Diverse students need diverse teachers
If you want to see the real results of amnesty and illegals, just look at our school system. And they wonder why we have a high rate of teen pregnancy, gang members, prison inmates, crime, meth labs, drugs, social program fraud and abuse, unemployment, single mothers with numerous kids all with different last names, baby droppers-shakers-starvers, student failures and dropouts, closed emergency rooms, overcrowded schools, and a host of other issues. But since we are a sanctuary city, this is our standard. Then there are the writers of articles who call these illiterates- DIVERSE. What a laugh!
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Diverse students need diverse teachers
By Jerrold H. Jensen
02/16/08 00:00:00
Every year, the Fresno Unified School District sends nearly 3,500 high school students out its doors without diplomas. It had 7,297 freshmen in the fall of 2002 but awarded only 3,735 diplomas in the spring of 2006. That is a 49% dropout rate. The raw numbers are publicly available on the Department of Education Web site.
Comparing their freshmen enrollments with actual graduates four years later, the dropout rates were: Mclane High 63%, Fresno High 58%, Roosevelt 56%, Sunnyside 55%, Edison 49%, Hoover 48%, Duncan Poly 29% and Bullard 21%. Some students did move to various alternative schools to graduate. The statewide rate was 33%.
Unfortunately, education insiders seem to be mired in a debate over the definition of the term "dropout." Most outsiders suggest the answer to the problem is two-parent families with a stay-at-home mom to check the homework. It is way too late for that solution.
Smaller schools, diverse teachers
Perhaps Fresno Unified should consider two unconventional approaches. First, increase diversity in the teaching ranks. Second, consider splitting off the high schools into a separate district that can provide relentless focus on keeping kids in school.
Does race matter in teaching? I don't know. But every one of us can probably identify teachers who were role models for us -- the odds are they looked and sounded a lot like us, too. No doubt many teachers can inspire the children of immigrants, but perhaps we don't have enough of them. Perhaps what we really need are more teachers who were, themselves, children of immigrants, who can relate to and motivate the kids we are losing.
Consider for a moment the enormous demographic shift taking place in Fresno Unified. Taking two snapshots in time, 1996 and 2006, the racial makeup of Fresno Unified's first-grade class has gone from 46% to 64% Hispanic, 20% to 13% white, 13% to 11% African American and 20% to 11% Asian. By comparison, their teachers are 69% white, 19% Hispanic, 6% Asian and 4% African American. It would be hard to find any public or private organization in our state with a similar ethnic mismatch between employees and its customers.
There are enormous differences in the success rates of different racial groups, and it is reasonable to ask if Fresno Unified will soon resemble Los Angeles Unified School District, which has a 59% dropout rate. More than 66% of their Hispanic male students and 61% of black male students don't even return for the senior year. Los Angeles Unified has almost 12% of all the students in the state and is perhaps the most colossal failure of a public institution we'll ever see. If Fresno Unified cannot improve the retention of Hispanic and black students, its overall dropout rate will inevitably move toward 60%.
Civic leaders also need to ask if Fresno Unified, the fourth largest district in the state, is simply unmanageable with 77,000 students. There are dozens of cities where the high schools are set up in a separate district. Along with their calculated 2006 dropout rates, they include: Merced 21%, Modesto 32%, Kern (Bakersfield) 31%, Tulare 26%, Hanford 30%, Oxnard 35% and Fullerton 41%, among others.
A separate Fresno High School District of about 23,000 high school students would acutely feel the loss of more than $10,000 in state funding for every single dropout. There would likely be relentless focus on keeping kids in school.
More dropouts, more crime
As Fresno Police Chief Jerry Dyer recently noted, there is a direct correlation between high school dropouts and crime. With their high schools already labeled as dropout factories, it is fair for surrounding communities to ask Fresno if their school system has simply become an incubator of uneducated young people ripe for criminal activity throughout the Valley.
Furthermore, with enrollment plummeting, Fresno Unified is a textbook example of suburban flight, as families leave for school districts that work. Losing these parents who care probably saps the will to fix the system from within. Their first-grade class in 2001 had 6,876 students, but by the time they reached the sixth grade in 2006, more than 750 kids had left for other districts, with white students leading the parade to the exits.
