Re: SUPERVISION OF INSTRUCTION

More | Report Post

PAPER ON THE SUPERVISION OF INSTRUCTION
Instructional supervision is the art of overseeing
the teaching and learning process in an academic institution,
and, therefore, making sure the institution is administered,
managed, and lead in an effective manner, so as to come up
with an effective learning institution with a sane and
consistent school culture.
The purpose of supervision of instruction is partly
to set up normative rules and regulations. Supervisors set
local ground rules that set the tone. In an academic
institution, like in any other institution, ground rules set
the tone. Ground rules are the genesis of the culture of any
school. These norms run the gamut of attendance, assiduity,
students’ behavior, expectations, safety, security, respect
for the constitution of the nation, communication, support
and so on. Supervisors lay out our structured daily routines.
The elements of a structured daily routine are: arriving on
campus on time, respecting school schedule and time table,
honoring all bells as appropriate, meeting the standards of
the school district, respecting school rules and regulations,
and participating in assigned activities.
The authorities that should supervise include
principals, assistant principals, counselors, teachers, and
other support personnel on campus (Wells, 2004). Supervision
on school campuses is not only the task of administrators,
but also that of all other adults on campus. Supervision goes
hand in hand with safety and security issues. Therefore, the
school police and security guards are instrumental toward
school supervision and the guarantee of safety and security.
Successful supervisors should be knowledgeable about
educational leadership, management, and administration. They
should know the culture of their schools and school
communities. The challenges mounted against school
supervision portray different ramifications in affluent and
low-income communities.
A successful supervisor of instruction should be
knowledgeable of real life issues like the ones I have
analyzed for this paper. There has also been a paradigm shift
in the mainstream culture, whereby residence in the suburbs
or out of the inner city is construed as an indicator of
success. The stigmatization of inner-city life has groomed
this stereotype, which is sporadically imbued with violence,
shootings, drugs, prostitution, and, more generally,
skyrocketing crime rates. The media has worsened this school
of thought by dramatizing negative events in the cities.
Inner-city populations are partly constituted of a
conglomeration of new-arrival immigrants, most of whom come
in as economic, religious, political, and cultural refugees.
Many fled from famine (Ethiopians, Sudanese, Somalis, etc),
from wars and political unrest (Haitians, Somalis, Rwandans,
Burundians, Cameroonians, etc), from economic crisis in their
home countries (Chinese, Mexicans, Cubans, Nigerians,
Cameroonians, etc.), and from many other unbearable
situations. Unfortunately, most of these new immigrants are
poor and wind up in the poor inner-city pockets, some call
them ghettos, where housing is cheap, and low-paying jobs are
easily available. However, I am not refuting the fact that a
good number of them stream to the small cities, suburbs, city
outskirts, villages, and farms. An example, worthy of notice,
is the influx of refugees from war-torn Sudan to Omaha,
Nebraska, where they have established veritable Sudanese
communities.
Inner-city immigrant groups have seen a lot of
European immigrants over the last several centuries, but they
represent a very small number now, when compared to the
number of colored inner-city inhabitants and immigrants in
general. This assertion dispels the paradigm that immigration
in the United States is purely a non-White issue; American
immigrants have been known to come form all over the world,
and they are always welcome, even though many immigrants
still come in under unacceptable and illegal methods.
The incoming poor immigrants blend with the low-
income inner-city populations and the resultant is a
community of low socio-economic status, bearing all the
characteristics that come with the tag, “low socio-economic
status”. Immigrant families that integrate directly into the
affluent communities are rare, and even when these cases are
seen, they show up rarely, and would just be categorized as
exceptions.
Socio-economic status and success in education are
directly linked. More affluent communities and neighborhoods
produce better test scores than less affluent communities and
neighborhoods. This conclusion was very evident when I
compared test scores for students of Compton Unified School
District, California, and those for the students of Palos
Verdes Unified School District, California, from 1999 to
2004. The students in the former performed poorly when
compared with students in the latter district.
On one hand, Compton City, the bearer of Compton
Unified School District, is predominantly made up of low-
income families, although there are pockets of affluent
blocks in the city. The community contributes less toward the
schools of the district and parental participation toward the
educational process is poor and almost inexistent. On the
other hand, Palos Verdes, is an upscale neighborhood on the
coast hills of Los Angeles County; perhaps the dream
neighborhood of many Californian inhabitants. The high level
of success of students in Palos Verdes School District tell a
lot about the contribution of the highly educated and rich
parents of the city, whose wealth has brought to bear on the
educational process. Due to the nature of their highly
lucrative professions, they always find time to contribute
toward the education of their children, as opposed to most
parents of low income communities, who work around the clock
and at minimum wage and barely have enough time to raise
their children, let alone participate in their educational
process. The bigger question we will examine later is whether
inner city kids are privileged with parents.

