"RAS, despite a lot of abuse it takes around these blogs, receives excellent ratings for its ethical, fiscally sound management, and that gives a good base to create an innovative program."I admit it... I often post regarding concepts, beliefs, actions, etc where I see RAS going astray. This is an honest effort to make people aware of various facts, different paradigms, and maybe even to influence the hearts and minds of some people. Besides sadly, conflict increases hits, and hits mean people are reading... If no one reads, how can anyone be informed or influenced??? (ask CNN and FOX News why they only report bad news and scandal???)
One more note: RAS NEVER posts anything from a cold pragmatic fact based perspective. EVERYTHING they post is meant to show the glass half full and to downplay the problems. Or to explain why "those expectations" are unrealistic. The spin they institute is excellent and probably absolutely necessary. They need to do this in order to market themselves and keep morale up. Us bloggers and our affiliated commenters just reserve the right to question some of the spin. The Emperor will stay naked unless some naive person comments. What good will that do when the Emperor gets a severe head cold??? (side note: The SUN papers seem happy to support the opinions of our naked Leader. Is that doing him any good.)
With the above in mind, I agree that I do not express my gratitude to RAS and it's personnel nearly often enough. So, today I will focus on the 95% that I am thankful for and not the 5% that frustrates me... These are the things that keep my family in the 3 RAS schools that we currently attend and support. (ie ZLE, PMS, AHS)
- The majority of the RAS Admin,Staff and Teachers who are simply incredible. They work hard, care for their students, are organized, strive to communicate with Parents, etc.
- The regular and pre-AP/AP programs that allow students to remain challenged in specific subjects at their level.
- A High School that is small enough and has enough activities that most kids can find an activity to take part in.
- Great facilities that have been maintained, updated and are kept clean.
- Schools that are typically safe, and have serious lockdown procedures for when bad uncontrollable things happen.
- The small percentage of Parents that seriously volunteer and give often and deeply. They truly are a God send for our community schools, and help make sure "the extras" are there for the kids.
- The student body that has provided some EXCELLENT friends for my daughters.
- The School Board members who are incredibly dedicated to the District and its students.
- The Parent Portal which allows Parents simple and timely access to the Teacher's and their child's progress/results/records.
- The availability of District information. If they have it and you have the time, you can get it and they will help explain it to you.
20 comments:
You have missed nothing, but neither have you stated anything exceptional. MOST people associated with public education are exactly as you describe-- they care about the kids and are doing their best-- and I include involved parents, school board, administrators and most of all teachers in that list. But as I've said before, good people in a bad system can (and generally do) produce a bad result. Unfortunately, like doctors, "public education professionals" can bury their mistakes, running academically crippled kids right through "the system" to arrive at adulthood unprepared for productive citizenship.
It's hard to complain to "a system" but, if all the people are doing their best, to whom does one complain; who does one fire?
J. Ewing
So, does something have to be exceptional before you feel sincere gratitude for it?
I spent a lot of my life expecting things from many people, businesses, agencies, etc. I believed that they should be obligated to deliver something due to money, morals, obligation, friendship, love, etc.
Which created quite a problem given my extremely high internal and external expectations. I mean who could ever meet my idealistic, perfectionistic and workaholic expectations. And why would I ever feel or express my gratitude if they failed to deliver excellence.
Then I had a simple paradigm change.
I accepted that no one owes me anything, and that I would be truly thankful for all actions that are taken by others that make my life happier or better. These actions don't even have to be successful, as long as someone is trying. And they don't even need to be excellent, as long as it is directionally correct.
This has made me so much happier and improved all of my relationships.
Now does this mean that I have stopped striving for excellence in many places? NO !!!
However, I am much more aware of and thankful or those little steps that are made in the right direction !!!
Any more praises for RAS and Public Schools in general. Remember, you do not need to agree with everything in order to be thankful for something... Otherwise there would be a lot of unhappy marriages out there.
When I am dealing with an individual, I often tell people that I will be satisfied with what is humanly possible for them, whatever that is. You tell me you can't possibly get it done until Thursday, I will thank you and wait until Thursday. Woe be unto you if you don't make Thursday. You have set the expectation and then not delivered.
Dealing with a business or an organization, however, I have a whole different expectation set. I expect them to tell me honestly what, when and how much product or service they are giving me for a specific cost. I would tell corporate sales people that "this is what I want. You give me your best price, one bid only. If the price is within my budget we do business; if not maybe another time."
