PACT! is about community
Last Friday morning, Suepinda and I joined Lori Hoyt on WCOM 103.5FM, Carrboro's low powered community radio, on her weekly radio program WILPF Wake Up Call. We were discussing the beginnings of PACT! as an organization and the need for parent and child advocacy in the CHCCS district.
When we first arrived, scurrying through the doorway just minutes before going on air, Suepinda dropped the bomb that I was to be the sole speaker. Boy! was I surprised.
I asked how long was the segment. Lori told me we were on for the full 30 mins. I thought, "OMG, what can I talk about for 30 minutes? We tested mic's, started a bit of conversation and then went on the air.
Well, in the real world, 30 minutes is NOTHING. Part of the reason were were scurring in the doorway at 7:20am was the fact that we had just got the four little children out the door for school to make the bus. To say that our mornings are busy and 30 minutes is nothing is an understatement.
Anyway, we went through the introductions, convinced Suepinda to speak and tried to inform the community of our efforts. We are "grass roots", to say the least. There were SO many things left unsaid and so many things that could be misinterpreted. PACT! stands for Parents Advocating for Children Together! we give no delineation between ethnicity or culture. Children are just that, children. Part of the reason our group has formed was the focus on children in this district had become financially lopsided. Because of this "lopsidedness" parents find themselves pitted against one another for resources. That should not be! All boats should be lifted by this great tide of the common goal to educate the children in the best way possible.
African-American and Latino children have programs to assist them in "making the grade" and becoming proficient. There are many stop-gaps put in place to catch the kids who are failing but they are not implemented fully across the board. The teachers are, at times, not as fully engaged as they should be (and there are many reasons/excuses for this~there's a thin line between an excuse and a reason). The programs in place are resources. I will have to add up the dollar figure. It may or may not be commensurate with what is being spent on the exceptionally gifted children. That will have to be seen. But, what I DO know is that the expectations from some, if not a majority, of the teachers in this school district range in the pretty low area of the meter when engaging African-American and Latino students for learning.
While expectations for the gifted children are much higher. Studies have proven ( as I am writing this off the cuff I will have to get the studies for you ) that expecting MORE from the child has a greater effect on their learning. When teachers see gifted children their expectation is that the child can do more. When that expectation is backed by a parent who insists that the teacher provide more stimulus to their child the teacher is compelled to do so. When I hear how gifted children need certain programs to continue their education moving in a forward direction; how, at times, the earth and tide is moved to make it happen I question why the same thought processes and actions are not applied to the children who are failing. What I am saying, to be clear, is IF they can have a LEAP program focused on the needs of a truly gifted small minority (its about 1/3) of students because of the need for advanced stimulation and instruction why can they not do so for the small minority of students (another 1/3) who are failing? To NOT do so says much more against education than it does for it.
I'm getting off on a tangent here. Let me sum it up to say that we need to expect more from the children of this district whether they are Asian, White, Black, Latino, Burmese, you name it. Expect more and the children will deliver more. Giving up on the child is not the answer.
It starts in Early Childhood Education and by the time the child, who can't afford that early education begins attending school they are already behind. There are MANY reasons for this. So, let's not place blame, get angry, indignant or point fingers. Let's just point forward.
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Kevin, you know I support all of what you're doing 100% but I think I need to correct a couple of points in here. Specifically, LEAP is not for all gifted (1/3 of the population) students. LEAP in its current implementation (who knows what it will be after the gifted plan is revised this year) is for about 20 kids in each grade (2%?). When gifted parents speak of needing something different, it is not because LEAP is an issue. It is because there is a huge gap between what the LEAP kids are able to receive (not necessarily because more $ is spent there, more because they are self-contained) and how kids who are gifted but don't make the high bar for LEAP are adressed. This 90% of gifted kids are "served" by the district's "differentiation" policy, which makes teachers teach to basically 3 levels of children in every classroom, regardless of how wide the spread between child #1 and child #30 actually is. I personally don't think this serves anyone well. It says the teachers face huge challenge to make learning happen for all levels (but are only graded themselves on the amount of proficiency in the class). I also completely disagree about the expectations being high for gifted children. Because teachers are graded on proficiency only, they are content to let gifted kids learn nothing and focus on other parts of the class. My son's experience was very telling. He was identified as gifted in 1st grade. He was completely bored especially in 3rd grade until he was identified for LEAP. Then, the teacher realized she would look bad if he entered LEAP in 4th grade unprepared. And he started getting a whole different set of assignments and challenges. Until that point, regardless of the gifted label that he had, there was no incentive for the teacher to challenge him. There was basically no expectation that he should learn anything if he was already proficient at grade level. What gifted parents have pushed for is a couple of things -- either fully implement the differentiation policy as indicated by the consultant who wrote the policy (ie, have the proper training for teachers and time to plan and focus on all children), or scrap it and come up with something else to be able to serve a broad range of students ("flexible" grouping is the most common alternative you hear about these days). And make sure that kids are measured on achievement (a year's growth for a year in school sounds like an easy measure), not proficiency.I don't think either of those proposals are intended to get more $ for gifted services (although there is a documented gap between what the gifted plan says we need for specialists and what is actually budgeted at the moment). And I think changes like this would benefit all students.Personally, I am appalled that my son's LEAP class has no AA or Latino members. While I wouldn't advocate for lower standards based on race, I do think the district needs to consider some way to make sure AA/Latino populations are challenged to the same high performance as whites/Asians. I don't consider my son to have had a full education if he only relates to some races in his self-contained class. I hate it when the district creates situations that pits groups against each other. As a person with a stake in our country's economic success, I truly believe we need all kids to excel for our future. I look forward to continuing to work with you in particular on solutions that are truly helpful for all children. Because "what a waste it is to lose one's mind or not to have a mind is being very wasteful." :)
I would love to hear the interview but can't seem to locate it online. Do you have a link?Thanks,Kimberly