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Grand Jury Releases BCSD Report
The Kern County Grand Jury issued its report on the Bakersfield City School District today. It can be found at www.co.kern.ca.us/grandjury What do you think? 20 comments from 8 users
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posted by
Hardliner4freedom
on Jun 15, 2007 at 11:26 AM
Rather be a
... than a ...
(Spam code: DLETN Bwaha haa haa haa ) posted by
Roselady
on Jun 15, 2007 at 11:21 AM
Methinks anny needs a nap. He/She is running around dropping little one-liners all over the place. Kinda like bird-droppings?
posted by
anonymous
on Jun 15, 2007 at 11:19 AM
No one would believe that you are a know it all Hardliner!
posted by
jfrancais
on Jun 15, 2007 at 10:40 AM
Teachers should enjoy the fact that a student is so astute but I guess we're all human and hate to be wrong (and worse to be proven wrong)
posted by
jfrancais
on Jun 15, 2007 at 10:38 AM
I would tell kids I was going to the principals office. I think they thought I had a medical condition or something.
posted by
Hardliner4freedom
on Jun 15, 2007 at 10:37 AM
Ah, I see. My love for science was ravenous, so I guess that explains the difference in perspective. Drove my second and third grade teachers up the wall pointing out their errors in class. And that was about the time I stopped paying attention. I lucked out with a few teachers who went the extra mile in K-2 -- but I ran out of volunteer mileage in 3rd grade and thereafter.
posted by
mattloch
on Jun 15, 2007 at 10:34 AM
Yea jfrancais, nothing like pulling a kid out of class once a week to single him out for "speacial" treatment by the other students.
posted by
jfrancais
on Jun 15, 2007 at 10:30 AM
Truth be told, I hated it at the time but I now see the relevance. Many of my peers in college (in Indiana) had never been in a science lab. I was ahead of the power curve. It made subjects I hated (sciences) more tolerable.
posted by
Hardliner4freedom
on Jun 15, 2007 at 10:25 AM
And you had a science lab. What heaven that must have been. Something like that would have made me enjoy school, rather than grow up hating it. posted by
jfrancais
on Jun 15, 2007 at 10:22 AM
H4F, I feel ya. I was one of the lucky "chosen ones" for that GATE program. I was in a regular class for a while and it bored the heck out of me. While I was at another school they had a "pull out" program where I would take GATE classes once a week then return to the regular classroom. There was a huge difference in what was being taught! Before I transferred over to BO I was lucky to get put in the combo classes where the grade levels are mixed. It made the "normal" school more manageable. I truly believe that students shouldn't be relegated to school just because of the area they live in. There's a huge discrepancy in the quality of education one receives due to this practice.
posted by
OjoReal
on Jun 15, 2007 at 10:15 AM
I don't know much about the teacher retirement program but I'm concerned about 'reported' retirement spiking. That has to reach into the public's pocket somewhere along the line, doesn't it? I could get a raise at my job and pay extra Social Security for one or two years and it wouldn't make a big impact on my retirement.
posted by
Hardliner4freedom
on Jun 15, 2007 at 10:14 AM
Damn, I wish I had this when I was a kid. Hated growing up poor and being forced through an ordinary school, thanks to the lack of alternatives. That did severe damage to my attention span.
posted by
jfrancais
on Jun 15, 2007 at 10:09 AM
You're right, Mattloch. I was able to interact with the others on some level but we still pretended to like each other when we played basketball or some other sport. I was a bit of an anomaly since I was from the "hood" so I had a double identity. I knew some of the regular students outside of school. With that being said, it was always the "smart" kids vs. everyone else on the playground.
posted by
mattloch
on Jun 15, 2007 at 10:03 AM
Jfrancais: "So the GATE kids don't interact with the others anymore?"Have they ever? From what I remember, GATE kids were pretty well shunned by the rest of the students. /yes, I was a GATE kid //son will be tested soon posted by
jfrancais
on Jun 15, 2007 at 10:02 AM
I do believe that is what "unified" means.
