Opening Slater will improve test scores, right?

A few reminders and remarks here about the DFC and BATF from last year.

First, I deeply commend all the hard work these many dedicated citizens did and how they pushed for more working meetings and more time to carefully go through all the information and discuss the issues in detail. Both groups came to a set of recommendations which were not based on bias or emotion, but well supported by the facts. We should be so lucky to have all our committees and groups involved in our district to be such dedicated thoughtful people.

Second, I want to remind people how the bulk of the recommendations of these 2 committees were basically tossed-aside by the Board for political reasons. Nothing at all was done from the BATF. This could just as easily happen again this time (depending on the results of the November election). I hope everyone who was on the prior DFC and BATF and enough such other reasonable and dedicated residents from all across Mountain View will step up to serve the kids of our district in-spite of the risk their work may be set-aside again by the Board. I think if we once again have such people doing this vital work as well as it was done before, then it will become far more difficult politically for the Board to just ignore them.

Third, I want people to remember that immediately after the DFC and BATF gave their final recommendations both the membership and the structure of these committees were severely criticized by a specific Board member and certain specific others with a specific stake in the outcome. Claims of bias and improper function. Claims that all these committees should be formed and run directly by the Board itself and NOT formed or run by the Superintendent. The criticism was vicious and deliberately smeared the integrity of the people involved and the Superintendent at that time. All these criticisms could have been stated at or before these committees got started working, but instead it was only after the work had all been done that accusations were hurled.

I strongly suggest that if anyone has an issue with the good conscientious people who volunteer so many hours of their lives to help our kids, that those critics will make their complaints know publicly ASAP, get their concerns dealt with at the START, then take the admonition from wedding ceremonies, "SPEAK NOW OR FOREVER HOLD YOUR PEACE!". Don't wait until you're unhappy with the results and then spew accusations.

Let's all hope we have a new DFC and BATF with similarly talented and dedicated people and that they will do their job as well as was done before, but this time they wont find their work and time was wasted in favor of a political agenda.

@Matt of St. Francis Acres
You asked:
"Opening Slater will improve test scores, right?"

Matt, Trustee Nelson himself, on more than one occasion, specifically stated that opening Slater will NOT have any benefit for the educational achievement of our district or any of the kids. He clearly stated that opening Slater is a political issue and is only to help the "quality of life" for those people living closest to the Slater location.

There are videos of Board meetings and you can use the available published agendas from the MVWSD web-site to help locate such statements from Trustee Nelson recorded to get his exact quotes.

So, no, not even Trustee Nelson thinks opening Slater will improve test scores.

But again, that was never a consideration in the decision.

I wish that even a fraction of the time, money and attention that goes to raising the level of our lowest achieving students was given toward the students who are high achievers.

I have a student at one of our middle schools who is bored out of her mind, getting perfect grades without much effort, and frankly being given a pretty mediocre education. There's very little differentiation, no GATE program at all, and only a few meaningful enrichment programs. She could do so much more. I'm not just talking about harder classes for the sake of getting ahead, but opportunities to be creative, learn another language, do art, stretch her wings a little bit.

Our new superintendent seems to have a narrow vision of what the students in our schools need. Of course we need to help students with disabilities and language barriers, but I hope he can sometimes spare a thought for improving education opportunities for the rest of the students too.

I would like to thank the administration and the superintendent for working toward addressing the findings of the DQR for special education and English language learners. The makeup of any comity to address these issues has to include parents of those children in those programs. This will be difficult. Finding parents who have the time and the childcare help to come to frequent committee meetings will not be easy. I would love to participate, but finding childcare for my special needs child is far from easy. We are going to need to be creative in order to hear everyone's voice!

It would also be helpful if the district gave the smart students something to work on - instead my daughter is left to tutor her lower achieving peers and miss out on her own education, that should be challenging and not repetitive worksheets.

It is all about the value of education, and sadly it is represented by race and culture, and the statistics show this over and over, everywhere in the nation. If a certain race or culture does not put a priority of importance to being educated and staying in school you will see a continuation of the status-quo in Mountain View. And that includes the parents as well as the students. Look and see what race of young people are in gangs and just hanging out after school, then look at the students that are at the local library or at home studying with parental support and involvement in their education. There is your answer and no dumbing down of curriculum will ever solve anything except reduction of quality of teaching to suit the weakest link in the chain.

