That's right. I said it. This gangsta-wannabe who loves to ply the white wine circuit as yuppies ooh and ah because he likes them offered up an amendment on charter school legislation this week. Here is the amendment, completely unedited:
AMEND by striking lines 249 through 256 and substituting the following in lieu:
SECTION 5. Authorizer. (1) The Mississippi Public Charter School Authorizer Board created under subsection (2) of this section may only authorize public charter schools in a school district rated as Failing, At-Risk of Failing or Low-Performing by the State Department of Education.
Notice what category is not on there? Academic Watch, which just happens to the level of Jackson Public Schools. This website reported several days ago on the graduation rates of JPS. Male students graduate in four years at a rate of only 53%. That's right: only 1 out of every 2 male students in Jackson Public Schools graduates in four years after starting ninth grade. These pointy-heads over at Parents for Public Schools and the Department of Education can twist the statistics all they want but the fact is, if you are only graduating half the boys or girls in your district, you have a disaster on your hands.
NCLB District Report Card (Bailey Magnet p.5, Callaway p.37, Forest Hill p.57, Lanier p.105, Murrah p.137, Provine p.161 Wingfield p.221)
4-yr graduation rates
Bailey Magnet: 74%
Callaway: 61%
Forest Hill: 56%
Jim Hill: 66%
Lanier: 56%
Murrah: 74%
Provine: 49%
Wingfield: 50%
Now, lets break it down even further using the reports provided by the Dept. of Ed. The report doesn't provide schools names but we will use numbers. I am pretty sure these are in alphabetical order so I will take a leap and guess the school names. The 4-year graduation rates for black male students are placed in parenthesis next to the overall graduation rate. The links to the reports are posted below. Column M is the 4-year graduation rate for black males in Jackson public high schools once they enter ninth grade. The actual student is tracked so if he transfers or moves, the rate is not skewed. The Department of Education website states JPS is 98% black. Graduation rates, Dropout rates
Bailey Magnet: 74% (68%)
Callaway: 59% (50)
Forest Hill: 56%(49%)
Jim Hill: 66% (59%)
Lanier: 56% (54%)
Murrah: 74% (69%)
Provine: 49% (38%)
Wingfield: 50% (36%)
Now lets look at the dropout rates for the same group with the black male students in parenthesis:
Bailey Magnet School: 12% (13%)
Callaway: 28% (38%)
Forest Hill: 20% (24%)
Jim Hill: 22% (23%)
Lanier: 20% (19%)
Murrah: 15% (18%)
Provine: 37% (43%)
Wingfield: 31% (38%)
Think I'm picking on JPS? Hattiesburg High School has a graduation rate of 48%. That's it. 48%. The same school graduated only 33% of its black male students BUT the district is labeled successful and Hattiesburg High is placed on the level of "Academic Watch". 91% of the district's students are black. The dropout rate for black males is 37%. Thus under Senator Horhn's amendment, a school that graduates ONLY ONE-THIRD OF ITS MALE STUDENTS is protected from charter schools if the district is carries the academic watch label.
Mr. Horhn thinks a school that has a student body over 90% black and graduates less than half of its students and one-third of its black male students should be "protected" from charter schools. Mr. Horhn is the Klan's best friend because Hattiesburg High School, Provine, Wingfield, Callaway, and others are graduating black male students at rates only the Klan could love. Read Provine again: Only half the kids graduate, less than 40% of the black male students graduate, and the dropout rate is aorund 40%. Yet John Horhn marches lockstep with Nancy Loome and Claiborne Barksdale, fighting to keep these kids trapped in the same system- until they drop out.
Horhn's amendment gives the game away for the public school lobby. This is not about improving the education of our children but control. The public school lobby and their allies have consistently delivered an educational system that is in last place. Now that there is a serious chance the status quo will change, those who make their living off of keeping our children in last place shriek the loudest. John Horhn should explain why he thinks a school such as Provine should be protected from charter schools because if there is a school that screams out for charter school conversion, it is Provine. Twenty-five years ago a redneck legislator said "We don't need no Harvards down here". Mr. Horhn and such rednecks are one and the same as they fight to keep the Provines and Hattiesburgs as they are.
