I found an interesting/appalling snippet in this summary of a recent Calexico (CA) Unified School District board meeting. Test scores are still down, and one CUSD Trustee apparently believes, with all his heart, that the kids in his district are hopeless:
Regardless of the fact that districts lose money when they fail to meet state and federal standards, CUSD Trustee Reynaldo Ayala said he doesn't agree the tests reflect what students are learning in Calexico.
"The Calexico Unified School District has always had low scores and the question is why," he said. "I don't know if we will ever, in the next 100 years, have scores above the bar because of the nature of our community."
Calling NCLB a "horrible act," Ayala said students in a city such as Calexico should not be held to the same standards as every American student because of the vast number of immigrants attending school here.
OK, so he manages to cloak his statement in the guise of compassion. However, the statement that students in one district cannot be held to the same standards as other American students, because the community itself will always prevent those students from reaching a high standard, IS the same thing as saying that these kids are not educable. It IS the same thing as saying that these kids do not have the capability of learning basic skills and that the schools simply cannot overcome any part of each student's background. It IS the same thing as saying immigrant children cannot be expected to learn English and become mainstreamed into American society, despite the fact that countless immigrants in the past saw these tasks as part of the sure path to accomplishment in the US, and managed to succeed in them.
I'm sure Mr. Ayela (and those who applauded him) believe that they are compassionate. I believe that they're idiots who are willing to make every excuse possible for why the "nature" of the community means that these kids simply "cannot" learn.
Here are the 2002 STAR scores for the Calexico Unified School District. Let's take, as an example, how the kids are doing at Moreno Junior High. At least 50% of the 7th-, 8th-, and 9th-graders are "Below/Far Below Basic" on reading skills. 60% of 8th-grades fall into these lower categories in General Math. 1% of the 9th-graders - around 3 kids - are "Advanced" in History.
Is some of this due to the fact that many of these kids are recent immigrants? Undoubtedly. Does this school district need a trustee who claims that nothing can be done to help these kids improve? Absolutely not. A school district that's willing to try something, anything, to help kids perform better still might fail. A district that lays all the blame on the "nature" of the community WILL fail.
There's a reason the Thernstroms gave their latest book the main title of No Excuses. Trustee Ayela should be reading it.
Posted by kswygert at October 16, 2003 04:17 PM