Front page local section.  Even in the younger grades they are failing.   Even the kids from WEALTHIER families are not doing well!


And no choice in education for these kids, the dem downtown cheerleader who also supported the closing of St John's school, he opposes any alternative choice in education, children are the property of the goverment and parents have no say in the education of their children if they are lower income.

And watch, cheerleader will NOT come on here and explain WHY these parents should be denied a choice in education such as a charter school.  Oh yeah, "consolidation," yep, increase taxes to pay for more buses to bus kids all over creation.

"Consolidation" is a gimmick. Is our "consolidated" hospital any better for it?

the problem is that public schools, especially one's that were stale to begin with have cease to be relevant to the pupil...

THEY NEED TO EVOLVE....

Quoted Text

SCHENECTADY
Grim report spurs plan for schools
Frequent testing aims to show reading progress faster BY KATHLEEN MOORE Gazette Reporter


    Faced with grim statistics on student progress, Schenectady school officials are writing a turnaround plan to make swift improvements.
    “We need to deliver,” Superintendent Laurence Spring said. “We have to get results.”
    He’s focusing on several “building blocks” that he hopes to implement this year. He has also reached out to three outside groups to give the district advice and recommendations.
    First of all, he’s focusing on elementary school reading. About half of the students are not reading at grade level.
    That means they are in danger of falling behind in every subject because they may not be able to understand their textbooks well enough to learn.
    The district’s current reading system includes tests at the beginning and end of each school year, but the tests aren’t detailed enough to show incremental progress. So teachers diagnose reading problems, come up with techniques to teach, and have to wait until the end of the school year to fi nd out whether those efforts worked.
    Spring wants teachers to have quick tests that can immediately show them whether a new reading method is working.
    “An entire school year is a really long time to wait to see if this prescription is working for this kid,” he said. “We should know within four weeks, and if that’s not working, we need to go back and think: did we have the wrong diagnosis? Or the wrong prescription?”
    With tests showing progress — or the lack thereof — every four weeks, teachers have 10 chances to tweak their methods to get the most improvement out of the student during one school year, he said.
    Some teachers have objected to tests in the past, saying they know best whether their students are improving. But Spring said teachers are only able to tell that the student is learning. They can’t judge the learning speed so accurately that they can be sure the child will catch up with the class and end up reading at grade level, he said.
    “You can’t eyeball that,” Spring said.
    Instead, he said, students tend to improve while their classmates improve at a faster rate, leaving them forever behind.
    Spring hopes to have the new tests implemented by February.
    At the same time, the district is partnering with New York University to change the way teachers and principals respond to students’ cries for help. Many behavioral problems are being wrongly treated by discipline, Spring said, when the child actually needs counseling, intervention at home, or other help.
    NYU will train school offi cials to “interpret” students’ behavior so they can judge how to react more effectively.
    Spring has also begun a new effort to reach out to parents. He has asked all school officials to stop saying they want “involved” parents, and instead say they want “engaged” parents.
    Involvement, Spring said, means that parents should take time off from work to attend school plays, carnivals and other functions. Engagement, he said, gets to the heart of what teachers want: parents who will help them figure out how to reach their children.
    “We may have the master’s degree in Social Studies or whatever, but you have the master’s degree — the doctorate — in your child. We need to learn from you,” Spring said.
    He also envisions getting parents together in small groups to talk about how they could help educate their struggling students.
    “I do think parental engagement is critical to the solution,” Spring said. “I don’t think we’re going to solve this without parents.”
    He plans to start work on that this year using ideas developed by a researcher, Karen Mapp. ..................................>>>>...................................>>>>................................................http://www.dailygazette.net/De.....r01101&AppName=1

Tell the staff to stop saying "involved" and start saying "engaged". Yep. That oughta do it. This guy's a genius.
I love how they always use the excuse that the parents who don't pay any attention to their child's schooling are too busy working. Call these homes in the morning and you will hear The Price Is Right in the background.
See? He's going to solve educational problems at school through social work. Maybe the schools should just do referrals to qualified social service organizations so the taxpaying homeowners can catch a break. Too much duplication.
It was assumed that by taking neighborhood schools away from 'involved' parents it would force them to send their kids to schools with 'uninvolved' parents, which would instantly raise the percentages in the one building, at least. Not so. Who wants their children in a building where money is spent on "training officials to "interpret" students' behavior" and some wanna-be Janet Napolitano imposes "lockdowns" at the slightest excuse? Who needs that?
My family was involved with Schenectady public schools since their inception. We no longer have school age children in my family living in the city, but I would no longer advise anyone to put their children in these schools. The social engineers triumphed, the schools have steadily gotten worse, and their
only response is to increase the kind of idiocy that brought us here.

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   At the same time, the district is partnering with New York University to change the way teachers and principals respond to students’ cries for help. Many behavioral problems are being wrongly treated by discipline, Spring said, when the child actually needs counseling, intervention at home, or other help.
    NYU will train school offi cials to “interpret” students’ behavior so they can judge how to react more effectively.

ARE YA KIDDING ME??????????????????????????

So now the educators are going to become SOCIAL WORKERS??????

Quoted from bumblethru

ARE YA KIDDING ME??????????????????????????

So now the educators are going to become SOCIAL WORKERS??????

welcome to CHINA SCHOOLING.....are we happy the 'THEY' are doing something?

cumbaya folks,,,,,sing it with me......group hug.....

you see if they pretend to 'know' what's in the kids heads they become relevant again....their problem is that they
haven't evolved....but the only way a state institution knows how to evolve is with DIAGNOSIS/DRUGS/LOCKED DOORS...

too bad we keep procreating

Quoted Text

Why learn and work hard when you’ll still receive?

    Let’s see, test scores at even the lowest grade levels have gone down in the Schenectady school district in most recent grading. What could possibly be the reason? Bad teachers? No. Not enough funding? No. Bad administration? No.
    How about: bad parents or non-existent parenting? How about: learned behavior in formative years within a household? How about: no longer is there incentive to better oneself through education?
    Haven’t we just gone through an election with an overwhelming theme that says monetary success is bad (i.e. if you become successful and make over $250,000, you’re somehow evil). We have an administration that is basically saying, “don’t worry, if you don’t make it on your own, we’ll take care of you — the government that is. We will redistribute other people’s hard-earned money so we will all be the same.
    No winners, no losers. Hard work? Education? Why, when all a child sees and hears is a gimmee, gimmee culture at home, and from their powers that be? With no need to work hard, there is no incentive to become educated. The ethic of making oneself a success is over, and this was once such a great nation.

    ALAN BUZANOWSKI
    Saratoga Springs

http://www.dailygazette.net/De.....r00706&AppName=1

The man has a point.

Sad but true.

The following website allows for a search of High Schools and their ranking in NYS.  It is based on the average of the Algebra Regents scores added to the average of the English Regents scores for 2011.

http://www.schooldigger.com/go/NY/schoolrank.aspx?level=3

If you search on Schenectady High School you will find their 2010 - 2011 ranking as 970 out of 1159.  They dropped 69 spots from the prior year.