Wendy. Wendy who? We'n dy premier urban school district. The almost best of the worst.
No it's not an encyclopedia salesman. It's someone from We Are Schools to get your kids registered in FWCS. Every body in a seat on count day is more bucks for the district. And what a deal for somebody with kids who hasn't escaped to the suburbs. Free meals, free transportation, air conditioning, no failing grades in their courses and a guaranteed path to "graduation". They can even recommend the best colleges for remediation.
Why opt for a voucher to a snooty private school with no gangbangers. How else can they celebrate the colorful vocabulary and jailhouse fashions of street culture? Why spend over $100,000 to send you kids to Canterbury to keep them out of SSHS? I don't know but if GiaQinta knocks on your door be sure to ask him. I've only heard rumors.
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33 comments:
FWCS is killing my ability to sale my home. Why would anyone want to live on the southeast part of the city? Sure the houses are well built, but how many times do I have to hear a black kid call another kid nigger, excuse me I mean nigga, before I give my house away and run to Leo or Huntertown. My kids tell me this type of disrespect is tolerated, and even encouraged at their FWCS school. Any wonder we have so much black on black violence! FWCS is a sad school system that needs to say NO to bad language and other actions before it has the nerve to go house to house begging for more students.
That's why choice and alternatives are a good selling point for the city. If people don't have to avoid or leave the central city because of FWCS, home sales and values will improve. That would be a good thing to point out at the next charter school public hearing to counter the venom from GiaQuinta and company.
You do need to work on your political correctness, however.
Anon1 - The benefit of celebrating diversity in a district like FWCS is that you also learn what kind of trash talk is appropriate for each ethnicity. If you teach, you learn that nothing they say to you is inappropriate and after a while you become desensitized to stuff like MF, etc...
Anoymous 1 is nothing but a racist pig. You crackers need to shut the fuck up. How different is that from saying you are hurting my feelings and please quit? So what if your kids hear a couple of black kids call each other nigger. It is none of your business. You need to just learn to deal with it like everyone else because if you don't then my main nigga, Eric Holder, might come knocking. Peace out.
1. Gang Bangers do end up Luers. They had one killed in the last school year, and I know of a few others that are sit in the "Catholic seats." However, they might be asked to be more respectful.
2. As enrollment management consultant, FWCS' marketing efforts are the opposite of best practices. Counting Krista Stockman's salary, the office is paying $200,000 + in marketing efforts. I can design a marketing campaign and have it executed by highly-trained parent volunteers for 10% of this cost.
3. Older neighborhoods are great for families who choose to homeschool, and many are moving into Fort Wayne's historic neighborhoods.
4. The problem with vouchers is the fact the private schools, except for Canterbury, are now run-of-the mill schools that have a waterdowned curriculum, sub-par administration, that is destroying faith-based schools. Catholic schools will die in Fort Wayne, and then what we will have? No options!
Last Anon-
1 The Luers football player who was shot started out at Snider, had problems and transferred to Luers so he could keep playing ball.
2. FWCS is paying $359K (no bids necessary)for their PR consultant who is based in Va. That's how they define fiscal responsibility.
3. Some of the neighborhoods are fine for people with no kids (80% of the population). But bad schools and violence make it harder to sell a house, which is one reason they're a bargain. I would never invest a significant portion of my assets in a house in this school district.
4. Parochial schools in Ft. Wayne have passing rates form 80 to 90% on the state tests, similar to those in SAC and NAC. FWCS will never get there without radical changes, probably not even then. Catholic parents do buy in SW because St. John's elementary is still viable. Nearby (F rated) Harrison Hill is not.
You may not think moving out is an option until you consider what happened in Gary and Detroit. People practically gave their houses away to escape and neighborhoods changed overnight.
The sad thing is that FWCS has gotten worse over the past decade while Mrs. Robinson has been rewarded with continued pay increases in one form or another. FWCS needs a leader that will not tolerate bad behavior from students while insisting that teachers educate and stop babysitting. It would be interesting to see if the school population and academic success would grow and improve under this type of leadership.
