SUMMARY

From the article i found out that the East Bay school districts are finally taking a look at reducing their bloated class sizes after five years of brutal cuts and this is because less money forced school districts to cut staff so class sizes grew and individual students got less attention.

The new funding based incentives coming from Sacramento are budgeting for more teachers which they hope will bring down class sizes and improve the education of bay area children.The largest class sizes to be found in the region are in Union City where schools had an average of 34 students per class district wide for the 2011-12 school year, the latest numbers available from the California Department of Education. School officials there estimate that high school classes in Union City this year will average 37 students.Districts with high class sizes will now be able to take advantage of a new state education funding formula offering economic incentives to lower class sizes to 24 students over several years in kindergarten through third grade.

The new funding formula backs up decades of research showing a direct connection between lower class sizes and better education, especially kids in kindergarten through the third grade, and it benefits minority kids the most.It also said that to lower average class size district wide by one student, say from 30 to 29, it would cost $1 million a year in new teacher pay, but that's not likely to happen soon. The district probably will focus on lowering class sizes in kindergarten through the third grade where it matters most.

The article also showed a connection between lower class sizes and better education, and concluded increases in learning were about twice for minority students in smaller classes which simply means smaller class sizes result in more time with the teacher for each student.Finally it also stated that instead of cutting budgets and laying off teachers, districts are now looking at hiring more teachers and budgeting for a bit more money and that means extra teachers for hire.

RESEARCH - SCHOOLS IN THE BAY AREA

The article i found talked about how East Bay school districts are finally taking a look at reducing their bloated class sizes after five years of brutal cuts,Less money forced school districts to cut staff so class sizes grew and individual students got less attention, school officials say. Now with new funding-based incentives coming from Sacramento, districts are budgeting for more teachers, which they hope will bring down class sizes and improve the education of area children.The largest class sizes to be found in the region are in Union City where schools had an average of 34 students per class district wide for the 2011-12 school year, the latest numbers available from the California Department of Education. School officials there estimate that high school classes in Union City this year will average 37 students..This relates to the book when we see that an average class at Goudy holds 39 children due to lack of teachers and also at Du Sable one guidance counselor advises 420 children and this is due to lack of teachers.

The article also talks about how in Fremont Unified School District, which had the second highest average numbers in the area at 29 for the 2011-12 school year, administrators are well aware that lowering class sizes will be good for their students."Class size does matter as long as the smaller class sizes have targeted and focused instruction and intervention for students falling behind," said Fremont Superintendent Jim Morris. "If you get it down to 15, it's really great. This can relate well with New Trier school where an average class is 24 kids and the ones for slower learners hold 15 kids and each kid is assigned a faculty adviser who remains assigned to then through graduation and the advisers have a reduced class schedule to allow them have time for the kids. This compared to Chicago also where kids even stay in a class a whole semester without a teacher. The article also says how in Tennessee showed a connection between lower class sizes and better education, and it concluded increases in learning were about double for minority students in smaller classes.Examined closer, smaller class sizes result in more time with the teacher for each student.

The articles also says the districts have to lower the classes in order to qualify for the funding.Instead of cutting budgets and laying off teachers, districts are now looking at hiring more teachers and budgeting for a bit more money."There will be extra staff for us to hire," New Haven Superintendent McNamara said. "For many of the districts in Alameda County, most have 80 to 95 percent of their costs in people. We cut the low hanging fruit in programs, then we cut people. We hope in the next few years to add people back." This relates to the book when we see how low salaries have kept youthful teachers away from the schools and they are not motivated to come for their classes. Even though in the book suburban legislators keep opposing funding for Chicago schools we know that better funding which more benefits for the teachers would play a big role in how they would get motivated and in turn motivate the students to perform better.

FUNDING!!

