Thursday, November 29, 2012

How long does it take a student to become proficient?


Mr. Recovery says  the school district is doomed in 2 years if the school district students don’t become proficient in 2 years.

Mr. Recovery will also close schools, fire teachers and staff, and attempt to regain 4.5% of the students lost to charter and private schools (by squeezing them into fewer schools), among other things.

Mr. Recovery says the district is going from a $3.2 million deficit to a $181 million deficit in 5 years? No one has helped me understand that math yet. Mr. Recovery says he wants to restore arts and music right after his boss ignored your school board and awarded a charter school for arts and music. Who’s going to call him out on that one? No one so far based on the comments I read.

Neither a Yes or No vote was going to endear Mr. Recovery to the school board. He hasn’t considered their input up to now and has given no intentions of doing so any time soon.

If a large group of parents stormed the administration building on a regular basis, I bet he’d start paying you and your elected board some attention. But that’s not likely to happen as parents don’t do that type of stuff any more, or they’d rather complain about politics, as displayed in the comment section of previous post.

Mr. Recovery probably never imagined his job would be so easy.

Can we beat him at his own game?

How can we get a bunch of underachieving students up to proficient in 2 years.Step 1: Get rid of all text books in all subjects other than math and readingStep 2: Break the school day into two sections; one for math study and one for reading studyStep 3: Test students daily with practice test just like the ones the state administers. Step 4: Lower the bar to maybe 80% proficient or extend the program to 4 or 5 years.

How to close school buildings to help the school districtStep 1: Don’t sell the buildings to Widener University.Step 2: Sell the buildings to someone who will have to pay real estate taxes. It would be better to sell them at a discounted price to get some money now and receive a steady stream of tax revenue for years to come. Selling to Widener, you get the cash up front and no tax revenue, ever. How to regain 4.5% of the students from charter and private schoolsStep 1: Solicit the non-proficient students and sell them on the new school district campaign to make all students proficient.
Step 2: Cross your fingers and pray.

Somehow, we have to work with the school district who intends to continue to challenge Mr. Recovery and his plan, and confront Mr. Recovery directly to let him know what you want to see happen in the next couple years. All this finger pointing, name calling, and blame does not produce a conversation of solution or action.

Mr. Recovery has had it too easy so far.  

What are YOU going to do about it?

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16 comments:

  1. AnonymousNovember 29, 2012 at 10:00 AM

    You are RIGHT on point with your comments. The people in the city need to look at this more seriously because this will effect them in the future. They say it is abaout the kids but what about them. They are not the main focus it seems to be money as usual. Parents settle to much for a chicken dinner than the real facts. They are blind sided by looks, food, and deception which the Charter Schools are offering. Don't be fooled I use to work there and they have the same problems CUSD has but they just hide them. When they get feed up with a kid they send them back to the district but where can the district send the kids. Charter has something to fall back on but not the district.

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    1. Stefan RootsNovember 29, 2012 at 6:56 PM

      What's you message to Mr. Recovery.?

      Delete
    2. AnonymousNovember 30, 2012 at 5:04 AM

      I agree with your premise that parents need to get involved with demonsrations at the city council meetings. As an educator I believe a 4 year timetable would have been more realistic but it all comes back to this has been a failing system for almost 30 years compared to our neighboring districts and despite the state taking over the district before it did not improve the outcome for the students of CUSD. If you want to attract students back into the district then offer the proficient and advanced kids a chance to attend a magnet school with kids of similar abilities. In the remaining schools group the students according to ability level and add a disciplinary school for the district so that the unruly kids can recieve not only an education but be introduced to mainstream norms and values and then they could return to their school after 90 days of intensive therapy, academic help, and socialization training. Your top school districts like Rose-Tree Media, Wallingford, Sprinfield, and Haverford not only have gifted programs in place, but the adhere to a discipline policy beyond suspending a student but they also recieve more parental support. Finally for the parents who are already fed up with the district let them recieve the allocated per pupil spending for their child to be used at the school of their choice be it a neighboring public school in another district or a private school. The school system is a microcosm of the communityand home enviroment, what happens in the community spills over into the schools, apathy, stealing, disrespect, fighting, lying, poor impulse control. Someone once said at a barber shop i was in that if you really want to improve the school you are going to have to recruit a diferent type of employee to Chester such as Technological, research, finance who live by mainstream norms and values and are more inclined to feel empowered to enforce and support their childs education. Bethelministryonline.org

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    3. Stefan RootsNovember 30, 2012 at 9:34 AM

      We don't have the luxury of a long term solution. News schools are out the question when closing schools is on the table.

      We need a drastic quick fix or the party's over.