St. John's and St. Al's have lower passing rate than some of FWCS' magnet schools. When comparing the magnets and the parochial schools, the key comparison is involved parents. All three schools have high percentages of involved two-parent families, who can help guide through the piles of homework and read to their children each night. When specifically looking at parochial schools, there are no homeless students at these schools, no children who speak ESL and no special education students. The principals carefully screen the kids that come into their schools, because their teachers and principals can't handle anyone different than those in their mold.
The problem is St. John's and St. Al's two-parent families, are now sick of the vouchers and disgusted from the water-downed Common Core, silly math, silly administration, and the good Catholic families are now homeschooling or choosing Canterbury as they can provide a more rigorous education than that of the Catholic schools. What does these mean, Catholic schools will have to pick kids who are homeless, from one-parent families, and more to survive. Their days are numbered.
I know the principals of both St. John's and St. Al's, they were not able to get into principal position at their previous school assignments. Why? The both lacked the leadership skills and common sense to due a dutiful job in public schools. The principal of St. John's was rumored to apply to FWCS, but had such awful leadership skills, she was passed over. Both principals have never been in elementary school positions, one taught high school German and the other taught high school studies. Neither one can add two-plus-two. So, how can they drive instruction on math?
BTW: The gangster could play football! The number one goal of Catholic schools is NOT to produce excellent students, but it's to produce excellent athletes. Let's be honest a NFL or NBA player who can't do math is someone who is able to drop a large donation into the annual fund, unlike a lawyer that lives on Old Mill Road. I heard about the newest NBA player that could barely pass math in FWCS, but somehow got great grades in algebra and above courses at Luers.
2BTW: There are some great boarding schools that still exists. If you can't get your home sold, and want your kids to escape the city there are options. Most boarding schools provide a more rigorous education than Catholic schools in Fort Wayne, and a few cost less than Dwenger.
The board that picks the next one won't have any insight on the reality in the classrooms. Only the teachers do. But they would have to start talking publicly about what's going on and that's not going to happen. There are too many inconvenient truths to ever have an honest discussion about urban schools.
Last Anon - It's all relative. FWCS has a couple of decent elementary schools, like Irwin and Croninger. but those may not be an option. Once you get them past elementary school, then what? All the middle schools and high schools have the same problems (balance), just to different degrees. I'd take the voucher any day.
You're right about the athletes. Thomas wasn't a star student, which may be a reason he left Ohio State early.
BTW the lawyer no longer lives on Old Mill. The air in the neighborhood is much fresher.
Evert,
What is your take on Tony Bennett? As I thought all along, Bennett was more about politics and raising money for the state Republicans than transforming education. I like how Bennett cheated to benefit private schools at the expense of the public schools. I also liked how Mitch took a $58,000 bonus while telling everyone else to go without. At this point in my life I hate state Republicans as much as national Democrats.
A Canterbury education cost approximately $200,000. One could save the money and move to Carroll's district and do just as well in education.
Very odd that Tony Bennett is upset that "a small snapshot of a long, arduous and iterative process" has hurt his educational reputation. He sounds like FWCS teachers when they complained that it was not right to allow a small snapshop of work decide if they got a raise in pay or even had a job for the next year. Welcome to the 21st century of education that you helped create Mr. Bennett. It is a real Mitch.
I have to agree with the last post. Both Bennett and Daniels said they wanted to reform and improve education in Indiana when in reality they wanted to kill public education and make money while doing it. The entire reform package should be thrown out and they should start over again. Indiana's education reforms are just as unfair and Obamacare, but I bet Indiana's Republican party will fight any attempts to undue the bogus reforms.
Evert you should start a petition to throw out the 2011 Indiana Education Reform Package.
Bennett still got paid over $150,000 for around seven months of work? Very sad that a liar like Bennett is rewarded with such wealth.
Evert,
Why don't you discuss the Tony Bennett's situation in regards to educational reform? Is this site only one for bashing Wendy Robinson?
Read your bullshit in the paper. Bullshit is to kind of a word. Indiana will not see any real improvement in education until parents rediscover how to parent and school administrators demand all students follow the rules. You are correct in your belief that schools care more about the money than educating their students, but under the new system this has not changed. Tell your boyfriend, Tony Bennett, that he was no better, and probably a lot worse than Wendy Robinson.