@dennis. In the end, your remarks are dead on. That said, you WILL be punished for 'deviating from the allowed narrative' on this subject.

Mountain View Whisman school district is trying to do all things for all children and it just isn't working. As others here have stated, it's as much a political problem as an educational and limited budget problem. The district needs to take a very careful look at its budget and decided how they can get the most student benefit for our bucks.

Hint to school board --- special ed and remedial English and math programs suck up inordinately large amounts of money for relatively small benefits. Look elsewhere when setting up your priorities, and tell the politicians and unrealistic parents to go fish.

Dennis, your comments are almost right, except I don't find race to be the problem, it's more class (especially economic). In any country there are people who are dedicated and do well in school, and there are people who don't apply themselves for any number of reasons. Race has nothing to do with it, it's more related to social class.

I have been fortunate enough to live in 2 countries in Latin America and 3 countries in Asia and I've learned that we have much more in common across countries than we think. In Mexico and Peru, there are many dedicated, hard working students who love learning and do well in school. They may not be the ones immigrating to the US, or maybe they do so in smaller numbers and blend into our tech industry more.

In Vietnam, Thailand and Japan there are students who struggle to make school a priority. Japan was a tad better at supporting low-income students than the other countries (and probably even better than the US) but even they struggled to bring these students up with their peers. But there it's not a race thing - they are all Japanese - but more recognized as an issue between social classes.

For people who have never lived outside the US, please understand that you have a very limited view of different races and cultures, especially influenced by different waves of immigration into the US. All countries, races and cultures have good students and bad students. No one race has a monopoly on educational ability. In some specific circumstances and instances, cultural and racial struggles may give this appearance, but don't be naive.

However, I do agree with the other posters who are concerned with the level of district resources being focused on the struggling students, with very little focus on those already meeting standards. Every child deserved to be challenged and achieve growth to their fullest potential. I hope we can find a way to improve outcomes for all our students.

@Ron, Dennis, Floor, etc
@Stop the ignorance of Rex Manor
wrote:
"Dennis, your comments are almost right, except I don't find race to be the problem, it's more class (especially economic). "

The bottom line is that it's utterly irrelevant if the issue is or is not race/culture/class/nationality/income level/special needs/single-parent/foster kids/or anything else. Those are all either excuses or politically expedient labels exploited to attain some other goals that wont change the results. Which probably explains why the "achievement gap" seems to be nearly universal across the USA.

I have seen utterly apathetic parents who couldn't be bothered to pay any attention to their kids, let alone their education and yet those kids found a way to excel in school, I have seen the opposite. I've seen kids in the worst conditions that should never exist and some kids do really well. Regardless of background, some kids will do well regardless of circumstances and others wont do well regardless of circumstances. That is not what we have control over.

The single biggest factor we do have control over is how well parents actually engage in their kids education and in their schools. Not all parents will, not all parents can. Efforts to improve this factor are difficult, slow and not politically sexy. This does not assure a good outcome for every kid, but it sure has proven to get the biggest improvements for the investment of time/effort made by parents and schools. This has always been the case.

The best the schools and district can do on this is to provide a pathway and advice to parents on how to engage as best they can with their kids education and schools.

If we ever hope to raise up the achievement of the bulk of kids, not currently doing well, we must make serious stride in this area.

Other educational issues are certainly worth working on, but if we leave out parental engagement, we are leaving out the most effective factor.

@The Floor, @parent

I think you might be tip toeing around what you really would like to say, so I'll say it for you. The other, perhaps overwhelmingly, underserved population is gifted learners. There are no GATE resources in MVSD, LASD, LAMV - parents have to help differentiate and enrich the basic public school education. Is there a district plan for helping these students reach their potential?

There are many factors that impact achievement for all students. One factor is class size. Why are high achieving students left to tutor peers instead of being stretched? Because teachers simply cannot provide the individualized attention that the highest and lowest achieving students need. Solution? Pair them up. Better solution? Hire more teachers, lower class sizes across the district. Or, hire teachers' aides, keep overall class sizes the same, but increase the number of EXPERT adults in the classroom.

Yes, this is very expensive. But we're talking about providing the educational foundation for these kids' futures. Though the MVWSD proudly points out that class sizes are down by about 1-2 students per class, they are still higher than they were a decade ago.