The newspaper headlines like to bash public education as much as possible. I do not doubt that there are thousands who will not receive their diploma this June. That is a real tragedy and if read properly is a stain on every person in the state. When are the people going to understand you cannot relinquish responsibility for the education of the young and then complain about the results.
When one gets all excited about the good old days, ask her/him the high school graduation rate in 1950 or 1960 or even 1970. Assuming that person can read or google, the individual is going to be very surprised about how well the public schools are doing in 2010.
Now at Southwest. Our graduating class is about 350 students. Of that number 8 have not successfully completed the reading and 4 have not successfully completed the writing. Of those number 3 students have not successfully completed both the reading and the writing. That means that 9 different students have not passed the reading and math for completion of their of 2010 graduation requirements as of June. Of those 9 five should be able to complete the requirements this summer.
Looking forward, the students at Southwest have every reason to believe it only gets better.
9th graders – 90% passed writing
10th graders – 86% passed reading
11th graders – 73% passed math
We care about every one of our students. Even with a 99% pass rate we would not be satisfied, but we do need to celebrate the moment.
Remember the current 9th and 10th graders entered Southwest with NO academic requirements.
If I wanted to make a story I would start with caring teachers and staff members. I would talk about supportive parents. I would call special attention to willing students. Somewhere in the story I would talk about a strong curriculum, hours of teacher training and in-service, countless hours of teacher commitment before and after school and in the summer. In conclusion I would attempt to make the point that public education works and works very well. But it must be supported and encouraged and financed.
But then I am biased and who listens.
1 comment:
Well said Bill.
I agree that many more people believe in our schools than a couple or few news stories might suggest.
I never want to forget that we do have a supportive community who looks beyond the headlines. Last fall, 73 percent of Minneapolis' voters passed the $60 million to support then Strong Schools Strong City Referendum. That's in the context of a city where just one of six households have school aged children.
I believe we know there's a big difference between what happens in our schools and what happens to sell newspapers through negative reporting.
Thank you for reminding all of us that there are great things going on in our schools, and great kids coming out of them.
Steve Kotvis
Parent of SWHS Graduates in 2006 and 2008
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