My Rant On 60 Minutes "SEED" School piece

[Turk 182]

An open letter to "60 Minutes"

Your segment on the SEED school just proves what teachers have known for years. Despite the public's and government's desire to blame teachers for the poor test scores and low graduation rates in schools located in high poverty areas, it is not the school's or teacher's fault. The environmental factors contributing to these students' failure to succeed are so strong that they are virtually impossible to overcome without a radical solution, which is what the SEED school is.
There are teachers all over this country who are as dedicated and hard working as those in the SEED school; who struggle daily with trying to educate students who come to school with so much baggage that just to get them to focus on a task is a major accomplishment. These children come from families who are living in homeless shelters with no cooking facilities, and/or not enough money to buy nutritious food. They come to school hungry. They come in unwashed clothes. They fall asleep in class because they can't get enough sleep at home. They come from single parent households where there is limited or no supervision after school because the parent is working two or more jobs just to make ends meet, and they come from educationally impoverished households where the adults themselves did not graduate High School and cannot help their children with homework or academic skills.
What the SEED school does is literally lift these children out of their environment. The success rate of the school is a foregone conclusion. They start with motivated parents who want their children to succeed and convey this attitude to their kids - an absolute necessity for the success of the program. Then they eliminate all the environmental problems in one fell swoop. Once you've done that, real education and remediation becomes feasible. These children are not dumb, merely deprived. Most children spend about 35 hours a week in school and 133 hours at home. These children spend 120 hours a week in a protected school/academic/clean/safe and secure environment and only 48 hours at home; Almost the exact opposite, and even then they have an 11 percent failure rate. Imagine if every public school student was so lucky.
What was even more interesting about your piece was what you didn't say. You didn't say how much money it takes to run this school. While most public schools spend about 9 to 12 thousand dollars per student per year, my guess is the SEED school spends about 50 thousand per student. You didn't say anything about discipline in the school or what happens to a student who is disruptive. Do they get dropped from the program and sent back to the public school?
The SEED school is a perfect example of what can be done when you "throw money" at a problem. It's too bad the public doesn't have that kind of money for the rest of those kids. Then again, we don't mind spending billions on unnecessary wars, do we?

[Jackpine Radical]

1. A really great rant. Thanks.

[Turk 182]

5. I just had to get this out

[rurallib]

2. Thank you. I was wondering if I was the only one.

I was screaming at the TV.
This was in DC where they just cut the fuck out of teachers. So now there will be classrooms with 30+ kids. SEED had 12 - 15.
If these guys have such a concern about education how about helping everybody?
And what a slap at teachers - looked to me like an unstated slap at unions. Seemed to be saying -"these teachers are exceptional, not like that union schmuck your kid has."

And if it is the environment that the kids come from that hold them back, how about working on that?
What a great day for the kids that get picked. What a kick in the ass for those who don't. "Boy #13 - maybe you'll want to start hustling on the street."

I could go on.

[spartan61]

3. You told the truth!!

I have been a teacher for 32 years and have always hated when standardized tests are used to measure teachers' and schools' performance. We don't always know what these children have to endure in their homelife. How unfair to expect these children to perform well when they come to school hungry, dirty, sleep deprived, etc. If only we could take the money that our country pours into unnecessary wars and use it for education, can you just imagine how great our country could become?

[Turk 182]

7. in the interest of full disclosure

I am a retired teacher who taught in a district which is diverse economically and has a high student transient rate ( approximately 30 percent of our graduating class did not start in our district). My wife is a speech pathologist in the same district and deals mostly with special needs children.

[spartan61]

9. I taught 1st and 2nd grade

in an area that was also diverse economically. Fortunately our school had a breakfast and lunch program so that the children could get two meals a day. Perhaps the saddest student I ever had was a little 6 year old who was the oldest of 5 children. Mom had never married and each child had a different father. The 6 year old was the "man of the house" and some of the things he told me were things no child should even know about, much less understand. After being awake many nights because mom was drunk and entertaining the newest boyfriend, how can we expect him to achieve on a standardized test? I was just happy to see him get to school. Or what about the child that was physically abused by his stepfather who beat him with a belt buckle? (By law I had to report this). How can a child in this kind of situation be expected to do well on a standardized test? Other factors besides testing need to be employed to measure achievement.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

4. When I lived in Portland, I tutored street kids for a couple of years

They were studying for the GEDs, and they had a lot of catching up to do, because they were mostly at third or fourth grade level in basic skills.

I asked them why THEY thought they had fallen behind, and the most common answer was that they had so many problems at home that they couldn't concentrate at school and that the class sizes were so large that the teachers didn't have time to give them any individual attention.

With a few exceptions, these kids were not stupid. However, they got NO support at home, and their teachers, while well-intentioned, were struggling to keep their heads above water in a classroom full of 35 kids, many of whom were probably as troubled as the street kids I saw.

If we really valued education and social mobility, teaching would be the highest-paid job that a four-year graduate could get (as it is in Japan), and class size would be no more than 15 in elementary school and middle school, 20 high school.

[uponit7771]

6. AMEN!! Do what's right so the kids will exceed is NOW the exception not the rule

[Frustratedlady]

8. Excellent post!

You covered the main points. I didn't see 60 Minutes, but I've seen similar shows on the subject that made the concept seem the only way to go for all students. I have several in my family who teach and they echo your comments.

I can't believe how our educational system has been damaged by NCLB and how demoralized the teachers are.

[EFerrari]

10. Nice going and welcome to DU!

:thumbsup:

[proud2BlibKansan]

11. Thank you. I teach in a community school just like SEED.

And it is closing thanks to declining enrollment and budget cuts.