I am going to be talking about lack of funding in the public schools and what repercussions this has brought to the kids, teachers and the society as a whole. Citing examples from the book I would want to show how it really happens and what the governments part is in all this and even the society what role it plays and how really things go. There is lack of funding in Mary McLeod Bethune School as we see the children lie on the floors to have their naps and when the teacher wakes them up to read to them she is using an book that looks worn and old as if it has been used for many years and even the teacher herself is not warm or lively but just seems to do it because she has to and the kids are obedient and seem to like the fun of showing that they know the words this tells us how in society we are set in a way which we know what is needed of us and we tend to follow the rules regardless of the tough conditions since we know what is cut out for us and the background we come from shapes what kind of people we end up being. We also see that in a fifth grade class the flag is covered by chalk and there are a couple of pictures of leaves against the windows and it does not express the children’s creativity as you would expect in richer schools where the principals want the kids to do their own writings and share their art with the rest of the class. Some of the teachers feel like money is not the problem and blame it on the parents since they are not taking part in their kids’ life in school but this to some extent is not the parents blame as she plays her part in bringing the kid to school and it is not her fault that she is poor and cannot afford to take her child to a better private school and she had to make do with what she has. In the book we meet Mrs. Hawkins who has had to improvise things in her class because she says it never works to order things through the school system and this is because they lack funds to service all the needs of the students. This shows us how much some teachers are willing to sacrifice so the students can perform better in this case we see Mrs. Hawkins even following up with the parents so that the students can perform to their best and this is a hopeful portrait of the good things that go on under adverse conditions as quoted in the book (51) most of these kids come from the poor neighborhoods and what is in school is a reflection of what is happening at home and thus they do not feel like they have to energy to tackle it even if it is not their fault the school is not funded enough to give them the basic they need that is even more so their basic right. The lack of funding has also led to the Chicago system not attracting youthful teachers and this is because the salary scale is too low to keep them excited and this is turn makes the teachers who are already there demoralized and in turn pass it on to the students and in the end the kids feel like they are not going anywhere, we see teachers watching TV in the class and others even sleeping and letting the kids do what they want since they feel like they are not paid enough or do not have enough resources to make them go the extra mile. There is also a short supply of substitute teachers as we see classes that have missed teachers for a whole semester and this is for the basic classes where students feel like they need so that they can learn a skill that they can use to earn a dollar since they feel like they won’t go to college. The lack of funding also leads to a lack of supplies as we see a chemistry teacher reporting they do not have any supplies and have had to improvise soda bottles to make lab dishes compared to what the rich schools have this works out at a disadvantage since they will all eventually take the same standardized tests and it won’t be their fault they did not have the necessary equipment to learn at its best. The schools lack sporting supplies due to no funding and we see them lacking basketball hoops and swings in their playgrounds, also in the school that was once was a skating rink we learn that there is no playground and the classes get very hot during summer and cold during winter. The students even have to share a class with another class and this is because they cannot afford to build any more classes since they do not have any money. We see in the Lathrop Elementary school it has not had a library in the past 21 years and the few books they have sprouted mold and they also get behind in the learning schedules where we see them using texts the other way round since they received them in the opposite and out of sequence. The suburban legislators who often are opposing the funding of public schools use the terms “sinkhole” and say that they cannot keep throwing money into a black hole and this in so many ways is wrong because it comes out as if they mean they cannot fund the black people schools and in as much as they deny it we can never run away from it. Most of the public schools depend their initial funding’s on tax on local property but most of them come from deplorable places where they even flood and since tax depends on the value of the house really there is not much they can get from that environment and in the end there is less money for each child in these schools. The differences in the rich schools and in the poor schools is so unfair but the kids do not understand they are being cheated and should get a fair share and this in end makes them see themselves as failures since there is so much they are losing and the school themselves are in a sorry state and this leads to them staying out of school. We see also some kids not being able to join preschool because do not stand chances of achieving entrance into selective schools where they would most likely have chances and this makes them feel excluded and the rich kids also do not want to share the resources with them since they say they are going to pull them down but in the real sense if they only gave them a chance they would in fact pull them higher. The lack of funding also makes the people from the poor neighborhoods feel not wanted since even in day to day life it is hard since they get turned away when looking for housing and at the hospitals due to their position in the society and so this gives them less hope when they think about the public schools. We also get to see students in Goudy Elementary being badly hit since the teachers use materials that have been thrown out in most suburban schools and this is not by choice but since they do not have any better options, their slow students are taught with old textbooks and there is really no motivation to keep on going in there and when they get the texts like in the case where the student was given a dictionary and they started ripping out pages so that he could keep the words since he knows that the book might not just be there tomorrow and thus wants to keep it for himself now that he has the chance. We see at Goudy they lack even basic facilities such as the whole school just having two bathrooms that do not have toilet paper and thus the school is filled with stench this is because they do not have the money to purchase these things which may even seem like a luxury to them and in turn it is like a continuation of the problems they have at home where sewerage is a problem and the houses even flood with it. In contrary some of the public schools try to make the best out of what they have like in the case of Goudy where it is better managed than it was several years back and even though they had bad publicity they need the extra funds to at least get back on their feet but they do not always get what they deserve since if they do then some kids somewhere are going to miss out but they do try and stretch their resources since we even see them giving eighth graders textbooks for 15 year olds and this says a lot since they are stretching resources not just sitting there and complaining. The lack of funding also counts in what type of teachers are going to be in the public schools since there is no motivation and in the end “these children of poor districts can absorb only the most rudimentary and inexpensive instruction” and this begs to ask if the kids with no funding don’t have rights to the good things in life and in this case the good environment in school and also a good better utilities. Better school funding means tax increments and this people do not want to do and they argue that “you do not dump a lot of money into guys who have not done well with the money they have got in the past”. The leaders tend to be selfish and even though they pretend to be allies of the poor children all they do is ‘charity’ and they can refuse to give it at any given time and at times even do it just for the show like corporate responsibility just to get in the press and over rate everything. Finally if the society wants to be a part of this then they should open up the public schools and bring kids to go to school besides the rich people kids and use their money to buy school buses so that both sides can share in the spoils and instead of just playing the part and making the principals literally kiss their asses so that they can give them the extra cash they should want to be part of that whole community and a part of the poor kids who are not there by choice rather by circumstance.

