A former friend - the same wiseass who said the seeing-eye dog must be owned by my girlfriend - is himself something of a soft touch. He's befriended a Haitian family that includes a 5th grade student at an Allentown elementary school. I won't name the school because it might enable some people to determine this pupil's identity. His wife and daughters have decided to tutor this young scholar, and have been shocked by what they've learned.
This product of Allentown schools is unable to add any numbers, including any number added with zero. The child is unable to read and is even unable to spell the word cat. Yet this student has passed every grade in Allentown.
I have spoken to a teacher who student taught at this school, and she said things are terrible. This school has no money and the teachers there do not care.
This child's life may already be ruined, thanks to a failing school system.
30 comments:
government schools another failure and it will never be corrected because they have no clue
More money that will solve the problem.
Nope, not going to let you get away with this BS.
First, Learning comes from the home environment.
Second, the parents must be involved in their children learning. This means no cells phones durning the two hour study period every night after school. The child must be provided a nutritional meals and get about 9 hours of sleep. Plus, they need to get involved, check over the school work, go to meet the teachers night and have monthly conversations with the progress of learning and pitfalls.
Third, parents like you had Bernie, read to their children every night, provided stimulation in the environment, little television viewing, and no cell phones. Thought provoking conversations at dinner time!
Fourth, get rid of all charter schools and dismiss the book burning group going after the curriculum of good learning material which encompasses all of the books Bernie read as a kid.
Finally, get involved, get the book mobile to visit the schools and give away books for children to keep and trade among themselves with time to discuss all situations that they learned through their studies with other students. When a child is born, give the parents a book on how to raise a child properly in 2022 and then you wouldn’t have these issues in our community. But in any circumstances blame the teachers, because as parents it is your responsibility to ensure your child reads, writes, study, and learns the classics to become upstanding citizens like B.O. I don’t agree with his blog must you must admit the man is educated and it was through his parents that he was successful as a learner back centuries ago.
Schools have plenty of money, it is not an issue of money. We have been giving ever increasing more money to schools for decades, higher pensions and benefits for teachers.
Schools are no longer there to teach the basic necessities of a successful life, but they do understand at the grade school level about sexual preferences and that they should decide what sex they really are.
look at the national teachers union websites you will see how they address these issue, not math reading and spelling.
Then there is violence and that is in inner city schools, no wonder teachers are reluctant to serve there.
Schools are a product of the society, it is all floundering and declining, It is not just the schools it is society in general. The schools are just a symptom of the decline.
The only hope is to introduce vouchers and break the hold of the teachers unions on education. At least give children an opportunity to be educated in a safe environment that puts children first, not the union or social experimentation.
PA ranks 20th in per capita income. PA ranks 10th in per pupil spending. PA ranks 10th in average teacher salary. This state significantly overspends on public education vs its citizens means.
Meanwhile, Forbes ranks PA schools 28th. Our average SAT score is 29th. Money doesn't deliver results. Is ASD collecting all the taxes owed to them? John Fetterman had to be chased down numerous times to collect $25K in school taxes he dead-beated on. Who else is getting away without paying?
Seriously, what is this? A blog post or a Facebook message? You barely string a few sentences together, misspellings, etc. Sad. Bigly.
After living in the city for 39 years I escaped Allentown nearly 5 years ago. One of the reasons was the ASD Real Estate Tax. I was not a career teacher but I taught in in a downtown elementary school in ASD district for a while. Many of the students are from tight, two-parent households, with parents who are concerned for their child's future. Many are not. The differences are quite obvious to a teacher. I'm still involved in fund raising for the district. Sadly, I have to say that the school district is not up to full speed yet, post-pandemic. It's much like starting at zero. I believe the teachers are working on this, but I also think that some teachers became complacent due to two years of on-line learning. Allentown faces another problem that administrators don't like to acknowledge. Language. For many, if not most, of Allentown elementary students English is not the language spoken in the home. In the 20th century immigrants were aware that their children are likely to do better if they assimilate into the dominant culture, which includes understanding and speaking English. German, Irish, Polish, Syrian were proud of their English speaking children and encouraged them to speak English whenever in a pubic situation because they knew success was based on communication, even if their native language was spoken in the home. This isn't the case anymore and after two years of at home learning students are way behind normal grade level learning. High school teachers complain that they have had to lower their expectations and are sometime overwhelmed at the loss of skills, and communication is a problem. Unfortunately the losses can't be recovered with a few months of in-person learning. Students can't be brought up to speed all at once. Teachers also need to kick up their game and understand that the next few years will be spent in overdrive. Parents also have to give their kids what ever boost they need. Can that happen? It's a challenge, especially when it take an hour and a half to find a kid with a loaded hand gun in William Allen High.
I have deleted a few comments attempting to make this political. It is about a failing school.
8:36, this student comes from a broken home. I do not want to get into details. The father does not speak English. I am sure that, given the need to find a home and provide, there was little time spent on education during the pandemic. I agree that the teachers really have a tough task ahead of them. But what bothers me is that this student is in fifth grade and is still unable to read or do basic math. The system has passed this student before the pandemic even started. This is simply wrong.
5:43, Not every child has the luxury of having two parents who care. I agree that this child has been hindered by parents who have their own issues, but it is disgraceful tyhat the schools would advance a pupil who is unable to spell cat or add 5 plus 0.
The Simple and Obvious Solution: Disband ASD and give every child a check to attend a public charter school, a private parochial school, private school or other public school (i.e. Salisbury, Whitehall, Parkland, Emmaus, Catasauqua, Southern Lehigh etc) of their choice. ASD does not work and cannot function. Under the above plan the property owners in Allentown would see reduced property tax and the children would have a short at a normal education in a clean, safe and productive school. Allentown's residential neighborhoods could improve as the housing stock would no longer be burdened by ASD and relatively high property taxes. This is such an obvious solution. Besides moving his family to Parkland, what is Darth Voter doing for us left behind in Allentown????? He should be all over this idea.
