tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13850388.post2628841446418020133..comments2023-09-05T07:08:28.140-07:00Comments on solidaridad: Yellow Journalist Jim Newton Hails a Dubious Civil Rights HeroRobert D. Skeels * rdsathenehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07920561332154131328noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13850388.post-72739893683092325492011-04-27T15:36:27.637-07:002011-04-27T15:36:27.637-07:00McKinley Elementary school has a very diverse popu...McKinley Elementary school has a very diverse population of teachers. Many of the teachers grew up in Compton. There are Hispanic, African American, white and Asian teachers. All of the teachers are fully credentialed by the state of California. It is a fairly young and very energetic staff. The teachers voluntarily participate in professional development with UCI Math and Science Project. Many teachers seek and pay for workshops to learn new strategies to help their students. The staff, as a whole, is currently working on becoming National Board Certified (this is a very difficult process and only fifty percent of teachers that apply are certified). Most of the teachers have masters degrees. There are teachers with masters in science, linguistics and education. There are several teachers who have a B-CLAD. The test scores have been rising and continue to rise. This year has been very difficult on the morale of the hardworking staff and the parents that support them. Parent Revolution has actively campaigned against this school and the teachers that work there. The teachers and parents at McKinley do not have the political and media connections to defend this assault. This is an emotionally violent attack on a school and is pitting parents against parents. I can’t imagine that the type of behavior exhibited by this organization (Parent Revolution) would be tolerated in a wealthy suburban community. All parents need to have a voice in their child’s education. The way this was done . . . no one will really every know what McKinley parents want. Some parents weren’t contacted at all. Some believed they were signing a document to help beautify the school or improve the school (not supplant the principal and staff). There are parents that want the charter school and everything that was promised with that charter school. We will never know.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13850388.post-89178295952902677512011-04-26T13:04:17.277-07:002011-04-26T13:04:17.277-07:00A.K. here's one for you and all the other armc...A.K. here's one for you and all the other armchair activists working for the plutocrats' interests <a href="http://www.alfiekohn.org/teaching/edweek/poor.htm" rel="nofollow">Poor Teaching for Poor Children...in the Name of Reform</a>.<br /><br />I put in a minimum of 400 hours of non-political volunteer work in my community and the Westlake district every year to help people in the inner city. Westside elites can make specious accusations of infantilism all they want. What exactly have you done to help people? Supporting the vile agendas of the top 1% of income winners is not helping. I'll say it again: privatization is not a solution to poverty.Robert D. Skeels * rdsathenehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07920561332154131328noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13850388.post-35241621399529149002011-04-26T07:09:57.928-07:002011-04-26T07:09:57.928-07:00Why do you keep harping on Austin's "six-...Why do you keep harping on Austin's "six-figure" salary? There are plenty of school administrators in California making six-figure salaries. Does that invalidate the work they do? <br /><br />More to the point, are you seriously denying that McKinley is in the bottom ten percent of California schools? Are you denying that it's hit its AYP target just twice in the last eight years? Your politics is classic infantile leftism: let all the poor kids drown rather than embrace a change that might help some if that change would in any way strengthen bourgeois interests. Pathetic.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com