 

 

 

 

 

 

POVERTY.

I am going to be speaking about the poverty in East St. Louis Illinois. We get to see that the city has no regular trash collection and very few jobs and nearly a third of its population live on welfare of some form. It’s also seen as the most distressed small town in America. The buildings in the city are unoccupied and there is literally garbage everywhere and the city is clouded by smoke from the chemical plants and this is turn has led to the highest rates of asthma in America. The city is also unable to buy heating fuel or toilet paper for the city hall and this means that it might just have to cut on the labor and even might go to the extent of selling the city hall and six fire stations so as to raise the money that they badly need. We also see that in Tunica people of the black community of sugar Ditch live in shacks by open sewers and this might be the cause of high liver tumors that the kids there have.  There is also the spillage of raw sewage which backs up into the homes of the residents in East Louis often and we see that once when there was a sewage spill in a playground it overflowed and some of the kids experienced hair loss as it went up to their houses and this also causes a risk of cholera and even hepatitis as it is a health hazard. The sewage problem is rampant since the pipes are collapsed and they cannot afford to repair them and this in turn causes flooded basements all over the city  and even if they repair the trucks they cannot afford to hire drivers to operate the machineries since most of them were laid off due to lack of money to pay them. Poverty is seen where when they go to the Griffin homes the kids he talks to do not know the time well are seem to be confused due to their environment and in this case their playground is filled with fecal matter due to a sewage that exploded and this is still evident as the area is marshy and has a foul smell this tells us of how bleak the future is since the kids are out future but the situations they are in make it so hard for them to prosper. Poverty is also shown when Smokey says her sister was raped and killed when the guys told her to go behind the school and they would give her a quarter this would not have happened if the kid was not poor and she only did that out of innocence and knowing it was not easy for a quarter to come by that easily. It is also poverty that makes the local people to accept 400 dollars when the plants have a leak that is termed toxic and this is enough to exchange so that the companies can be exempted from liability, this would not be the case if the people had money and knew their rights as they are only doing that because that is a lot of money that has just come easy to them and their health is not a priority since they have lived in the deplorable states all their lives. East St Louis has a lot of people living in the streets or sleeping in small isolated camps behind the burnt out buildings and some of these are even in the muddy stretches that were caused by the sewage bursts and this they do not out of choice but since they do not have any better option. The big corporations also build their own towns which they self-govern and are exempted from supervision by the health agencies and this they can do because there is no one living in these so called towns as they cannot afford to. We also see that the town has the most lottery shops and the biggest is located there and this is advertised in the black publications so that even with the little or nothing they have they can spend it since it’s a place that sells them dreams and eventually it is a total loss as it is basically selling hopes to people who have nothing. Poverty has led the people here to drink and the city is full of bars and liquor stores and ads for cigarettes also advertised in the black publications and this is because the people are frustrated and what better way to drown their sorrows rather than do it with alcohol with makes them forget their problems temporarily. Poverty has also led to the people selling out their houses for a bargain so that the companies can fend off suits that come up due to the chemical emissions and this they do without objection since the offers are appealing to them because of poverty and they also do not have faith with the court system. Poverty has also led to death of many kids since they grow weary of the sicknesses they get like tooth aches and this defeats their ambitions and most of them have bleeding gums and rotting teeth so much that the kids get used to this constant pain and it becomes part of their lives but there is nothing that they can do since dental care is delayed. The kids are also mal nutritioned and also not immunized as it should be and this is because of the deplorable state they live in with sewage pouring and the health officers feel uneasy to handle that and give them the necessary shots. The schools have also experienced these problems with sewage flowing in their kitchens and the students have to be sent home because the problem had even backed up toilets and spilled over to the food preparation areas and this leads to the school being called off in the whole district. The schools have very poor facilities but the students don’t have a choice and have to make do with whatever is available and this is because poverty rules out many avenues and you can only do the best you can. The schools are low in supply and there is no material to use in the classes and this had led to some teachers having to go the extra mile to provide their own personal stuff so as to get the classes going by like the teacher who says he has to bring his own VCR since the one in school has not been working for ages.  Poverty has led to the students feeling that there is no reason to be in school and so many of them end up pregnant or drop out of school and this is because a diploma from the ghetto school doesn’t feel like it counts for much in the outside world and this has lowered their self-esteem and made them feel like there is no way out of the whole mess. Poverty in the neighborhood has led to theft as we see the principal of East St Louis high being called and told his house has been robbed and he is not disturbed which is an indication that this might have happened before and so it does not come as a surprise. Poverty has led the kids to other vices like gangs since they feel like they need to belong to something as the society does not accept them for what they are this would be the best way to have a sense of belonging. This is also illustrated more when Shalika says how she went to a rich school and the kids wouldn’t play with her since she was the only black and from a poor background and this makes the kids feel like they are not wanted in the same society that they would like to so much fit in. This in turns makes them have to go to the schools in the poor neighborhood where the bathrooms are broken and do not work and they even do not have doors, the teachers are forced to share workbooks and that is regarded as the best school in the district. But poverty is to blame for the poor performances in schools since these kids have to endure growing up in burnt out houses, playing on contaminated land and walking past garbage everyday on their way to school and there is nothing they can do about it since even their parents went through the same process and it going to be a cycle all over again even though they would wish for a better life than that they are in.

