http://www.sacbee.com/news/state/cal...188153344.html
http://endoftheamericandream.com/arc...ldren-can-readSAN DIEGO
A group of prominent lawyers representing teachers and students from poor performing schools sued California on Tuesday, arguing that the state has done nothing about a high number of schoolchildren who do not know how to read.
The advocacy law firm, Public Counsel, filed the lawsuit in Los Angeles Superior Court to demand the California Department of Education address its "literacy crisis." The state has not followed suggestions from its own report on the problem five years ago, the lawsuit said.
"When it comes to literacy and the delivery of basic education, California is dragging down the nation," said Public Counsel lawyer Mark Rosenbaum, who sued along with the law firm Morrison & Foerster.
Assessments found less than half of California students from third grade to fifth grade have met statewide literacy standards since 2015. Both traditional and charter schools are failing, Rosenbaum said.
Of the 26 lowest-performing districts in the nation, 11 are in California, according to the lawsuit. Texas, the largest state after California, has only one district among the 26.
Department of Education spokesman Bill Ainsworth said officials could not comment because the state had not yet been served with the lawsuit.
But he said in an email that "California has one of the most ambitious programs in the nation to serve low-income students."
Ainsworth pointed to more than $10 billion annually in extra funds for English language learners, foster children and students from low-income families. Some 228 districts will get additional support next year to help struggling schools, including the three named in the lawsuit.
Among the plaintiffs are current and former teachers and students from three of California's lowest performing schools: La Salle Avenue Elementary School in Los Angeles; Children of Promise Preparatory Academy, a charter school in the Los Angeles suburb of Inglewood; and Van Buren Elementary School, in the central California city of Stockton.
One of the plaintiffs is an 11-year-old student identified only as Katie T. When she completed fifth grade at La Salle, she was at the reading level of a student just starting third grade and was given no meaningful help, the lawsuit said.
State assessments found 96 percent of students at the school were not proficient in English or math, according to the lawsuit. Only eight of the school's 179 students were found to be proficient when tested last year.
...
Second article quoted contains excerpts from first article, in italic. Links to full sources and reference links just above each quoted article.At one elementary school in California, 96 percent of the students are not proficient in either English or math. How is that even possible? Unfortunately, the more the federal government gets involved in education, the worse it seems to get. At one time the United States had the greatest system of public education on the entire planet, but these days we only seem to make headlines when news comes out about how poorly we are doing. This has been a hot button issue for me for a long time, but even I was surprised when I learned that the state of California is actually being sued because so few of their public school children can read…
A group of prominent lawyers representing teachers and students from poor performing schools sued California on Tuesday, arguing that the state has done nothing about a high number of schoolchildren who do not know how to read.
The advocacy law firm, Public Counsel, filed the lawsuit in Los Angeles Superior Court to demand the California Department of Education address its “literacy crisis.” The state has not followed suggestions from its own report on the problem five years ago, the lawsuit said.
Well, according to this lawsuit less than 50 percent of all third, fourth and fifth grade students in the state of California meet minimum standards for literacy…
English assessments found less than half of California students from third grade to fifth grade have met statewide literacy standards since 2015. Both traditional and charter schools are failing, Rosenbaum said.
Of the 26 lowest-performing districts in the nation, 11 are in California, according to the lawsuit. Texas, the largest state after California, has only one district among the 26.
If we want our nation to have a positive future, we must do something about this.
We desperately need to start raising our standards. These days, virtually all testing consists of either multiple choice, true/false or fill in the blank questions. Instead of teaching our kids how to think, we are training them how to regurgitate answers, and that is the wrong approach.
I believe that we need to throw out Common Core all across the country and return to the basics. Our young people need to learn how to communicate, and so I would love to see a renewed focus on reading, writing and speaking.
In addition, we need to start training our young people for the careers of tomorrow. I believe that we need an emphasis on science, technology, engineering and math, because we are starting to fall behind other nations. In particular, India and China combined are now pumping out 12 times as many engineering graduates each year as we are, and that is a major problem.
For those that are not bound for college, we need to make cutting edge vocational training available for them. Every high school student should be ready to enter the workforce after graduation, and today that simply is not happening.
...
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Obviously throwing more money into the education system does nothing as none if it reaches the teachers, 99.9% goes to Administration, who will demand more frivolous tests while ignoring actual solutions. Why? This is what the administrators are taught to think will work, despite glaringly obvious evidence that it does not. Einstein once said that insanity is doing the exact same thing under the exact same circumstances and expecting wildly different results.
The 7-Lesson Schoolteacher
http://www.newciv.org/whole/schoolteacher.txt
The last quote from 7 Lesson Schoolteacher is HIGHLY worth a full read.by John Taylor Gatto
New Society Publishers, 1992
Call me Mr. Gatto, please. Twenty-six years ago, having nothing
better to do at the time, I tried my hand at schoolteaching. The
license I hold certifies that I am an instructor of English language and
English literature, but that isn't what I do at all. I don't teach
English, I teach school -- and I win awards doing it.
Teaching means different things in different places, but seven
lessons are universally taught Harlem to Hollywood Hills. They
constitute a national curriculum you pay more for in more ways than you
can imagine, so you might as well know what it is. You are at liberty,
of course, to regard these lessons any way you like, but believe me when
I say I intend no irony in this presentation. These are the things I
teach, these are the things you pay me to teach. Make of them what you
will:
I.
A lady named Kathy wrote this to me from Dubois, Indiana the other
day:
"What big ideas are important to little kids? Well, the biggest
idea I think they need is that what they are learning isn't
idiosyncratic -- that this is some system to it all and it's not just
raining down on them as they helplessly absorb. That's the task, to
understand, to make coherent."
Kathy has it wrong. The first lesson I teach is confusion.
Everything I teach is out of context... I teach the unrelating of
everything. I teach disconnections. I teach too much: the orbiting of
planets, the law of large numbers, slavery, adjectives, architectural
drawing, dance, gymnasium, choral singing, assemblies, surprise guests,
fire drills, computer languages, parent's nights, staff-development
days, pull-out programs, guidance with strangers you may never see
again, standardized tests, age-segregation unlike anything seen in the
outside world... what do any of these things have to do with each
other?
Even in the best schools a close examination of curriculum and its
sequences turns up a lack of coherence, full of internal contradictions.
Fortunately the children have no words to define the panic and anger
they feel at constant violations of natural order and sequence fobbed
off on them as quality in education. The logic of the school-mind is
that it is better to leave school with a tool kit of superficial jargon
derived from economics, sociology, natural science and so on than to
leave with one genuine enthusiasm. But quality in education entails
learning about something in depth. Confusion is thrust upon kids by too
many strange adults, each working alone with only the thinnest
relationship with each other, pretending for the most part, to an
expertise they do not possess.
...
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