Thursday, February 23, 2012
Senator John Horhn: Illiteracy's best friend. Here is what he is trying to protect.
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36 comments:
Scroll to the bottom of this post (http://msbusiness.com/businessblog/2012/02/23/rating-successful-public-schools/) to see the Dept. of Education's rating system of school districts.
Public schools are doing such a great job, maybe we should forget charter schools and just pour more money down that rat hole.
KF,
This is great work. The JPS issue creates a mystery for me. The Molpuses and Medleys, etc. are people of good spirit and integrity. Why do they continue to support the current system? This system is broken beyond cure and to continue to trap these kids (who have little going for them in the beginning)in this darkness is a sin.
All it will take to improve these numbers is returning to the mandate that students be 'passed along' to the next grade. Simple. It's not about education. It's about numbers and athletic scholarships. Everthing else is minutia.
Why do they continue to support the current system?
Hello?
Because exploiting failure and perpetuating victimhood is the source of their political power.
Game over? not hardly. Bill still has to go through the house and nothing is a sure thing until the Governor signs it. Nothing.
So you think once its signed thats it? Nope. Frankly we have not done a good job of educating the public on charter schools.
Lets say I get funding to set up one in West Jackson so kids at Provine and Lanier can attend. I hit the jackpot. Chevron and IBM chip in, a couple of foundations provide more money, and I get approval from the state.
Do you think parents are just going to jump in? I guarantee you Derrick Johnson and his friends are going to put ALOT of pressure on blacks keep their kids from the school or blacklist anyone who teaches at the school. If you're a white person thats fine, if you're black though, that can cause more than a few problems. PR & education on charter schools have been sorely lacking. There are two rounds: passing the legislation and then implementing it.
There are two rounds: passing the legislation and then implementing it.
The legislation will pass the House Kingfish with few, if any, modifications. Wager?
Do you think parents are just going to jump in? I guarantee you Derrick Johnson and his friends are going to put ALOT of pressure on blacks keep their kids from the school or blacklist anyone who teaches at the school.
Yup, they WILL jump in and there will be no shortage of teachers. You are misreading the sentiment badly here.
Only the parents who are fools will avoid a charter school because of pressure or the threat of blacklisting by Johnson or others. Some charters will have no choice but resort to the lottery because demand is going to far exceed initial supply in many locales.
Can you imagine the political hysteria if you passed a law that MANDATED that all African-American students, and only African-American students, had to attend schools with the track records of Jackson & Hattiesburg?
I was taught long ago that some slaves were put to death for trying to learn to read, because slaveowners knew it would destroy their society. Now we have a group that is voluntarily deciding to remain ignorant and illiterate -just keepin' it real, y'know?
I also remember a story by a reporter who went to the library of a JPS school and got a three-year-old yearbook from the library, then compared the listed freshman to the current seniors, and found the "whereabouts unknown" category was way larger than the admitted dropout rate.
So what exactly did Johnny Dupree want to do for education? The same thing he did for Hattiesburg High School?
Meanwhile the top school in the state is next door at Petal.
3:32...don't forget Oak Grove going the other way. Predominatley white schools leaving that shithole in the dirt.
They both have tremendous parental involvement. Isn't THAT novel!
Legislate that, Senator Horhn.
politics is so complicated. And people on it makes thing complicated as well
It's hard for me to believe that these folks would "blacklist" black teachers for working at a charter school in West Jackson. There is so much more to the world than power and racism and these folks apparently will get there on the backs of these unsuspecting and innocently ignorant kids. If this is factual, then Satan is hard at work in the hearts of these folks. Hope they like millstones.
Any notion that JPS or Canton or Hattiesburg parents will somehow remain loyal to the failing public school their children attend and, if given the opportunity, will effectively boycott charters in order to demonstrate that loyalty to failure is absolute folly.
The public school apparatchik in Mississippi doesn't fear charters because they expect the effort to fail.
