests because black students scored poorly, no one started whining about it. Martinez should spend her time educating these students and their parents, instead of whining.

well isnt it too bad that the TRUTH HURTS Lulac.
go check the numbers by student and look at the scores

How many of these students come from homes where neither parent has an education, even on the elementary level. Parents illiterate in their own native language cannot help kids with their homework, much less in English. The principal was right in pointing out that the group falling behind were Hispanic kids so that problem could be addressed. Teachers cannot do it alone, and with no support at home, and youngsters looking to the rich gang members that are their role models, this may be a very serious problem.

Did not the DISD during the past school year just fire several thousand NON-BILINGUAL teachers in favor of BILINGUAL teachers, sorry I mean “foreign educators"!!!

Not only is the DISD firing NON-BILINGUAL teachers in favor of BILINGUAL teachers it turns out that they are intentionally hiring ILLEGALS as BILINGUAL teachers.

The school principal seems to be telling the truth even though the DISD doesn like the truth. Found the following link that allows a person to compare elem. schools in the same area with DISD Jack Lowe Senior Elementary School with data from the 2007-2008 school year, after you link you can compare based several categories (test scores,teachers,students,ethnicity. Interesting is the English proficiency:

www.greatschools.net

COMPARE JACK LOWE SENIOR ELEMENTARY SCHOOL TO:
Nearby elementary schools
Elementary schools in this district
Elementary schools in Dallas

[i]The ILLEGALS and their Anchors in the Texas School System are so illiterate that “ourâ€

The principal was being honest. IMO if you are illegal, take your kids and get out. If you are legal, learn English and participate in your childs education.

[quote="lccat"]Did not the DISD during the past school year just fire several thousand NON-BILINGUAL teachers in favor of BILINGUAL teachers, sorry I mean “foreign educators"!!!

Not only is the DISD firing NON-BILINGUAL teachers in favor of BILINGUAL teachers it turns out that they are intentionally hiring ILLEGALS as BILINGUAL teachers.

The school principal seems to be telling the truth even though the DISD doesn like the truth. Found the following link that allows a person to compare elem. schools in the same area with DISD Jack Lowe Senior Elementary School with data from the 2007-2008 school year, after you link you can compare based several categories (test scores,teachers,students,ethnicity. Interesting is the English proficiency:

www.greatschools.net

COMPARE JACK LOWE SENIOR ELEMENTARY SCHOOL TO:
Nearby elementary schools
Elementary schools in this district
Elementary schools in Dallas

[i]The ILLEGALS and their Anchors in the Texas School System are so illiterate that “ourâ€

In Texas, every school breaks down the standardized test results by sub-groups (ethnicity, special ed., economically disadvantaged, etc., etc...) you can't keep that type of information a secret. This principal took the bold step to call out (witout naming names) who is keeping that scores down. Embarassing for the school and even more for those parents whos' kids did not handle their business. Science is one of those areas where the scores are lower among minorities. These are possibly the same students who whine that "this is boring", "I don't know this", or "Why do we have to know this?" Guess they will have more time to study when the REPEAT the same grade next year, placing MORE of a burden on teachers who will no doubt have to do EXTRA work to get little jose and juanita on par.