posted by
jasonsperber
on Jun 15, 2007 at 09:50 AM
Woof, I believe "non-unifed" means that it's an independent district of elementary schools and not part of a "unified" school district (like LAUSD) which administers K-12, that's all. (But I could be wrong.)
posted by
jfrancais
on Jun 15, 2007 at 09:43 AM
So the GATE kids don't interact with the others anymore? They are pretty forward thinking at Bessie Owens as far as curriculum and academic exposure to young kids. Personally I hated my experience at Bessie Owens (long school days, rude staff, etc.) but now that I'm older I have an appreciation for it. The academics were second to none. I remember taking classic literature and mathmatics in college and I was very well prepared due to the curricula at B.O. We even had a computer lab (in the mid-80's) and science lab which was unheard of at the time.
posted by
woofwoof
on Jun 15, 2007 at 07:14 AM
Bessie Owen is the neighborhood elementary and the GATE part of the school is seperate. And boy, do they have "the money". Gotta think where I saw the report that lists the money at each school, all I remember is, they had a whopping chunk of it..
posted by
jfrancais
on Jun 15, 2007 at 05:50 AM
So they put Bessie Owens Gifted program in a whole different bracket or is the whole school GATE only now? When I was student there I thought that GATE was put at that school to prop up average test scores. It is a very tough curriculum but it pays off in the long run. I'm currently in a Graduate program and I still use lessons and ideas I learned from Bessie Owens. Jr. High and High School were boring because B.O. prepared me academically.
posted by
woofwoof
on Jun 14, 2007 at 06:54 PM
The report:: BCSD was chartered in 1882 and is now the largest non-unified elementary school district in the state of California, with an enrollment of 25,810 students. BCSD covers 158 square miles and has 43 schools. There are over 4,000 employees in the District. Me: WOW! In the whole state of California....the largest yet....."non-unified" kinda gets me though. Some schools do good, some don't, is that what it means? The report: BCSD does not post notices of upcoming Board meetings in the “Get Involved” section of the local newspaper although other school districts do so for each meeting. The citizens and parents need to be more involved with the Board meetings and have their voices heard and they need to be aware of, attend, and observe public deliberations by the Board of Education. ME: Maybe they should....but not enough people/parents are interested in their kids academics., unfortunately. The report: According to the State Academic Performance Index (API) results released March 27, 2007, 32 of 40 schools rank in the bottom 30 percent of schools statewide and 38 of 40 schools did not meet their state API target for 2006-2007. There are three other schools in the District that are exempt from testing and their scores are not published. BCSD is in the second year of Program Improvement, and half of the District’s schools are in Program Improvement sanctions through the that receive Federal Title I funds and do not achieve Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) targets for two consecutive years are placed in Program Improvement and must implement additional federal requirements. If a school in Program Improvement continues to fail to meet its AYP for five years, the District must initiate plans for alternative governance of the school, including monitoring by the state. In BCSD, two schools are presently under California Department of Education and KCSOS control. Based upon the latest published test scores, several other schools may be under alternative governance next year. One school out of 40 scored at or above the state performance target of 800 in 2006 (Downtown School), although many were close to their school site API targets. Five schools in the District scored a ten which is the highest rank when compared to other similar schools in the state. These schools are Casa Loma, Frank West, Franklin, Besse Owens Gifted, and Harding. Me: Both my kids go to Harding and Bessie Owens Gifted. YEAH, ME! Too bad the other schools can't perform the same...why is that? The report: At high minority and high poverty schools, teacher turnover typically runs at 10% annually.” These figures seem consistent with, and support the Committee’s findings regarding BCSD. Some teachers are leaving BCSD because they feel they do not have the support of the administration to seek redress for their grievances. The Committee asked BCSD for data regarding teacher resignation and was told this information was not available. The loss of experienced, dedicated teachers is a contributing factor to the number of schools failing to meet API or AYP targets. A majority of the District’s schools are in Program Improvement; this is a detrimental factor to the students’ academic achievement. ME: How do we change this? Is 10% leaving high, Maybe it is....it must be for it to be a detrimental factor.
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