I keep returning to the reality that 'parents', in most venues, either don't give a shit or have no clue (beyond their kids being babysat) what the purpose of school is.
You people are pipedreaming if you think 'parents' are going to be significant in this Charter process. It will never work in this state for that reason alone.
Politicians will do their best to make it work. Education is running on fumes now, and will only get worse with inflation and population increases. So where is the money for the new schools. Their banking on donatios and grants. I perceive something like a separate school district, and separate school taxes. REAL ESTATE TAXES to ZOOM. RENTS TO ZOOM. I could continue elaborating, but do you get the picture?
While Horn impresses yuppies at a Fondren New York Pizza and Ice Cream Joint, Soto commandeers the old
Fordice Escalade and speeds down I-55 ( Mad Max Style) to secure the high octane pumps at the Ridgeland MS -Lake Harbor/ Old Canton Rd Shell Station.
......Just an idea for a new movie.
7:19 said, " I perceive something like a separate school district, and separate school taxes. REAL ESTATE TAXES to ZOOM. RENTS TO ZOOM. I could continue elaborating, but do you get the picture?"
In a word, no. Your imaginary solution makes no more sense than a 2 cent wing tax on every piece of chicken sold at Wild Wings.
Very good reporting. We made our schools too bureaucratic and technical losing sight of the social purpose of education which is to create adults. We have a mass consumer society that tends to make everyone juvenile. Failures in our schoolhouse is a general social failure to make children into responsible adults. Our children are ignorant because we are ignorant ourselves.
Your right Shadowfax. It is like a wing tax, Money pissed in the wind. Where do you "IMAGINE" the revenue will be created? I refer to it as a "backdoor" tax. YOur senators can blame it on someone else.
We are not facing the fact that there has been a stunning " dumbing down" in this country.
Not only has the average IQ dropped from 100 to 90, we , as a country have become anti-intellectual.
Remember Spiro Agnew and " effete intellectuals"? Remember how, in this State, that Mabus and others were politically attacked for being " Harvard" grads? And, the Hip Hop community made it cooler to be a gangsta than a scholar.
We no longer admire, much less encourage, the brightest among us. We make fun of them. They are " nerds".
We have gone to " objective " testing which means kids who are good at memorization get good grades. It doesn't mean they understand a subject!
Even in private schools, a kid reads a chapter, the kid outlines the chapter, the chapter is then outlined for them and projected to be copied.Then they are tested by picking A,B,C or D. They are tested on short term recall!
That was NOT true in my day. Indeed, teachers had the power to make sure the brightest students were rewarded. CONDUCT grades and grade point minimums determined whether or not you could play sports or be a cheerleader. Teachers could expel children. We were given essay questions. We had to write and be able express ourselves and know the facts not just recognize what we'd read. A child's " job" was to do well in school and the principal was the CEO and the teachers were the managers the kids were the employees is the way my Dad put it. And, my parents made it clear to me that if I had a bad teacher, it was my job to learn anyway and learn to succeed in spite of the difficult people I would encounter in life.
My father , before he died, was appalled, that anyone in this country would form their opinions on an issue based on what someone with little to no education or expertise in that area would tell them. He likened it to going to a witch doctor rather than a physician. But, THAT is exactly what we adults are modeling for our children...that ALL opinions have equal weight suddenly.
This isn't about racial politics. Schools are in trouble in all white communities as well.
KF, universities " weight" schools as part of the admissions process. See if you can get the weight given MS public and private schools. THAT is your better indicator of what kind of preparation a student in this state is getting.
So if they can't meet the standards, lower the standards. That's pretty much the rule throughout the country, not just in Ms.
It's not just literacy that's the problem with education in this country.
Our people have become so ignorant those in leadership positions don't know that birth control pills treat ovarian cysts and endiometriosis and are too uneducated to know they should get the facts before making decisions!
Remaining " uneducated" is cool. It's far better to try to get equally ignorant people to agree with you and engage in tyranny of the majority.
Not only has the average IQ dropped from 100 to 90,
Source?