It's the same with the schools. I entrust my most precious possession, my children, to their care, with the reasonable and rightful expectation that they will be fully educated and, at minimum, that my values will not be contradicted. I also expect that the school system will be reasonable stewards of my tax dollars and spend them only to directly promote the primary objective. ANYTHING ELSE is a cause for criticism and, were this a normal business, I would be looking at competitors. And barring that possibility, I would either scream at the existing supplier until I got satisfaction, enter the business myself, or partner with one of their competitors until they DID come around. I often told our marketing staff that, in a normal competitive marketplace, our customers will not complain about poor service or quality. They will very quietly go down the street to our competitors and we will likely never get them back.
None of that applies to the public schools, because of their effective monopoly on "free" education. Not only that, as government, they can raise prices without so much as a by-your-leave, most of the time, and spend as much as they want on stuff which doesn't directly educate. It's not their fault, many times, but by the same token "good schools" seem to be more a matter of accident than design. I can be thankful for good luck-- like the good luck of finding a good mechanic right where your car breaks down, but I don't thank the mechanic just for being there. I thank him when the job is done well and at a fair price.
I think my attitude works as well as yours. I spent a lot of effort of the years just trying to "manage expectations," because if you don't do that you fail regardless of what you do. The objective was to always "delight" the customer by providing something exceptional-- beyond their normal expectations. The schools /as a whole entity/ just don't seem to give a rip about cost, quality or customer satisfaction, and they have the ability, considering the "product" to hide behind interminable excuses for even the most obvious and dismal failures. I won't thank "the system" anymore than I can find "the system" to complain loudly to its face. Individual teachers, perhaps, or even the occasional exceptional administrator, because they succeed in /spite/ of the system they are in. As I said earlier, most people involved in public ed are doing their best in a poor system. When they are entrusted with my kids, however, (or even YOUR kids) that is nowhere near good enough.
J. Ewing
Thanks for putting out a ray of sunshine in the blogosphere. I've had almost all positive experiences with RAS--admin, staff, teachers, students, other families.
As my kids would tell you, I'm a pretty big proponent of "find your happy"--ie, you can choose to be negative and angry, or you can find success and joy.
When I get too bogged down in some of the negativity, I remember that even if RAS is "average" in the state on some particular test, our state is consistently at the very top of any national ranking. We need to help every kid succeed, but imo things aren't nearly as grim as some would have us believe.
--Annie
FYI... The deletes are just removals of duplicates... Not sure why they are duplicating...
"at minimum, that my values will not be contradicted."
Doesn't it seem a bit unrealistic that your values will not be contradicted given the diverse population of Teachers, each with their unique values?
I thought folks that had this expectation home schooled or went to a parochial private. This way they were more assured that the child would not get exposed to different value sets that may "confuse" them.
As for entrusting my kids to their care, I guess my wife has never delegated away too much of the care... She is very active in the schools, monitors kids progress, monitors teacher quality, enforces the homework, takes action if something goes awry, etc... Of course some may call this coddling, whereas I think this is the Parent's responsibility.
I am always puzzled by some neighbors that complain that the school is not teaching and straightening out their kids. When the parents do not fulfill the parental responsibilities listed above. Instead they rationalize that "the child" needs to learn to be responsible... Of course that is hard to do when the parents refuse to make the effort to role model and teach. And they rationalize that raising the kids is the schools responsibility. (ie that's why I send them...)
As for gratitude and the "find your happy"... Sometimes when I am frustrated and unhappy with something or someone, I have learned to sit down with a piece of paper and a pen. Then I focus on and write down all the things that I appreciate about that person or situation. It typically works wonders... But remember: You must write them down to help them stick with you.
Without this conscious effort, sometimes I find it hard to remember the majority is in great shape, and that only the minority is frustrating. It helps me gain perspective and "Find My Happy".
I hope everyone has a way to find their happy. Life is too short to spend too much time serious and unhappy. Besides, you won't be too much fun to be around.
I should have said that differently. I meant I do not want "our shared values," i.e. the values of the community or "American" values to be contradicted in school. Schools claim they cannot teach values, and they are largely correct. What they CAN do is to model the values we all should share like honesty, hard work and respect for others. Yet some teachers and even whole school districts fail in even this modest task, and actively teach, for example, that this is a racist country, or that we have to use a condom (rather than that the youngsters shouldn't be needing one at all).
There is enough challenge for schools just getting the academic material across to EVERYBODY without throwing in a lot of other distractions. Teach them to read, and maybe they can read the instructions on the condom box for themselves and we don't have to waste class time on it.
I'm also distressed by the cavalier way you dismiss those who are concerned with the denigration of our common value system by the schools, telling "those people" to pay a lot for home, private or parochial schools when they already pay for a public school that is supposed to be for everybody. If that's what you want, fine, then give me my share of the school budget.