      Delete
  2. AnonymousNovember 29, 2012 at 12:45 PM

    Stefan, your research on what you have discovered about the CUSD and Mr. Recovery is what the people of the City need to see. His plan to save the school district from losing more student to the charter system, as well as providing them with a getter education is a hard task that has been placed upon him. He knew what he was getting into before he took the job. However I don't think he had an idea of what he was getting himself into once he got there. Your reader must remember he did not put the school district in this position, it's those that have been there that did. Remember he didn't take or spend the millions of dollars that had been allowed for the fiscal year for the kids, the board did, and how soon we forget.

    Face it the Charter School will continue to capitalize off of THE CUSD ignorance, as soon there will no more CUSD, if they don't get their act together. Bottom line, if they " IF THEY KNEW BETTER, THEY'LL DO BETTER." BY the way my name is Andrew Lash Class of 1981 CHS.

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    1. Stefan RootsNovember 29, 2012 at 6:44 PM

      What do you have to say to Mr. Recovery?

      Delete
    2. AnonymousNovember 29, 2012 at 10:46 PM

      Why did you assume that I did not share anyone Mr. Watkins because I did , I even went a step further I emailed my information and not at the eleventh hour. The burden of proof is not on me , I am not trying to explain my point of view. I would have had public hearings if I planned on not attemding

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  3. AnonymousNovember 29, 2012 at 1:41 PM

    the only thing to SAVE this school district is the PARENTS!!If every parent in the city pulled their child(ren) out of the FOR PROFIT charter school the CUSD would be saved. But as a parent I think about my child safty, edcaution, and the people/teachers or other students around him, taking pride in their education. I don't see that in chester. My child attends a charter school for arts and I went to one of CUSD public meeting and about 13 parents were there. If their were a basketball game before the public meetings would more city parents take part????? wake up parents the state is coming I would Have to agree with the school broad voting "NO" to the plan!!! You CANNOT FIX SOMETHING IN 2 YEARS THAT HAVE BEEN BROKE FOR 20 YEARS.

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    1. Stefan RootsNovember 29, 2012 at 1:55 PM

      Folk don't come out to basketball games either. Sometimes they dont even pull out all the bleachers.

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  4. AnonymousNovember 29, 2012 at 6:02 PM

    I am not totally in agreement with the plan, however, it is my belief that all members of the School Board should have been present to hear what was being presented to the Public . If the Board did not agree with the process, The Board should have placed that on the record from the beginning and requested clarity. Now in the final hour, The board wants to question the process after it was outlined and never challenged. The issue of AYP, Please note, refer to the Safe Harbor Provison of 2012 Pa Accountability Workbook that clearly states that we must reduce the number of students not proficient from previous year by 10%,

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    1. Stefan RootsNovember 29, 2012 at 6:43 PM

      Ok. And what do you have to share with Mr. Recovery?

      Delete
  5. AnonymousNovember 29, 2012 at 6:41 PM

    No. Game is set.

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  6. AnonymousNovember 29, 2012 at 11:48 PM

    Stefan what i have to say to Mr. Recovery is simple, come up with a plan that makes sense, that is realistic and obtainable. Also find ways to get grant money, that is out there for free and connect with non profit organizations with a 501.c3 status, that can work with the school system in creating school programs during the school hours for those in need of extra help in the courses that they are falling short on. Again it's free money from the government that out there and it waiting to be used. It will create jobs, while cutting jobs at the same time. How you ask, Simple, you lay off a few teachers and then you rehire them under the non profit organization, in which they can be paid with grant money, which is free money. that's just one of many ways to help solve this issue. Also as far as the basketball games, I'm sure if it's a good team that the clippers are playing, they'll show. Now a boring games that pose no threat, I can see it being half empty.

    Andrew Lash Class of 81

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    1. Stefan RootsNovember 30, 2012 at 9:45 AM

      Sounds good. Part of Mr. Recovery's solution is to solicit outside funding. Grants are great once you get the money but that wouldn't be my first choice only because the application process can take a long time and you can't count on the money until you are approved. And then you have to do it all over again in hopes of renewing a grant.

      The basketball game attendance logic is something I'll never understand. You'd think the community would come out in droves to see your nationally ranked team cream the opposition. Not here. We only come out when our team has a better chance of losing to one of the better teams in the area.

      Yet, the football will likely lose most of their games and no one goes to see them.

      On the other hand, I'm kinda glad the crowds aren't large at CHS home basketball games because we do a terrible job handling a big crowd.

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  7. dan lewisNovember 30, 2012 at 8:45 AM

    question? what are the charter school doing to increase enrollment...that makes the chester upland school
    lose students??? what are they offering that the 'CUSD' can't??

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