Dropout Rates in Inner-city Schools as Opposed to Suburban
and Outskirts Schools

It is a fact that the dropout rates in American inner-
city schools are higher than in the suburbs and outskirts. A
comparative study among the inner city schools of Los Angeles
and the suburban schools on the peripheries of Los Angeles
County, California illustrates the discrepancy in dropout
rates.
A successful supervisor should be able to understand
and accommodate different cultures and realities of his or
her school community; our society is becoming very diverse.
The supervisor should have got interpersonal skills and be
able to lead, manage, and administer under a wide spectrum of
issues and circumstances.
The instructional needs of a teacher are good teacher
training, supplies and materials for the teacher and her or
his students, professional development seminars and meetings,
a safe and healthy learning environment, a reasonable salary
and benefits, and so on.
Positive relationships between supervisors and
teachers are collaboration in the delivery of instruction,
classroom management, discipline on campus, and general
safety and security on campus. Supervisors should make
available to teachers what they need to succeed and give a
constructive criticism of what teachers are doing.
Evaluations of teachers should therefore be fair and
considerate, and teachers should be given enough time to
improve their performance. Teachers must always be informed
as to what is expected of them. Supervisors should do
everything possible to meet the needs of teachers, because
they rely on these needs to succeed.
Part of the activities of the instructional
supervisor is to see into it that teachers commit themselves
to the following classroom daily routines:
I. Daily agenda and standards are to be posted daily.
II. Maintain daily lesson plans throughout the school year.
III. Develop standards-based pacing plans.
IV. Develop teacher-created standards-based assessments.
V. Attendance: Daily attendance expected of all students and
teachers, and supervisors should work with students toward
achieving this goal.
Supervisors have the responsibility to see into it
that students are in school and in class on time and attend
all classes and assigned activities. Students are to be
accounted for at all times during the school day (Essex,
2002). More specifically:
1.A student may not be absent from school except for reasons
of health or family emergency.
2. A student may not leave school during the regularly
scheduled school day without being dismissed by a school
authority.
3. A student may not be consistently late to school.
4. A student may not be late to class or a scheduled activity.
5. A student may not skip class.
6.A student may not refuse to remain after school for
discipline or extra help.

ABSENCES
California State Law requires that students must attend
school. All students are expected to be in school every
school day and supervisors must take appropriate measures
regarding effective attendance and should not condon.
1. Truancy
2. Missing the bus
3. Shopping
4. Babysitting
5. Over-sleeping
6. Car Trouble/traffic problems
7. Staying home to do homework
8. Staying home because of staying up late the previous night
(even if related to school activities - drama, dance, sports,
etc.)
If a legitimate, medically documented, long-term
illness prevents you from attending school, your
parent/guardian should contact the school so tutorial
services can be provided by the school department at no cost
to parents. Parents of students with a high rate of
absenteeism (more than 10% of the total number of school days
up to that point) will be notified by the heatlh technician
to determine if a health problem exits, and she or he will
recommend a medical consultation. If no health problem exists
and absences continue, supervisors will contact parents. If
there is no improvement in attendance, the following steps
may be taken:
1. Parent/student conference with an administrator
2. Referral to the Student Attendance & Review Board (SARB)
3. Referral to Probation Officer

VACATION TRIPS
Absences due to vacation trips are not excused. Before
making vacation plans, parents should consult the school
calendar. Parents are strongly discouraged from taking their
children out of school for family vacations because valuable
classroom instruction time can never be replaced by make-up
assignments. When parents decide to take their children out
of school for vacations, they must notify the school of their
intentions. Because such extended absences are not excused,
students are expected to request and make-up their work upon
their return.