 

NEGATIVE CONSEQUENCES!

We should provide tests where students can express themselves and no be tied down to just one specific answer. This really comes into play because I believe the standardized tests tie down the student to a specific answer and instead of them expressing themselves and writing down their answers and explain to the teacher who would see that they had an idea in their mind then that is not possible since it all boils down to one answer. Jeff Bliss had an issue with his teacher because all he did was hand out packets and the student was left to maybe cram what was in there and give back to the teacher and this does not give a student an opportunity to give his idea and thus he is limited and you cannot measure their achievements fairly.

The students will not just be answer machines that simply  spit out answers that had been given to them beforehand. The idea of standardized tests is simply a teaching to test kind of idea where the students are drilled to give answers that the teacher requires this simply means that the teacher will not be able to know the level of understanding that the student has but simply grade them based on answers that they might have copied from another person. Sir Ken in the TED talk says that the education system has become or is shaped as fast food where everything has to work the same way each time and we should not expect that out of our kids we want them to get something eventually when they get out of college.

The teacher will create relationships with students since they know their needs and where they  need to improve. Jeff Bliss issue with his teacher was her just handing out handouts and not involving herself with the class it made him feel like all she did there was wait for her paycheck and not worry about they learnt something or not. This shows our society today where the schools are just there for drilling the same information to the kids not willing to be a part of their lives and just each day going by. If the teachers graded the student one by one they would know what their needs are where they need help and what level of understanding they have. Creating relationships with students plays a big role in even how they feel in that class and what they eventually get out of it.

ATTACHMENT VARIABLES!!!

The article i used was by Jessica B Wolfe and Nancy E Betz. It really spoke about making career choices and what influences us to make them. The authors noted that parents and peers took a big role when it comes to career making and this is because of how the society has shaped us and we tend to look for careers that are going to make us big bucks as easy as possible and not what we are passionate about and this is evident in the Passion Project where we see everyone saying how their families influenced their career choices.The author notes that women  had a greater commitment when it came to career decisions while men leaned on their fathers when it came to making choices and what careers they chose most of them would really follow after their fathers.The author also talks about fear of commitment where its related to fear of going against what is norm and this is so common in the society where we are afraid of following our passions and in so doing end up in careers that we do not like and just like Sir Ken Robinson said in the TED talk we are used to the idea of linearity and thus change is hard to come by.


