Alright - so LOTS has happened that has been worth a post. But I have 1 hour before I pick up Jillian and this is driving me crazy. So I am posting.
I try very hard not to talk too much about the public school system around here (JCPS) because I do not want to sound judgemental toward those who send their children to publics schools. We have chosen not to send our girls there, and I do not want to come across sounding elitist - or whatever - about that decision. But this is my blog so I get to say whatever I want.
About a month ago, I got so ticked off about a quick news story concerning the school board needing to have a session regarding the budget. They were having to create at least twenty new bus routes for next year to meet this new goal : No child would have to ride the bus for more the 75 minutes. WHAT ?!?! Where do I even begin? First of all, what the hell kind of goal is that? 75 minutes? they are hoping the possibly no child would be on a bus for more than one hour and 15 minutes? That is just totally insane to me. Granted, it is better than the kindergarteners that get off the bus in our neighborhood at 5:30 or later. But it is not a goal to be proud of. It is ridiculous. Secondly, it is proof positive that JCPS had lost site completely of the issues they have created for themselves. The problem is NOT that there are not enough bus routes. MAYBE we should not be bussing children all over creation to send them to school. I pass three public elementary schools on my 20 minute drive to Erin's school. Yet there is a really good chance that she would not attend ANY of them had we chosen public school for her. Most of the buses in our neighborhood do not go to those schools. The more times JCPS tries to fix this, the more convoluted, complicated and absurd the problem gets. It just blows my mind that this is not abundantly clear.
NEXT:
Two weeks ago, standardized testing began across the county. Now anyone who has ever had this conversation with me knows my stand on this issue, and it's another blog entry entirely to discuss it. Let's just say for now I don't like standardized testing. At all. So anyway, all across the county kids in public schools are taking standardized tests to prove what they have learned and how good their schools and teachers are. Schools and teachers can loose funding if their scores are consistently not good enough (
that makes sense - let's take money away from the schools that aren't doing well), teachers can loose their jobs and schools could be closed if students consistently do poorly enough on the tests. So on the Monday of this big testing week, the local news does a peice: "Be sure your kids are eating a healthy breakfast and getting plenty of sleep. It's testing week!" OH MY GOSH!! Are you people serious?! First of all, has the news ever once mentioned before that kids should eat a healthy breakfast and get enough sleep? NOPE - not until testing week! And HELLO?!?! Should kids be eating a healthy breakfast and getting enough sleep BECAUSE it is testing week, or because it is GOOD FOR THEM EVERY SINGLE DAY?!?!? Good freakin' grief.
And then last night, JCPS just sent me over the edge. Really.
A day ago, the superintendent announced that one middle school would be closed based on their consistently poor testing scores (see previous rant.) So the news interviewed a representative of JCPS who clearly thought that this school should stay open. Please understand that this is someone who represents JCPS, who was allowed to talk to the media on the behalf of JCPS. She said that the Frost Middle School has 90% free/reduced lunch kids, many of them are homeless, they come from broken homes. They just can't expect these kids to make the same test scores as kids from other schools.
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
WHAT?! I could barely pick my jaw off the floor. Ok - if I was going to give that quote the very reaches of the benefit of the doubt . . .if the standardized tests do not measure what ALL kids can learn, then OBVIOUSLY they are not an adequate, reliable, appropriate measure for the success or failure of a school.
However, that is not my problem with this statement. My problem is that this statement epitomizes another example of the way JCPS has completely lost site of the CHILDREN it is supposed to be serving. If you serve a population that are facing those kinds of challenges, and you believe that they cannot succeed the way other kids can succeed, than they are absolutely not going to. Of course that school is not 'successful'. It is not expected to be. And it is not just that school, it is the overall attitude that that's how it works that just burns me up.
(The superintendent has since decided that rather than closing the school he would fire a bunch of teachers and the principal. I don't think this really changes my point at all. I just thought I should include it.)
I really don't like to rant and rave about something without coming up with a solution. But this system is too big, and frankly too broken, for me to fix (God grant me the serenity . . .) All I can do is continue to go broke (and let my dad go broke!) sending my children to a school that is not part of this screwed up system.