What Bennett did was stupid knowing he pissed off every teacher in the state by putting pressure on them. He was hard to like but the reforms are badly needed in a system who's first priority is self preservation. Leaving it the same is an option unless your objective is to get the rest of middle class parents out of the city or taking vouchers, including most of the FWCS teachers who have kids and don't live in the district..
By the way what happened to all those "A" rated banners that were hanging all over town a few years ago? You weren't complaining about the grading system then.
last Anon - BTW did you also read the column in the Sentinel Business section by Ball Sate professor Hicks about our teachers' colleges?
The hell I was not complaining. I thought FWCS being graded as an A was criminal. Any system that gives Wendy better than a D is probably dubious at best. Just because Wendy and her cronies are wrong does not make Bennett right.
By the way, I found a couple of historical errors in Winston Groom's Vicksburg. Groom is no Shelby Foote.
Bennett was a buffoon but he was my buffoon. Now you've got your buffoon with Glenda "Dewy Decimal" Ditz.
I read Professor Hicks' article. Once more someone talks about teachers having to prove by their students' test scores if they deserve a raise. Two problems with this theory. First, what happens if you teach a subject that is not tested? Also what happens if your students don't care? I mean why would students try to do well on the test? The state awards almost everyone that fails these important tests with a waiver so what is in it for the students if they pass. The only way students will try is if they are told the test counts for fifty percent of their grade. Ritz or Bennett will never or would never allow this to take place. Bennett talks about everyone having skin in the game, but in reality teachers are the only ones that are punished in this academic environment. How does Professor Hicks suggest teachers overcome apathy from both their students and the parents. Cannot be done. The only thing that will fix the problem is making the tests matter for students if they want to graduate. Sounds like capitalism, and in this day capitalism is a dirty word so nothing will change. Teachers will continue to get blamed, students will continue to graduate with less knowledge, and everyone will wonder why our economy is going down the drain.
I agree totally that the tests should count in student promotion and graduation. I don't believe that the state supt. has any say about that ,however. I believe that's a local and school decision. They have the discretion in giving waivers just like on social promotion. But making graduation contingent on passing the ECA's for example would raise the dropout rate, so it won't happen
That's the kind of thing FWEA should be talking about, right? As they used to tell me in the oil business, is you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem.
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Bishop Luers has changed its grade policy for the 2012-14 school year. The school has lowered its standard of rigor; a student can obtain a 60% in a class and still pass. Before the vouchers, a student had to have a minimum of 70%. Bishop Luers needs to be reprimanded at sinking to a new low. You don't lower your standards, you keep or raise your standards and work with each student to get them to where they need to be. Glad to know the best boarding schools in the nation for my future children.
It just shows there are no meaningful standards for course grades anywhere. Even if they stick to a figure like 70% for passing, they can adjust test difficulty, credit for homework, etc. to come up with the desired results. At FWCS kids who flunked tests were allowed to retake the parts they missed.
GiaQuinta came up with the ultimate farce yesterday. They're going to blow off the state grades and grade themselves.
The problem is an D at Carroll is like getting a C at Dwenger or Homestead, a B at Snider of Northrup, a A at Wayne.
I have spoken to Carroll students and taught with a great many of their teachers and I can tell you they are not better than Dwenger or Homestead.
So the only clue as to the relative strengths of schools within a state is the standardized tests. If you're at the bottom like FWCS you don't want to see the results and be reminded with the letter grades so now they just say you're going to ignore them. How that works exactly is beyond me.
They've been blowing them off the test scores all along anyway, except when they were on the verge of takeovers under PL221. We just got a formal admission of that. And an apology from GiaQuinta about the "A " rated banners the first year. For anyone who didn't already know he was a sorry SOB.
Did you mean was a sorry SOB or is a sorry SOB? I believe he is still a sorry SOB
He still is although he's renounced (not publicly of course) some of his former vices and according to yesterday's NS piece is now an open and transparent, no spin SOB.
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