It sounds to me like you are happy to let your wife keep the schooling of your kids headed in the right direction, and I assume you are happy that she and your kids are succeeding in that. I'm happy to hear it, too. But I cannot get really happy about your kids' success when I know for an absolute fact that there are many kids in other districts, and some even in yours, who are being crippled for life because the public school system is failing them, individually, and all of us as a society-- the "public"-- in general. I don't see it as an either-or proposition, happy or unhappy, thankful or angry, but rather a clear-eyed vision of what's right and what's not right, who's responsible, who's doing or not doing their job and who's really excelling and deserving of thanks. I usually start my speeches to the school board with some sort of thanks, at least for their dedication and effort, before starting in with the "but...." I am reminded of that old sign posted in so many cubicles, "I can only make one person happy each day, and today ain't your day. Tomorrow isn't looking too good, either." You should always start with making yourself happy. I won't do that by ignoring that there are people abusing kids. It doesn't make me happy to say it, but it makes me unhappy if I don't speak up.
J. Ewing
We should always count our blessings, no doubt about it. It takes 90+% worth of good (I can't quite go 95%) to overcome the rampant complacency. And as is typical, I think maybe 20% of the people supply 80% of that good. But kudos to all.
And I think in our small ways, we bloggers are part of that good. Maybe someone will see a new idea or new way to implement an old idea.
And maybe, just maybe, we can instill some courage to challenge the system from within.
"You read my evaluation. Joey's not ready for 4th grade and you know it. So why are you promoting him anyway or at least putting him through Summer School?"
"Sorry, but I don't see why you think this plan to close the achievement gap will work any better than the last three that failed. We need something tougher, like what the Frostbite Falls schools have been doing."
"I don't like deceiving voters by using this higher government price deflater number than just the CPI we all know."
"Spanish Immersion has had its day. If anything, it's getting in the way now and costing us money. I say, let's phase it out and improve every classroom."
"I think Fred runs a great department over there, but truth is, we can and should outsource it."
But one more thought.
As long as I have no choice but to fund the public schools, it's only fair that we speak, they listen politely and get it all.
J,
The difference as we have discussed before is that I think the schools are 20% responsible for failing the kids and the parents are 80% responsible. Whereas you seem to see the percentages reversed.
In the poor parent example I noted previously, the school and many Teachers have offered special services and programs to the kids if the parents will just signup and get them there. The parents were simply too limited in understanding or lazy to take full advantage of them. Often they turned the services down or did not send in the forms... And they certainly did not follow through at home. On top of it, these folks work part time...(ie no ambition)
The sad part is that the kids now have followed their role models and show absolutely no drive or desire to work or excel.... Imagine an 18 yr old HS grad with no license or job because they just have no internal drive and are not too smart... Now here is the irony, the parents are adamant that the school system failed their kids... Go figure..
Apparently you want the school to be Dad, Mom, Social Worker, Teacher, etc. (ie raise the kids right) Which seems odd given your usual comments.
The reason I interpret your comments this way is that you say that public schools are scarring kids that fail no matter their starting point or support system. Therefore you must want the schools to raise the kids despite the bad influences surrounding them... Sounds like a "Parent" to me.
I just want them to teach academics and model the values you described. I'll focus on holding the non-Parents accountable for truly screwing up the kids, and work to improve the schools.
As for teaching about condoms, sexually transmitted diseases, abstinence, etc. That sounds like a Parent's job.. And since many parents are abdicating their role to the school. I guess the school is now responsible for covering it.
Too bad all Parents don't take the parental responsibilities seriously, it sure would make the schools job easier...
Speed,
The trick is that bloggers need to be positive enough to entice people of different beliefs to read. Otherwise our ability to influence and inform withers. In other words, people need to value and enjoy reading your opinion in order to hear it.
By the way, sorry for distressing you. (ie "cavalier way you dismiss those who are concerned with the denigration of our common value system") Though I am somewhat concerned about America's value shifts, the reality is that we are becoming more diverse and the cultural norms will shift with demographics and time.
Also, I don't know if there have ever been a true set of common values. Though of course most people truly believe the "their values" are the "common values". Us humans are funny that way...
A Southern slave owner in the 1850's certainly felt that his values were common and sound... A real man that dominated his household and wife in the 1950's was assured that those were the common values... Interesting topic for further discussion.
I'll focus on guiding the girl's in developing a solid value set. I hope they look a lot like the Principles to the right. Only time will tell.
"The difference as we have discussed before is that I think the schools are 20% responsible for failing the kids and the parents are 80% responsible. Whereas you seem to see the percentages reversed."
