Comments on: My Research is Better Than Your Research!

By: Kim

Kim — Fri, 16 May 2008 18:00:08 +0000

My only PhD. is from the school of hard knocks and my advice to all parties is to avoid getting lost in the academic research and complex arguments.

Let’s bring this debate down to earth for simple folks like me … Let’s assume the following: 1. You are a sheep herder, 2. You have one pasture that produces prize winning sheep and 2nd, larger pasture that, at best, sustains sheep, 3. You discover that the “2nd pasture” sheep suffer from a lack of appetite, are stunted in their growth, and produce less wool than the “1st pasture” sheep.

In this scenario you do not have any idea what the root cause of the under-performing sheep is or even whether there are multiple causes – maybe it’s the quality of the vegetation in the 2nd pasture, maybe it’s too many sheep for one shepard, maybe it’s the different herding dogs, maybe the micro-climate, maybe it’s the sheep themselves. Whatever the root cause, the last thing you would do would be to begin to pasture the “1st pasture” sheep in the 2nd pasture to see if they could still thrive.

Let’s focus on the 2nd pasture and making it produce rather than closing the 1st pasture, the one that produces! Want to experiment? Then put a few 2nd pasture sheep in the 1st pasture – not the other way around!!

The only time you would consider the other option would be if you didn’t have the resources to work on trouble-shooting and upgrading the 2nd pasture …

Oops! I may have stumbled on the problem … nevermind, herd them all into the 2nd, larger pasture and hope for the best!

By: joedecatur

joedecatur — Fri, 09 May 2008 18:45:16 +0000

At the parent meeting, even the principal admitted that she doesn’t know if this will work and that she was just trying things to see what might work to bring up the achievement of lower level students. She also admitted, when a student complained that she had trouble learning in a heterogeneous class, that she knew that there were discipline problems in the heterogeneous setting this year and that she would try to improve it next year.

The problem for the student that commented is that she doesn’t get to redo 9th grade – she’s stuck with a lost year. I would imagine that if she didn’t learn anything because of class chaos.. that no one learned anything – hence a lost year for all regardless of their “ability group.” Hey, but anything in the name of jumping on the next great unproven fad, right?

BTW, the letter on levelling from Ms. McCain-Fernandez on the website is misleading and in some places outwright wrong. For instance, CSD’s website touts Fayette County as some sort of poster child for detracking. A parent who had actually called the administration at Fayette stated at the meeting that their school system is in fact on a three tier track (College prep/honors/AP) rather than on a two tier track as the article stated. In other words, Fayette has either never detracked or they detracked and recently went back to a three track system. This speaker appeared to have documentation to prove it, but the Decatur High adminsitrators just argued with her. CSD has yet to issue a correction.