DISMISSALS
Dismissals from school for important reasons should be
requested, in writing, in advance, from school supervisors.
If you are to be dismissed, a written request, including
phone number for verification from your parent or guardian,
should be brought in on the morning of the day in question to
the Attendance Office. Students who are dismissed and return
to school the same day must report to the Attendance Office
in order to be readmitted to class. Dental and medical
appointments should not be scheduled during the school day.
Because of our concern for student safety, telephone
requests for dismissal will not be honored. In addition,
students may not be released to any individual(s) other than
those listed on the student's emergency card, unless written
permission is given. Supervisors carry the burden of
guaranteeing that these norms are respected.
If you leave school grounds without authorization
before the end of the school day, you will be considered
truant and not allowed to return until a parent conference is
set up with school officials. Your parents and the juvenile
police officer will be notified immediately of the incident.
Disciplinary action will be taken, including make-up of lost
time after school. In case of illness, the dismissal of the
students must be approved by the health official on site.
Supervisors should chair on-going professional development
and additional recommended professional development trainings.
VI. Maintain a parent communication log. Contact parents of
students who missed two or more days within a month and for
any other individual issues.
VII. Updated bulletin board with classroom and school rules
posted.
VIII. Maintain a safe, secure, print-rich, and clean
classroom. Student attendance should not be misconstrued as
just having students show up on campus. These students must
fulfill their academic obligations, and, therefore, they
deserve to be given the means they need to succeed.
In order to render the delivery of instruction a more
meaningful endeavor, school supervisors must establish a
fruitful network with all stakeholders. The community, the
police, businesses, the federal, state, and local
governments, faculty and staff, students, administrators,
support staff, and so on, are collaborators of school
supervisors. If they do not work together, then the running
of the school, and, of course, its supervision will be far
from ever being a success.

REFENCES
Essex, N. School Law and the Public Schools. 2nd edition.
Allyn & Bacon, Boston, MA, 2002.
Sergiovanni, T. and R. Sarrat, Supervision: a redefinition.
7th edition. McGraw-Hill, New York, NY, 2002.
Wells, F. School and Classroom Supervision. L.A.U.S.D. 2004.