I don't think blog posts or comments can diagnose the issue. Complex issues arise around student retention, special education labeling, cultural adjustment, family and social trauma. All affect learning and education decisions.
@9:56
Bernie, the Charter Schools are the problem. They are stealing public school monies and they are unaccountable. The Charter Schools teachers are not tested like public school teachers and they do not do proper testing for the pupils. We have a problem in the US in that they do not respect teachers. They are the least paid Master Degree professionals in this country.
Now, let’s work on this 5 year old. Let’s get him/her the proper education now. Perhaps repeat first grade would be helpful. Also, let’s look at the economic factors in child care. It costly and we need governmental help for child care to help these responsible mothers. As you stated, the parents have their own issues, so let find a way to offer proper child care to allow the mother to work a job that offers a living wage.
5:43 - You want to blame the parents, go ahead. BUT ASD put this kid through 6 YEARS of school, and nobody took one single little itty bitty moment to say that the kid wasn't progressing. Since you are not the Super, I am assuming that any teacher could have easily washed their hands of this student and sought help simply by making a note and letting a superior know, instead of kicking the can down the road.
You want to diss Charter schools, yet the popularity of CS is due to the poor performance of public schools. 7:33am is correct. PA Taxpayers pay top 10 wages, and these kids rank 30th in performance. Kind of like making Ferarri payments and driving a Volkswagen. The teachers union is all about money money money, oh, and TENURE. And every time the subject of "merit based pay" is brought up,all the union members scream bloody murder.
I would challenge someone from the DOE to put 5 people in a room, business people and educators, and tax payers, and pay them 100K each to come up with a plan in 30 - 60 days. There is a solution for everything, if people actually want a solution.
Democratic politicians love to throw money at the teachers unions. It is known as "buying votes".
We can thank the change from "teaching and learning" to "education." Education is a racket that emphasizes "how special and unique and precious you are" instead of emphasis on learning outcomes.
"I don't think blog posts or comments can diagnose the issue. Complex issues arise around student retention, special education labeling, cultural adjustment, family and social trauma. All affect learning and education decisions."
I agree there are many complex issues, but this is not one of them. How on earth does a school allow an illiterate student who can't add get advanced to fifth grade? Nothing complicated there. To me, what has happened to this student is tantamount to child abuse.
I have to laugh at all the experts here. My simple point is that no student who is illiterate and who is unable to add should be in fifth grade. Makes no difference what kind of school, teacher or parents or culture or union is involved.
"Seriously, what is this? A blog post or a Facebook message? You barely string a few sentences together, misspellings, etc. Sad. Bigly."
What I pointed out requires no extensive essay. It is a simple point. No child who is illiterate and unable to add should be in fifth grade.
"Bernie, the Charter Schools are the problem. They are stealing public school monies and they are unaccountable."
No..charter schools are not the problem. Charter schools provide the opportunity for parents in Allentown to send their children to clean, safe and diverse public schools with good academics. Why should good parents be punished for living in Allentown???
This is how future Allentown leaders are made. Just look at the current braintrust. Today, we are paying the price of poor education from years ago. Tomorrow, things will be run by today's student powerhouses, who are simply being passed along. Rinse and repeat. It's depressing.
Just because you can read and write doesn't mean you're smarter than the person next to you. How many stupid people are still in denial of the last presidential election?
It's truly wild that nobody in these comments seems to grasp that public schools directly rely on property taxes. If you ask me, the people who complain about their property taxes and the quality of public schools in the same breath are the ones who need to go back to school.
"How many stupid people are still in denial of the last presidential election?"
Or the one before! Or 2000! That's where this denial cRaZiNeSs started! Good talk.
Sincerely,
Albert Gore (D-TN)
Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY)
Stacey Abrams (D-GA)
Why are the folks on the right against standardized test?
11:07
The solution is for the family to educate the kids. It’s a shame that the Americans don’t have the time to spend with their children but that an economic issue with salaries, jobs, lack of unions and lack of child care in this country.
As for Charter Schools, unfortunately they are only in education for the money! They do not do the proper state testing since they are not held to the standards of public schools. Do your research look it up on Google Scholar where there are studies by academic researchers who dig deep into these subjects. When a child come from a charter school and go back into public school they are mostly one year behind their cohorts.
Lastly, the facts are education starts at the home as it was always.
I don't know any of the facts about the girl that was the subject of the original post. However, in general, a school district needs to be measured based upon students who are continuously in the same school district for a number of years. A large number of ASD students pop in and out of the district and in and out of individual schools. Many spend part of the year outside of Pennsylvania, including going to visit relatives on Caribbean islands. Evictions also contribute to this transiency, including persons who move to avoid an official eviction (which doesn't show up in the data). In many ASD classrooms, the students are almost entirely different in a classroom at the end of the year than at the beginning of the year.
Charlie,
First, I have avoided stating the gender of this child.
Second, this student has spent his/her entire time at ASD. So while it might explain some situations, it does not explain this one.
I just fail to understand how a student who is illiterate and unable to do kindergarten math is in fifth grade.
Would you like a 10 year old placed with 5 year old classmates? Get real. Give kids who are struggling additional help and a support group of same aged friends.
Did you see what Nazareth School District did? The letter about charges for service. Brilliant! Appears to keep costs off people that it doesn’t apply to.
I’ve seen this in an 8th grader who was in Allentown School District throughout his whole education and this student also could not do math or spell 3 letter words. In an 8th grader!
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