I suppose I could be convinced that the parents are 20% responsible, especially in the "buck stops here" sense, but that's the highest I would go. These are "professional educators" after all, to whom we pay vast sums of money for the promise that they will "educate every child to their full potential." I wonder if my kids are still under that warranty, and if it covers consequential damages. I'm sure I could collect, as could an unacceptably huge number of other parents.
You will also have trouble getting me to believe that schools aren't more accountable because I know of schools-- I'm looking at one of their "report cards" right now-- that do far better with the general run of kids-- including minorities and poor kids-- than does the average public school. In this case, anywhere from 25% to 65% better than the state average, depending on the grade and subject. You can't be 65% better in one school over another and then claim that parents made 80% of the difference. That's my gripe, is that "the best of the worst" is not an acceptable standard of excellence for our schools. And of course only the best schools meet even that standard. When home, charter and private schools routinely outperform the public schools, you have to believe the public schools could do better if they tried.
Government MANDATES that we entrust our kids to the public schools, and forces us to pay double to extricate them from it. That's not right. It's like a used car salesman selling you a fancy car at a fancy price, and then telling you that the engine costs extra-- lots extra.
Back to your original point, I'm not going to pass out the plaudits until I see some district-wide effort at being exceptional, not a Lake Woebegone "a little above average." THEN if the parents aren't stepping up, I'll become concerned about that.
J. Ewing
C'mon J, you big tease... Spill this excellent district's name. I would love to do some demographics vs scores comparisons. If they are as good as you say, I'll start pressing RAS to start replicating whatever they are doing...
As I always teach the girls, study or compete with better performers if you want to get better !!! Studying or playing the incompetent is easier, however you will not learn much or get much better. Besides copying processes and methods is a lot easier than creating them from scratch. (ie replicate and improve whenever possible)
Are you suggesting that RAS should actually COMPETE? If so, you have a hard road ahead, my friend. Since the public schools have enjoyed a monopoly so long and are loathe even to admit to such, they aren't going to compete until it is absolutely forced upon them. They will deny, just as you are doing, that any school could /possibly/ do better than they do because of yada, yada, yada excuse. Sometimes "we" need more money (usually), sometimes lower class size (more money again), sometimes we need more teacher training or days off or more regulation or less regulation or more parental involvement or, sometimes though generally unsaid, to get rid of these poor and minority kids that drag down our averages.
These monopolists like to say they compete with themselves, or with other public schools, and to some degree that is true but it leads to this "best of the worst" level of achievement that just isn't good enough. It's like you say about competing with poor competitors-- you don't learn anything and you don't have to get better.
Our schools MUST get better. They should be out scouring the countryside for better ways of teaching, and for ways to do it at less cost per pupil. They say they do. Have you seen it? I haven't.
J. Ewing
C'mon J, Just give me a District name that almost has it figured out... I'll take it from there.
Nope, not gonna do it, because:
1) The information is "personal" as far as I'm concerned. I don't want the educrats taking potshots at this school because they are making the rest of them look bad.
2) You need to trust me that the data is legit. If you have a simple question or two I can try to answer it for you.
3) I don't want you trying to explain away the results as some kind of oddity or finding excuses for the dismal performance of public schools in general.
4) It's not your job. The public schools claim they are the best thing going, that no one can do better, that they don't need competition to do better, that they are the trained professionals and know more than you, etc. If it were really true, there wouldn't be these discrepancies.
5) If you did succeed in finding an excuse why this school does so well in comparison, I would simply trot out another, and another, and another. You're not going to disprove my theory by inductive proof, because you can't. The field of evidence is too big. You have to go at this deductively or by statistical analysis.
J. Ewing
Oh, come ON. Are you serious, J? You have top secret information about a school that has tremendous success, but you can't/won't talk about it. {eyeroll}
Look, if if bears out statistical analysis, by all means, point it out. We've had interesting conversations about dramatically different education models like the Harlem Children's Zone--I think many of us would be interested in nontraditional systems.
--Annie
This is kind of funny actually...
I spend days, weeks, months and years openly discussing the vices, virtues, successes and failures of my local district. You are happy to join in regarding emphasizing the vices and failures, and then actively use them to support your eccentric theories and broad generalizations.
And yet when I ask you to divulge the name of a successful district that you support and believe in, you say it is too personal and I should trust you. Definitely a bit of irony to say the least.
Now you do realize that my research and comparison would be based on public records that are available to everyone... Nothing personal at all. My rules don't allow it.
By the way, it would not be competition to learn from another district. (ie unless they are next door) It is actually collaboration, where one district shares ideas and learns from their peers.
Well, keep your privacy and secret. Please note though that it lessens your credibility that you will not provide facts to back your opinion.
Have a great week !!! John
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