Poor results for our schools

My heart goes out to these young people who are being denied a good education. We should be ashamed.

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NorthEscambia.com
Pensacola Beach Blog
The Thornton Review
Only half of Escambia public school student read on grade level, according to FCAT
The rest of the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test scores have been released. The news for Escambia County isn’t good. Just as last year, only about half of the fourth through tenth graders can read on their grade levels. The average score of those reading at Level 3 or above is one percentage point less than last year.

Let’s see how the school district and daily newspaper spin this one.

Grade 2013 2012
4 56% ... 58
5 55% ... 55
6 50% ... 49
7 50% ... 52
8 47% ... 49
9 47% ... 50
10 50% ... 49
Average 50.7 51.7[b]

http://fcat.fldoe.org/mediapacket/2013/default.asp

I went and took a look and Escambia seems to be about in the middle of the pack. Not that it's a good thing. Being "average" in a group of scores that aren't so great isn't a good thing. St. John's County has some of the top scores in the state. My daughter went to college in St. John's County and her degree is in Elementary Education and Exceptional Education (Special ed). She did all of her interning/practicums in St. John's County. She told me about one of the schools that she interned in that she was disgusted with some of the parents. Parents that had no interest in their child's education or in helping their child. They keep track of the percentage of kids that are classified as homeless. This is not always the parents' fault...bad things happen to parents who are trying to do the right thing. But many of these homeless kids are being shuttled from home to home--their "aunt's" house or mom's "friend's" house or whatever, because their mom is in jail or unable to unwilling to care for the child. And...usually there was no mention of the kids' dads in this whole picture.

More and more...I think education is as much about parents as it is about kids and teachers. We expect teachers to work miracles with kids whose parents don't give a damn.

I totally agree but it is just another window to the dysfunction found our area. We focus on the wrong issues. I can comment on the Ball Park and get hundreds of comments in the paper or the other forum. Sewage spill in a small Bayou? Drive by shootings? Old news.
It is sad. Thanks for your reply....

Not much is as important as educating our children.

You have a PM

I was a substitute teacher at Wedgewood Middle School in the middle 1970's. From my experience, if the class had a disciplined teacher, the students were well-behaved and were willing to learn. If the teacher didn't care (you could tell), the students were unruly and were in that class to raise hell.

Could it be that the teacher union protects teachers that should get canned? From my limited experience... and it WAS limited... I got that feeling.

Maybe there is way to evaluate each teacher's abilities without schools just teaching kids how to take tests. (This is way out of my area of expertise.)

I have read where teachers were pissed that their pay was based upon test performance of other schools in the district, but not their own school. That's not right. If teacher pay is predicated upon student performance, it should be based upon their own students... not of students at their school (other teachers), or of student performance in a particular district.

Perhaps student performance should not only be an index of whether teachers get a certain raise... maybe student performance should be used to determine if a teacher gets to keep their job.

I don't know Eric....there are so many restrictions put on teachers because of law-suits by parents and so many other groups. I will admit part of the problem is because of inadequate teachers and another is parental guidance. A teacher can not do it all...learning is an all day event not just in the classroom.

I will brag here....my granddaughter a 4th grader at Oriole Beach received a perfect score on her F-cat. My 4th grade grandson at Gulf Breeze Elementary scored very high.

Joanimaroni wrote:

I don't know Eric....there are so many restrictions put on teachers because of law-suits by parents and so many other groups. I will admit part of the problem is because of inadequate teachers and another is parental guidance. A teacher can not do it all...learning is an all day event not just in the classroom.

I will brag here....my granddaughter a 4th grader at Oriole Beach received a perfect score on her F-cat. My 4th grade grandson at Gulf Breeze Elementary scored very high.

I agree that parent involvement is critical, but it is almost impossible to MAKE them get involved. Many parents don't get involved, have minimal to no participation at parent-teacher nights, do little or no assistance with homework, but are quick to put the whole blame on the school and teachers. Many parents feel that shouting at their kids to "Do your homework" is sufficient.. It isn't. Sometimes, parents just have to put in that personal time to help a child understand that homework.

Joani, that is outstanding!

There are bad teachers. But like Joani said, teachers have their hands tied. I remember when I was in grade school, I had one teacher who had a ruler that she'd use on the students. Heck, she didn't have to send a kid to the office. If someone was acting up, she'd whack them on the butt with a ruler. There wasn't a lot of crap going on in that class, I tell you what. We damn sure sat there and listened to the teacher.

LOL I went to Catholic school. If they called your parents for a disciplinary reason it was because you were expelled. The nuns handled everything else with a little assistance from a ruler, paddle or their hand.

Eric, parents need to be involved but so many are not. That is what is wrong with society now.

My brother's grand daughter just graduated from kindergarten last week and I asked her "what is a noun". She said "it's a person, place, or thing". I couldn't believe she knew that and doesn't start 1st grade until this fall. Some of the others still have no idea because the parents just send the kids to school or a friends house to get rid of them for a while.. I think the teachers are doing what they can but the kids need the drive to learn that must be taught by the parents.

Jake92 wrote:

My brother's grand daughter just graduated from kindergarten last week and I asked her "what is a noun". She said "it's a person, place, or thing". I couldn't believe she knew that and doesn't start 1st grade until this fall. Some of the others still have no idea because the parents just send the kids to school or a friends house to get rid of them for a while.. I think the teachers are doing what they can but the kids need the drive to learn that must be taught by the parents.

Bingo....for many parents school is free babysitting.