Here's the link to the article.
 
http://web.ebscohost.com.proxy1.clpccd.cc.ca.us/ehost/viewarticle?data=dGJyMPPp44rp2%2fdV0%2bnjisfk5Ie42eZ54OXyRuvX54as2%2baH8eq%2bUa2nrkewpq9LnqewUrGouEqwls5lpOrweezp33vy3%2b2G59q7Ra%2bmt0iwrLRKsq2khN%2fk5VXj5KR84LPfiOac8nnls79mpNfsVa%2bpt0q1r7JOpNztiuvX8lXk6%2bqE8tv2jAAA&hid=25

THE LEARNING REVOLUTION!!!

I  really enjoyed listening to the talk TED by Sir Ken Robinson and a lot of things he talked about really went down well with me. For starters he talked about how we have a crisis of human resources as in we make poor use of our talents and many people dont utilize them or even know what their talents are and this is real in the ideal world where we tend to forget what our passions are as seen in the Passion project also.
He also says most people don't think they are good at anything and tend to lie on their talents. He goes ahead and describes that there are two types of people those who divide the world into two types and those who do not, there are the people who dont get pleasure from what they do they simply get on with it they endure it rather than enjoy it and wait for the weekend and this makes for a majority of us since we just go to work because it has always been there and there is nothing else we can do we need to do it and then others love what they do and enjoy it and this is a very small minority of people and he says the reason why we have these two groups is education.
I also connected to when he said that the education systems needs a reformation but what we are doing is not enough since we are using a broken model what we could do is innovate fundamentally in education because we take things for granted and think that they are obvious but what we really need to do is rise up to the occasion and make things change.
He spoke about how we are used to the idea of linearity where one knows if they do something right they are set for the rest of their lives, we saw the same thing in the Passion project where people are forced by society to go into a specific field because it is tried and tested but in real sense we ought to follow our passions and do something that we love and explore the inner us that no one else has but us.
 What really interested me in how he says we have built our education system in the model of fast food where everything is standardized and this was so true since out education system has standardized everything and does not allow the student to get out of the box. People have different aptitudes and learn differently so we cant expect everyone to learn at the same pace but the system we have now does not allow for that flexiblity and we are conformed to one for all system.
We should aim to create conditions where the student can express their passion and put all their energies into it since all we have now is a cloning culture where we do what has been done before and happened to work out, we should personalize to the people we have as students since they are all different individuals. We should get out of thinking that the class should always be passive as well evidenced in the Jeff Bliss video we had and the teacher should work into making the student come up with their own solutions other than just recieving hand outs and listening to what he says and with the correct external support we could work out for the best.
 Lastly he spoke about the wristwatch being outdated and how we still use it and the same way so many things in our education system are outdated but we still want to use them because we are afraid of what will happen if we change but we should remember that even the system we are afraid of changing came up through trial and error and we should also try out new things and see how it goes and maybe it will be the best thing that ever happened to us.

PASSION AND EDUCATION.

In the passion project i focused on how everyone felt like they were being forced by the society to get into a specific career line. we see Andrew being led to being a cop, Karina into nursing,Ray into business. This is very typical of the ideal world we are in as students as the different societies we come from expect us to perform or go with a certain traditional career which has been in the society for ages and if we go against that then we are looked upon as different and shunned and seen as unsuccessful. This has led to the student being not inspired to share their ideas with the society members as the new careers are seen as not good enough and the student feels like a failure.

The article "The Relationship of Attachment Variables to career decision making self efficacy and Fear of Commitment" by  Jessica B. Wolfe and Nancy E Betz.
In the article its quoted as"reported that for women attachment was related to greater commitment to a career decision and less to a tendency to prematurely foreclose on a decision,for men paternal attachment was more important than maternal attachment  and greater attachment to fathers was related to greater commitment to a career decision" this shows us how for many students it is harder to make an individual decision of what career you want and even if you want to follow a passion its not easy since its clear cut from the beggining you have to go with the parents decision as also depicted in the Passion Project with most of the people.

Also in the article its quoted as "parental and peer attachment accounted for 11% of the variance in fear of commitment" this is a clear indicator of how our peers , parents and the society shapes what career path we take as we see from the article most students change their majors due to indecisiveness and this is caused by external fear of what people will say or how they judge us and if we fail they will all have something to say about it. No one wants to follow their passion for fear of judgement and its also evident in the Passion Project where we see Elaine saying that the society has expectations of us and thus we are afraid of going against what is norm.