The Great Chasm

Jermaine M. Harper
Monique Williams
Engl 1A
1 October 2013

The Great Chasm

Our Bay Area schools are showing mixed scores in academic and program tests resulting in low or no grant amounts to be issued by the Government. The articles stated that many of the Bay Area schools did very well and not so well for a few others. The articles mainly focused on the Academic Performance Index (API) which is based on test attendance and scores. Standard Testing and Reporting (STAR) is four tests which are taken every spring for second grade through eleventh.  School Improvement Grant (SIG) is given to the persistently lowest achieving schools to raise the academic level of their lowest achieving students:
Velasco said that she has invested heavily in technology for Bryant, a school that has 256 students from kindergarten to 5th grade, with money the school received from the federal School Improvement Grant(SIG) funds and Mission Promise Neighborhood funding. With SIG funds, she bought 90 iPads for the school and is in the process of converting the 26 computers in the student computer lab to new iMacs” (Mission Loc@l 3).
The Accountability Progress Report (APR) is California’s accountability system of reports on academic performance and progress. This Accountability Report includes the (API), Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP), Program Improvement (PI) and other accountability report information. The (APR) is the overall report that ensures students to perform at their school level or higher.

When comparing the SF Bay Area schools with that of the schools from Chicago and New York, from the book “Savage Inequalities,” there are great differences in the qualities of the schools:
“Morris High could be a wonderful place, a centerpiece of education, theater, music every kind of richness for poor children. The teachers I've met are good and energized. They seem to love the children, and the kids deserve it. The building mocks their goodness” (Kozol 130).
The book “Savage Inequalities” was completed and printed in 1991 so schools looking like prisons, classes being held in a skating-rink, holes in the roof, inadequate supplies or no lunches being supplied to low-income students; was correct when the book was printed twenty-one years ago. Today many of these problems are worked out or are in the process of being worked out. A few of these problems will literally take years to fix considering the problems have continued on for countless years.
When looking at test progress results it’s obvious that Bay Area schools are progressing much more than the schools. This gap is on a much larger scale considering after twenty-one years test progress reports is still an ongoing problem. In the book (SI) students progress was mentioned as low; reading, writing and mathematics were not at grade level or higher:
“Adding these children to the many dropouts who have never learned to read beyond the grade-school level, we may estimate that nearly half the kindergarten children in Chicago’s public schools will exit school as marginal illiterates” (K 71).
These kindergarten children can not access the proper up to date reading material needed to be proficient due to funding. As in my research finding this gap is enormous in Chicago and New York States in comparison to SF Bay Area schools. Even though the Bay Area has some schools not making progress in standardized tests the two entire states of Chicago and New York schools are making minimal progress in these tests. “Additionally, those two districts along with Oakley and Brentwood retain the "Program Improvement" label that's assigned to those that are failing under the federal No Child Left Behind law“ (East Contra Costa 1). Here are two examples of Bay Area schools not able to make progress due to improper preparation on the schools behalf, to see that these children understand and comprehend the acquired material. These students in the states of Chicago and New York are not being well prepared to comprehend and pass these tests. Theses schools within these states are in need of a major Program Improvement (PI) plan.    

I believe that after twenty-one years progress is being made but in respect to the schools and supplies themselves. The schools all have windows, no holes in the roofs, they do not look like prisons and students are provided with free lunch at the schools. Am I saying that not one school is not experiencing major problems still, No. What I am saying is that many of the past problems have and are being taken care of  within the states of Chicago and New York schools. In some since, there is a cloud with a silver lining bring some hope to these poor low achieving schools.

Works Cited 

"East Contra Costa School Districts Show Mixed Results in State Test Scores." ContraCostaTimes.com.      N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Sept. 2013.
Kozol, Jonathan. Savage Inequalities: Children in America's Schools. New York: Broadway Paperbacks, 2012. N. pag. Print.
"Mission Loc@l." Mission Locl. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Sept. 2013.
"Our Mission." California Department of Education. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Sept. 2013.

Not College material!

Poorly funded High schools lack College potential students so they are educated just enough to work at low paying jobs. The given curriculum does not provide the students to think analytically, no guidance and no realistic awareness. “The children in the group seem not just lacking in, useful information that would help them to achieve their dreams, but, in a far more drastic sense, cut off and disconnected from the outside world” (Kozol 86). These students are set up for disaster at a College or in the real world:

“The reporter looks bewildered by this answer. This teen-age girl, he says, “has no clue that $2,000 a year isn’t enough to survive anywhere in America, not even in her world.” This sad young woman, who already has a baby and is pregnant once again, lives in a truly separate universe of clouded hopes and incomplete cognition. “We are creating an entire generation of incompetents” (K 89).

They brought these people up into the city for lowly work in the past and will continue along that path to be educated for such work only. Until the educational gap in the system is completely fixed, students in theses low-income neighborhoods can anticipate to work at Mac Donald’s flipping burgers for a living. 