@7:43; It's not my mission to predict 'where the money will come from'. However, your suggestion of a double taxation system is inconsistent with reality. If you intended to simply throw something at the wall to see if it would splatter, you succeeded. Your suggestion would require some serious legislative changes to taxation in this state and no politician would go down that road.
@7:48; Other than your inaccurate comment re IQ scores, yours was a very interesting post.
Shadowfax as separate schools they could shift the burden from the state fund to the community involved. Pick any address in Clinton, go to Hinds county tax collector website and see the sep sch dist tax. Furthermore choose a property not owner occupied, but rented and view the tax due to loss of homestead exemption. This also effects the affordability index when qualfying for a mortgaqe. I have more insights, but I'm not writing a book here. You're good at catergorizing and name calling, but perhaps you are more naive than you realize.
There are multiple sources. I don't use one source and simply decide I like that one best.
The GOP candidates like to quote the research by a conservative professor at VCU . His estimates would, like that of NAEP put the IQ average at 98 ( 94 in MS and still down from the 100 average in 1970).
Those who use SAT and ACT scores as their base find the national average lower because they assume those taking the SAT and ACT are college bound and their average IQ should be 10 pts higher is also 98.
You will also find research indicating more than half of all the children tested in the US have an IQ of 89.
On the Internet you will have to go pages and pages and pages in your search engine to get past the political drivel caused by the VCU professor's hoax.
But, IMHO the stats kept by the testing services are the most reliable.
The average in the US is 98 ( that puts us now at 19th in the world so we COULD assume the rest of the world is getting smarter, I suppose) IF you want to assume those taking the ACT and SAT are a good test sample.
AND, you should consider also that the tests themselves are not as difficult as they were prior to the 70s.
I suggest you do your own reading and try to use politically unbiased sources. It's a challenge, I'll admit but doable.
Anon 1:37, I found that wonderful study that you "quoted." You know the one that says that Hong Kong is the smartest COUNTRY? Those damned conservatives.
(Third on Google. Geez, what research.)
One little fact throws things into a tizzy here, currently 49.5% of US citizens do not pay taxes and over 50% voted for Barry Obama. If there is ANYONE on Earth that believes that average IQ in the United States is 98, I have some ATT Preferred Stock for sale. Cheap.
12:35; interesting to note that while you accuse someone of calling names, you call him a name. Whatta ya call that anyway?
11:25pm I mentioned those two studies first as those are the ones most of the bloggers will find or already have read/heard and come to believe. I wanted to premept cites from those.
I don't know why the words " hoax" and " politicize" and my suggestion to read beyond the first pages were overlooked by you in my two posts, but obviously I wasn't clear.
What you seem to miss is that it isn't the numbers that are wrong but how they are interpreted and the " additions" ( including Hong Kong as a country).
If one doesn't understand or ignores how the statistics are generated and then lumps together numbers generated differently, the conclusions are bogus. It wasn't that the numbers were wrong, they were misused.
I personally prefer the Stanford-Binet and think ONLY the ACT test should be used if one is going to attempt to discuss how our nation is fairing. One also ought to be familiar with genetics and know how to sort through studies done based on race.
Sorry, 8:03, I wanted you to understand that when you started waxing poetic about the things that your father told you and defending the idiot Mabus, we all knew you were full of it. When you started your next comment trashing the GOP, everyone knew what you were about.
By the way, my name is Paul. Please do not call me by my time stamp again. That is rude and I have plainly posted my name because I stand behind what I say.
Oh, and just so you know, I used the Stanford-Binet scale for my terminology of Mabus.
12:35 I thought s/he needed some strong direction in developing social graces and finesse.
February 25, 2012 8:03 AM you really should consider adding more fiber to your diet. It would do you a world of good.
8:03 Glad you could see the humor.
thought this post would help me provide data for a project, specific to JPS rates, and interestingly all your source links are now not found and the major report is now only 4 pages. Who'd you piss off KF? Everyone at MDE?
I see that. I'll see if I can find it elsewhere. thanks.
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