Our kids throughout the Valley, especially in Fresno, need to find ways to diplomas that lead to decent jobs. We cannot expect teachers, who often work in difficult classroom environments, to do the job we once expected of parents. Perhaps it is time to look outside the conventional education box for ethnic and structural solutions to the problem.
Jerrold H. Jensen of Visalia is a retired regional sales manager, who served on the Visalia Unified School District’s bond oversight committee.
http://www.fresnobee.com/opinion/valley ... 01663.html
Re: Diverse students need diverse teachers
Quote:
Originally Posted by AF
If you want to see the real results of amnesty and illegals, just look at our school system. And they wonder why we have a high rate of teen pregnancy, gang members, prison inmates, crime, meth labs, drugs, social program fraud and abuse, unemployment, single mothers with numerous kids all with different last names, baby droppers-shakers-starvers, student failures and dropouts, closed emergency rooms, overcrowded schools, and a host of other issues. But since we are a sanctuary city, this is our standard. Then there are the writers of articles who call these illiterates- DIVERSE. What a laugh!
______________________________________________
Quote:
Diverse students need diverse teachers
Does race matter in teaching? I don't know. But every one of us can probably identify teachers who were role models for us -- the odds are they looked and sounded a lot like us, too.
When I was six years old I felt I had about as much in common with my sixty year old bespectacled white teacher as I did a mummy. Yet, somehow, I managed to learn to add and subtract. The obstacles to learning reside mostly outside the schools---within homes and the larger culture, although we continue perpetuating the charade that more money and "better" teachers are the panacea. It's called taking the path of least resistance.
Re: Diverse students need diverse teachers
Quote:
Originally Posted by AF
Diverse students need diverse teachers
By Jerrold H. Jensen
02/16/08 00:00:00
Does race matter in teaching? I don't know. But every one of us can probably identify teachers who were role models for us -- the odds are they looked and sounded a lot like us, too. No doubt many teachers can inspire the children of immigrants, but perhaps we don't have enough of them. Perhaps what we really need are more teachers who were, themselves, children of immigrants, who can relate to and motivate the kids we are losing.
This is the biggest bunch of racist BS I have seen. Diverse teachers? I had NO teachers who were roll models for me. They were teachers. I had two perfectly good roll models at home called parents. My parents pushed me to succeed and do well in school. Something "immigrant parents" don't seem to do.
Teaching in a school probably just like the one in Fresno I see the problem every day. When we grew up our parents sacrificed to make sure that we had a better chance in life that they had. All they wanted was for us to grow up and have more opportunities.
Most all of the so called "immigrant" children I teach every day have parents with a completely different attitude. They feel if it was good enough for them it is damn sure good enough for their kids. None of them had and education and did just fine so why should their kids worry about an education. Even more of them seem to have kids only so they can drop out of school and go to work and help put material things in the house.
Diversity in teaching? Those of us who teach don't see color, we see butts in the chairs and hope they came ready to learn. It doesn't matter what color a teacher is or where they came from as long as the kid is there to learn.
In these cases, most of the kids come to school 1-2 hours late, bring no materials to learn with and wouldn't do home work if you begged them. The miss Monday, like papa missed work. The miss Friday because they learned to miss from papa or momma. They also take off every time they don't feel like working or papa needs them to help him with his work.
At the school I work at, we have about 85, 16-18 year old girls who are in our pregnancy related services. This is all that are allowed because
the district only provides one teacher. We probably have triple that who are not getting the services. Now, what happened to parenting? Why are so many of these little girls allowed to get pregnant and nothing is done. Usually the boy responsible moves in with the parents of the girl he knocked up. One happy family......only because in the Mexican culture getting pregnant at this age by even an adult, is ok.
These loud mouth liberal racists can whine all they want about diversity. This is a completely different culture we are dealing with and without help from home no amount of diversity is going to change anything.
How many times have I seen Mexican parents called to a teacher meeting and during this meeting the child is allowed to yell at the teacher and use profanity. All while the parent does nothing. Obviously this culture we deal with every day does not share the same ethics and values we have and this problem not going to change.