Confined Educational System

       The Educational system in its own is a government in the way it’s structured the big guys (wigs) Dean, President the Chancellor to the peons, soldiers the Teachers and all the students at the bottom. The educational system is a one way street with what is taught, how students are taught and confined in there thinking. The students are taught to a standard, confined in the education box system and are taught no more from out of that box:

It does not keep the country free. It does not settle the West. It does not educate. The character            inherent in the American people has done all that has been accomplished; and it would have done somewhat more, if the government had not sometimes got in its way (Thoreau 4).

       We the people have stood up and revolted for our educational rights not the governing institution. Therefore students are not abstract in there thinking since they are taught to not explore from out of the educational box.
       As in Thoreau’s time he saw inequality in the government. We can see the same inequality in our educational system things have not changed enough people have no conscience and are heartless to many inequalities within our society. “It is truly enough said, that a corporation has no conscience; but a corporation of conscientious men is a corporation with a conscience” (5). Its selfishness, people and society are way too concerned about their time, wants and needs to concern themselves in another human beings matters.
       Thoreau was a revolutionary towards the government. We today have activist and revolutionaries marching off to war in battle for education. These are conscientious men selfless enough to concern themselves in someone else’s matter and have stepped out of the educational box. “All men recognize the right of revolution; that is, the right to refuse allegiance to and to resist the government, when its tyranny or its inefficiency are great and unendurable” (6). These are the revolutionist’s that will change inequality and shed light on it so us as a society will not stay blind to it.

Aged Education

            To say the least our educational system is very out of date and needs serious reform and innovation. Cognitively our brains attention span is very limited to less than 10 minutes to learn anything. To sit in on a 50 min or 3 hour class our brains will only retain and get into the first 9 min and 59 seconds of the lecture. After that time span our minds begin to drift to what we will do after the class is over, what other work must I get done besides this class? And I’m hungry what will I eat after this class? In the educational system we have been taught well to memorize and recognize what we have learned but to analyze and break down concepts or analytically think we struggle. It’s a taxing process on the brain it is mentally draining to bring one’s mind that deep into thought. The speed at which one learns is different to person to person as well as from male to females because every brain has a different neuron makeup to it. The larger the brain tissue the Cognitive process within our brain is increased one must practice to master deep thinking and obtain knowledge. A class size greatly affects the ability of a student to learn, the smaller the class the more one on one support and a greater chance given to each student to succeed. Education for anyone will come at the right time and the right place of study. If an individual that has no pleasure or passion within their life education is the number one problem.

The Impediment

The Impediment of Teachers

            Throughout the educational system we need encouraging and positive teachers to produce future social representatives to power and run our nation; and education is the driving force to do that. With disheartened teachers that’s a challenging task for them to implement optimism unto students. Teachers have given up, lost hope for students and even believe it’s just their job, they should not have to care. Without the positivity of teachers push onto students we will have and pessimistic, negative and weak students.

Teachers have given up on students for lack of a support system due to funding cuts on faculty. There is either no or low funding to run a class. “And how can hope be put back into education in situations where it is under threat or close to being banished from the scene?” (Watzlawick 3).  With continued funding cuts year after year it becomes much more challenging to be creative and pass on passion to a student. The students are not capable of change due to inadequate academic supplies. The hope or passion is lost toward students. Teachers are frustrated they themselves have lost hope in the academic system. They can see the students take no interest in the curriculum because the educational system has failed them. The teacher’s time and efforts are not appreciated taking into account the carelessness, hopelessness and absence of the student’s future.

It’s now just a job to some teachers. I do not get paid enough to care and deal with these students’ weighty issues, my check continues to get cut back, some teachers may say. The online article Hope, utopianism and educational renewal touches on why these teachers feel unappreciated; “Certainly teachers in many of our inner-city state comprehensive schools are required to work with the most challenging of pupils, in situations that are often less than ideal, and in circumstances in which they feel their efforts are insufficiently acknowledged and inadequately rewarded” (Watzlawick 2). Some teachers feel that their time and efforts put forth should be financially compensated to show appreciation. A teacher may feel I’m human, I have a family to care for too; with food, clothing, housing and the basic essential needs as well.

If the teachers feels miserable and discouraged that energy or emotions are put onto the students. A teacher given up, losing hope or projecting this is only my job will only hinder students. As stated in The Passion Project article “Feelings are contagious, good or bad. If the teacher feels in his gut that what he is teaching is essential the student will think so too. If the teacher is exploring, so too will the student. If the teacher is learning so too will the student“ (Ontiveros 7). I believe that all engagement starts with the (head), the teacher engaging first with the students, only then will they follow suit.     

Works Cited

                                                                                                  

Ontiveros, Skye. “The Passion Project.” The Passion Project April 13, 2010: 14.

Watzlawick, Paul. “Hope, utopianism and educational renewal.” the encyclopedia of informal education Partial Version (2003): 22. Saturday, 31 August 2013. http://infed.org/mobi/hope-utopianism-and-educational-renewal/.