Wake Superior Court Judge Howard Manning seems satisfied with what state proposes to do in a Leandro case intervention in Halifax County, but has not signed off on a consent order. That's because while the Halifax County school board approved and committed to the plan Monday night and state public schools CEO Bill Harrison backs it, the plan won't go before the State Board of Education until next week. Deputy NC Attorney General Tom Ziko said in court Wednesday that he will bring the proposed consent order to Manning for his signature after the board approves it.
The agreement compels the state to see to it that the main findings of the Leandro Supreme Court decision -- that every school have a competent principal, every classroom have an effective teacher and every school must have the resources it needs so that every child has the opportunity to get a sound basic education -- will be carried out in Halifax County. This would be the first time the state has directly intervened in a failing school district.
Halifax county has a high rate of poverty, with more than 80 percent of its students getting free or reduced-price lunches, and 60 percent of its students are low-performing.
The intervention plan calls for the state to intervene in the Halifax schools for three years, requiring teacher and principal training, new teacher effectiveness standards, and ongoing-coaching and monitoring by a team of 12 coaches who will help teachers keep their classroom skills up to par. The plan also includes accountability measures so that teachers or administrators who don't measure up "will have to exit the system," said schools intervention specialist Pat Ashley.
Manning pressed Ashley and Ziko to recognize that schools are not about adults. It's about children, he said, who are being deprived of the right to a sound education. Manning recounted his long experience with the Leandro lawsuit, working his way through his initial determination that high schools were failing, then that math preparation in middle schools was the problem, and finally his recognition that students in elementary school simply were not getting the fundamental training they need in reading and math. "If you don't get the third grade preparation to read or to do math," he said, those students would never be able to perform adequately. "This is the place we're failing these children," Manning said.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
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7 comments:
Far too many NC schools and universities are focused on sports titles and not education.
Kudos to Judge Manning for speaking up for children of proverty and helding accountable for educating all children.
Judging got it right, too many times School Board members and peronnel of central office will hire their family and friends to teach poor children but would not allow that same person to teach their own child.
The Judge should consider ordering the children of school board members,superintendents and other central office personnel enroll their child in a low performing school within there district. This problem would be solved within weeks not years....lol
Who speaks up for the productive class?
Dont blame teachers. Teachers are all trained in the same colleges and universities and required to pass the same certifications whether they teach in rich or poor schools.
When will NC and the nation understand that not every student needs to go to college?
Where are all the high schools who teach skilled professions or trades?
Why force students teachers schools in academic subjects they will never use wasting taxpayers billions?
Basic reading writing and math is all learned in the first 9 yrs K-8 anyway.
Why not begin building or converting 2 year high schools that only teach skilled trades such as
HVAC, plumbing, construction. mechanics, trucking, electrician, etc?
Wouldnt that be more valuable for life for students instead of drumming an excess of academics into their brain wasting time and money?
It would also allow for students gifted for academics to be apart from those who arent.
Some idiots think every kid has to be a white collared professional and it is somehow lower class to be a skilled blue collar professional when in fact blue collar skills pay far more than white collar office jobs.
Re-prioritize. Dont force students to learn excess academics who are not cut out for it. The natural selection process will take care of itself.
Diff strokes for diff folks. NC and America wastes far too many trillions trying to make students into something are not.
There is equal honor in a skilled blue collar profession as in a white collar profession.
America always needs skilled workers to build or repair homes, build or repair cars, do the electrical work, do the plumbing work and repairs, install or repair heat and ac, drive trucks, etc.
As America with an annual budget of 3.5 trillion while only taking in 1.5 trillion in taxes going deeper into debt by the mega trillions and having to downshift its standard of living due to the economic crisis, NC needs to reevaluate its education process and begin training students for life professions in the skilled trade area in industrial high schools. This is long overdue and could be a model for the nation.
While all schools academic and industrial still need fitness and health plus sports they need to develop new strategies. Obama is wrongly focused on trying to make every student a white collar office worker and will waste more trillions barking up the wrong tree. This does not help students.
Since he claims he wants a revolution change in America then why not change the education process to equalize blue and white collar professions to be taught in schools nationwide?
It's all about Judge Manning. This guy or any other bureaucrat don't care about you. They only care about power and control.
I have children and work in a poverty ridden county here in North Carolina and I have to say that the criticism these teachers and schools are receiving from Judge Manning. I see teachers who are working themselves to exhaustion trying to teach these kids. Most of the problem lies with not having support from parents. We have alot of students that are allowed to stay up late at night and then they want to come to school to sleep. I've seen teachers cursed out and treatened just because they're trying to get students to participate in the class. There are alot of times the teachers have a difficult job of trying to teach the curriculum when they have alot of discipline problems to deal with. Whenever some of these parents are told about their children's behavior, they let you know that they really don't care (I have actually seen parents defend their children's behavior). When you have these problems to deal with, not a great deal of learning is going to happen. The whole school suffers for it. How about leaving the teachers alone or at least give them the support that they need. When are some of these parents going to be held accountable? I guarantee you when that happens, you'll see drastic changes in the test scores.
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