How Safe is Your School Cafeteria?

Did you know that 1 in 10 schools across the country didn’t get the required cafeteria health inspection according to US Agriculture Dept. data. See AP story here for more.

“Inspections are meant to ensure cafeteria workers wash their hands properly and that they keep lunchtime staples like pizza hot or milk cold to prevent germs from growing.

Common violations in cafeterias involve wrong temperatures — failing to keep hot food hot enough or cold food cold enough — or things like having an open Dumpster outside the cafeteria,” the article says.

E.C. 🙂

Reform State Testing: JLF

In a new 32-page “Issue Guide 2007,” published by the non-profit John Locke Foundation, the conservative think tank recommends more accountability in state tests and that the entire EOC/EOG tests be scrapped in favor of a more credible nationally-recognized test to measure student performance.

“The state’s end-of-year and end-of-course tests should be replaced with an independent, field-tested, and credible national test of student performance, such as the Iowa Test of Basic Skills, the California Achievement Test, or the Stanford 10 exam,” the JLF’s Issue Guide says.

You can view the entire set of recommendations and background here.

E.C. 🙂

Char-Meck School Showing Some Students the Door: Time Magazine

Myers Park H.S. in Charlotte, a high-performing high school in the currently-reforming Charlotte-Mecklenburg School system, allegedly is forcing out some low-performing students. In a Time Magazine article published this week, Myers Park, like many other schools here across the old north state, is under pressure to perform in accordance with No Child Left Behind-leaves many children behind.

“However, like many other high-flying schools with a substantial minority and low-income population, Myers Park has been under increasing pressure to close the achievement gap between students that are white and black, rich and poor. In 2006, only 51% of its black students performed at levels III/IV — proficient and above — on state exams, compared with 90% of white. Under the 2001 No Child Left Behind Act, schools that fail to close such a gap are declared “failing schools” — no matter how well the majority are doing — and can face a loss of federal Title 1 funding for low-income students,” the article says.

And it very well could be borderline criminal…take a look at this excerpt:

North Carolina and Charlotte offer monetary incentives of up to $1500 to teachers and even larger bonuses for principals whose schools meet or exceed certain performance criteria. Among those criteria are high school graduation rates, a factor that should, in theory, encourage schools to keep kids in school, not push underachievers out. But school documents obtained by TIME suggest that Myers Park found a way around this: reporting that students who had dropped out had instead transferred out of the district.

Jasmine Boulware, for instance, was listed as an out-of-state transfer — even though her two siblings still attended the high school. At least two dozen students officially listed as transfers were found by TIME to still be living in the district. Among them was Andrew Dreher, a white student who voluntarily dropped out in 10th grade, never left Charlotte and is currently working at a fast food restaurant.

The school district is investigating whether the inaccurate records reflect a pattern of deception or sloppy paperwork. “We have uncovered some legitimate questions as to how some information has been handled,” says Nora Carr, chief communications officer for the district.

A former Myers Park counselor, who asked not to be identified, says that during [principal Bill] Anderson’s three-year tenure at the school, it was an open secret that underperforming and/or problem students were pressured to leave or told they could not return after disciplinary suspensions. “We all saw the push-out going on,” she recalls. “It was almost a joke. In front of the faculty of 150, Anderson would say ‘get your attendances in. If the students have excessive absences, we can get rid of them and send them to the school of far, far away.'” The school of far, far away, she explains, was a euphemism for getting rid of problem students.

This, from the soon-to-be-reformed Charlotte-Mecklenburg school system, a system that is not leaving any of its children behind.

E.C. 🙂

GCS Needs to Create a Volunteer Corps

Similar to the AmeriCorps group of volunteers who go out and perform acts of national service, GCS needs to create a similar volunteer group who will go into our schools and help tutor, help securing our halls and cafeterias, help with getting our students to class (on time), help with substitute teaching and EOC/EOG test proctoring. Right now, it is loosely left up to individual schools with not-so-great results.

