MAGNET SCHOOLS DISADVANTAGE HISPANICS

the Los Angeles school distict has a population that is three quarters Hispanic. It also has some special high-quality schools called magnet schools. The whole point of these schools is to give a better education to minorities. So those schools are full of Hispanics, right? WRONG! Less than 50% of the students are Hispanic. Instead the magnet schools have disproportionate numbers of whites, Asians and blacks. How come? It seems to be an outcome of all the twists and turns they need to do in order to get blacks in. So favouring one minority disadvantages another. What a surprise! An excerpt from a recent report below:

"Thousands of parents vying to get their children into some of Los Angeles' most sought-after public schools find themselves caught in a byzantine bureaucratic process with strict racial quotas and almost insurmountable odds.

The Los Angeles Unified School District's 162 magnet schools, designed to be among the best campuses in the district, mostly are as competitive for applicants as any popular private school. Of the 66,000 applications last year, only about 16,000 new students were admitted. Applications for next year are due Friday.

The district advertises the program in a 12-page booklet called "Choices." In reality, however, L.A. Unified allows parents to select just one school. Most parents barely have a chance, let alone a choice.

"We tell parents it's a little bit of the lottery," said Sue Becker, the magnet coordinator of 32nd Street/USC Performing Arts Magnet. More than 4,000 students applied to the school last year for about 100 spots, making it by far the most popular school in the district.

The magnet program was established in 1977 as Los Angeles Unified's court-sanctioned answer to forced busing and a way to prevent racial isolation in the district. Designed to better integrate district schools, the magnet program sought to move white children into schools in predominantly minority neighborhoods, and vice versa, by luring them with specialized classes in science, communications and the arts, among other subjects.

Because of high demand, the district selects students by computer, using a complicated points system that awards more points to students whose neighborhood schools are overcrowded or located in predominantly minority neighborhoods. Under stringent racial guidelines, each magnet school should be 60% to 70% minority and 30% to 40% white.

More here





SOCIAL PROMOTION: REALITY BITES

Bolstered by statistics showing students who are held back benefit from remedial education, the Florida Board of Education decided to ask lawmakers to end "social promotion" at all grade levels. Board officials said Tuesday it would be an important step in ensuring students are prepared when they are promoted to the next grade. However, details of how the state would handle the tens of thousands of children who wouldn't advance have not yet been worked out.

Right now, only third-graders in Florida have to show they read at the appropriate skill levels before they are promoted to the fourth grade. Those who are held back can attend summer reading camps or repeat the third grade.

The issue is a touchy one for parents, who often fight having their children held back. It also would require the state to adopt a more widespread, and likely expensive, system of providing remedial education throughout public schools. But board Chairman Phil Handy said ending social promotion is necessary to ensure that children graduating from Florida's public schools have mastered basic academic skills. Students who get to high school with only elementary reading skills have no real chance of success, he said. "That's not right," he said. "We need to find an alternative to that."

Last year, almost 39,000 of the nearly 190,000 third-graders failed to meet state reading standards . More than a third were sent on to the fourth grade anyway because they qualified for an exemption, including spending less than two years studying English as a second language or demonstrating reading proficiency in other ways. Of those held back, 60 percent brought their reading skills up to par. The others either needed additional help, or eventually were promoted because state policy allows a child to be held back only two years.

Education Commissioner John Winn said if lawmakers adopt a policy ending social promotions, the board would phase it in over several years.

Source






Teachers with a graduate degree are no better: "Although Linda C. Cavalluzzo's recent study of teacher-student data from the Miami-Dade County School District was designed to throw light on the value of certification by the National Board of Professional Teaching Standards, her study inadvertently exposed how little value graduate degrees add to teaching performance. While teachers with National Board certification had a size effect on student achievement of about 7 percent, teachers with a major in the subject they were teaching -- in this case, math -- showed a much larger size effect of 11 percent. Teachers with graduate degrees had a size effect of only 2 percent. In other words, teacher graduate degrees -- which are rewarded with much higher pay -- make virtually no difference to student achievement."

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For greatest efficiency, lowest cost and maximum choice, ALL schools should be privately owned and run -- with government-paid vouchers for the poor and minimal regulation.

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