How’s that for Grier’s site-based management?

An example…before I started teaching, I walked into Grimsley H.S. one day in an attempt to sign up to volunteer my time in some way for our children, whether it was helping with hall/cafeteria duty or proctoring EOCs. I never got a call to help.

Consider this story from today’s Philadelphia Daily News…citizens moving from welfare to work are signing up to volunteer as part of their community service requirement. And results are happening.

“About 100 parent volunteers already have been placed in the schools and another 100 parents “are in the pipeline” to begin helping, said Ed Schwartz, founder and president of the Institute for the Study of Civic Values. What’s more, the parents will be assigned to the schools their children attend, ” Schwartz said in the article.

I don’t know about you, but I know of many schools in our system that can use volunteers in the halls and classrooms.

E.C. 🙂

You’re Being Grier-ended on the School Suspension Rate

Make no mistake about it folks and mark my words, the suspension rate has not been reduced because of progressive programs GCS is doing, the rate has been reduced because principals are being told by Central Office not to suspend students…period. End of story, end of discussion.

And yet, Grier & Company continue to testify and principals continue to deny that they’re being directly told not to suspend students. This is criminal, it is an outrage and in my opinion, it is hurtful to the many school staffers that attempt to do their job to the best of their ability and it is harmful to the taxpayers who fund this school system.

See last week’s Rhino Times for more on this.

Jana Benscoter’s story from last week also mentions the ongoing problems at Kiser Middle School, many of which have been chronicled on this blog. Benscoter writes: “At Kiser, the ratio of black students who served long-term suspensions in 2003-2004 dropped from 22 black students to one white student to seven black students to one white student. The ratio of long-term suspensions at Grimsley was 44 black students to one white student in 2003-2004, and 41 black students to one white student in 2004-2005.”

Staffers at Kiser want you, the public, to know that you’re being hoodwinked. A Rhino “Beep” comment in this week’s edition mentions the following: “…the only way that we have reduced the suspension rate [at Kiser] by half is simply, we don’t suspend kids regardless of what they do at the school. The discipline is worse than ever and the school is basically out of control thanks in part to the fact that  we don’t suspend kids.”

When is someone within this system (besides board member Darlene Garrett) going to start questioning these things and start asking the tough questions that need to be asked? These are our schools and our children we’re talking about!

E.C. 🙂

So the Teachers Are to Blame for Disrespect in the Classroom?

God bless the Rhino Times. God bless Darlene Garrett.

Education reporter Jana Benscoter reports that during the School Resource Officer discussion at the Board meeting this past week, the Board disrespected just about every teacher once again. Benscoter reports that many Board members discussed “whether they should look at teacher discipline referrals to see if there is a trend from certain teachers as to which are being sent to the office and how often,” Benscoter’s story says.

The progressive Board member Darlene Garrett shot back, saying “I have to stand up for teachers.” The Board, Benscoter says, is now assuming the teacher is to blame for attempting to enforce discipline in the classroom. “They [students] are stopping the educational process, using profanity. We are doing them a disservice if we don’t teach them that that’s wrong,” Garrett said at the meeting, as reported in the Rhino.

In the end, the SROs, who were threatened to be pulled out of the schools will stay, despite the unhappiness by Amos Quick (who supports law enforcement but wants more of your taxpayer money put on the prevention side than the law enforcement side), Deena Hayes (who wants to look at the issue again in the future and continues to be concerned about students being charged and taken “downtown”), Dot Kearns (who thought the issue needs to be examined more deeper in general) and Kris Cooke (who wanted to vote on two separate issues and not tie the SROs and discipline altogether) as reported by the Rhino.

Kearns and Cooke voted against the measure; their terms are up in 2008, along with Quick. By the way, Garrett’s term is up in ’08 also. She will be reelected easily.

And people wonder why public opinion of our school board and the leadership of our schools continues to set new lows.

E.C. 🙂