On 3/04/05, DR. PROTUS TANIFORM, DISTINGUISHED PROFESSOR OF
EDUCATION wrote:
> Inner-city Education at the Crossroads in the United States
> Chapter One
> The Thwarted Goal
> Bitter truths are hard to tell, because, most of
> the time, when they are told, they send trickles of tears
> down the eyes of those who care, from the bottom of their
> hearts. Inner-city education is a miniature of the problems
> encountered by modern education, at least from the
> standpoint of unsuccessfulness and the abyss of failure. To
> slash the already bleeding wounds even larger and wider,
> and, therefore, render the whole process perilous and
> hopeless, it has come to a point where scholarly failure is
> a glorified phenomenon in the inner-city.
> It came to my understanding, although under
> difficult, subtle comprehension, that a child who was
> prematurely lured into street gangs, particularly inner
> city gangs, nursed the anxiety of deliberate failure in
> learning at school- a practice generally accepted in the
> gangs. To recount what brainwashing had caused to humanity
> can, in some cases, reveal staggering cruelty. A tremendous
> number of our inner-city children now believe education is
> the White man’s business, since many have construed
> educational success as the white culture. According to
> census statistics in the United States (2001), the white
> population in the inner-cities has dwindled tremendously,
> leaving the inner-city with a predominantly colored
> population- Asians, Blacks, Africans, Hispanics, Chicanos,
> and what have you.
> Paradoxically, the settlement pattern of the United
> States is parallel to that of most developed nations of the
> world. It has come to the point where most of the rich have
> fled the metropolitan areas to the outskirts or suburbs.
> The pattern is perhaps arguably conspicuous in major cities
> like Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Detroit, and so on.
> However, in big cities of the western developed countries,
> for example, Paris, London, Tokyo, Rome, and more, the
> scenario is different. In Britain, Buckingham Palace, the
> British queen’s palace, is situated right in the heart of
> London. Paris is also very exemplary with the heavy
> presence of the old bourgeiosie in the heart of the city.
> Some analysts have blamed the quaint settlement
> pattern of the United States on the antagonism between the
> first Europeans and the slaves, and eventually between the
> colored people and the White race. Following the
> assassination of Martin Luther King in 1968, many
> Caucasians were forced to flee the urban areas for fear of
> being plundered. Analogous to this circumstance are the
> Watts riots of Los Angeles in the 1960s, which saw the
> migration of many Caucasians out of the heart of the city.
> Another wave of civil unrest and lootings occurred
> following the airing of Rodney King’s abuse, by several
> officers of the Los Angeles Police Department, on
> television screens across the world. A benevolent White
> American citizen had video-recorded several L.A.P.D.
> officers, who were diabolically beating a Black man, who,
> supposedly, had just violated traffic and failed to stop
> when pulled over by the police.
> There has also been a paradigm shift in the
> mainstream culture, whereby residence in the suburbs or out
> of the inner-city is construed as a indicator of success.
> The stigmatization of inner-city life has groomed this
> stereotype, which is sporadically imbued with violence,
> shootings, drugs, prostitution, and, more generally,
> skyrocketing crime rates. The media has worsened this
> school of thought by dramatizing negative events in the
> cities.
> Inner-city populations are partly constituted of a
> conglomeration of new-arrival immigrants, most of whom come
> in as economic, religious, political, and cultural
> refugees. Many fled from famine (Ethiopians, Sudanese,
> Somalis, etc), from wars and political unrest (Haitians,
> Somalis, Rwandans, Burundians, Cameroonians, etc), from
> economic crisis in their home countries (Chinese, Mexicans,
> Cubans, Nigerians, Cameroonians, etc.), and from many other
> unbearable situations. Unfortunately, most of these new
> immigrants are poor and wind up in the poor inner-city
> pockets, some call them ghettos, where housing is cheap,
> and low-paying jobs are easily available. However, I am not
> refuting the fact that a good number of them stream to the
> small cities, suburbs, city outskirts, villages, and farms.
> An example, worthy of notice, is the influx of refugees
> from war-torn Sudan to Omaha, Nebraska, where they have
> established veritable Sudanese communities.
> Inner-city immigrant groups have seen a lot of
> European immigrants over the last several centuries, but
> they represent a very small number now, when compared to
> the number of colored inner-city inhabitants and immigrants
> in general. This assertion dispels the paradigm that
> immigration in the United States is purely a non-White
> issue; America immigrants have been known to come form all
> over the world, and they are always welcome, even though
> many immigrants still come in under unacceptable and
> illegal methods.
> The incoming poor immigrants blend with the low-
> income inner-city populations and the resultant is a
> community of low socio-economic status, bearing all the
> characteristics that come with the tag, “low socio-economic
> status”. Immigrant families that integrate directly into
> the affluent communities are rare, and even when these
> cases are seen, they show up rarely, and would just be
> categorized as exceptions.
> Socio-economic status and success in education are
> directly linked. More affluent communities and
> neighborhoods produce better test scores than less-affluent
> communities and neighborhoods. This conclusion was very
> evident when I compared test scores for students of Compton
> Unified School District, California, and those for the
> students of Palos Verdes Unified School District,
> California, from 1999 to 2004. The students in the former
> performed poorly when compared with students in the latter
> district.
> On one hand, Compton city, the bearer of Compton
> Unified School District, is predominantly made up of low
> income families, although there are pockets of affluent
> blocks in the city. The community contributes less toward
> the schools of the district and parental participation
> toward the educational process is poor and almost
> inexistent. On the other hand, Palos Verdes, is an upscale
> neighborhood on the coast hills of Los Angeles County;
> perhaps the dream neighborhood of many Californian
> inhabitants. The high level of success of students in Palos
> Verdes School District tell a lot about the contribution of
> the highly educated and rich parents of the city, whose
> wealth has brought to bear on the educational process. Due
> to the nature of their highly lucrative professions, they
> always find time to contribute toward the education of
> their children, as opposed to most parents of low income
> communities, who work around the clock and at minimum wage
> and barely have enough time to raise their children, let
> alone participate in their educational process. The bigger
> question we will examine later is whether inner city kids
> are privileged with parents.
>
> Dropout Rates in Inner-city Schools as Opposed to Suburban
> and Outskirts Schools
> It is a fact that the dropout rates in American
> inner-city schools are higher than in the suburbs and
> outskirts. A comparative study among the inner city schools
> of Los Angeles and the suburban schools on the peripheries
> of Los Angeles County, California illustrates the
> discrepancy in dropout rates.
>
> Chapter Two
> The Road Bumps on the Trajectory of American, Urban
> Education
> The Collapse in the Family Structure
> Centuries of cruelty and social disruption have led
> to a veritable collapse in family structure, family
> customs, and family values. According to U.S. census
> reports (2000), the number of single parents in the United
> States has increased dramatically over the last several
> decades. On August 26, 2004, in Suitland, Maryland, U.S.
> Census Bureau Director Louis Kincannon spoke at a news
> conference where 2003 income, poverty and health insurance
> coverage were announced. Other participants were Preston
> J. Waite, associate director for decennial census and Dr.
> Daniel Weinberg, chief of the Housing and Household
> Economic Statistics Division. The statistics sounded like
> an abomination for inner-city dwellers.
> Indeed, the proliferation of drugs in the black
> market has sent a wave of drug abuse in the American
> citizenry, to the point where the economically
> disadvantaged people, who cannot support the cost of drug
> rehabilitation, have sat and watched drug addiction
> gradually destroy their families. The phenomenon itself has
> added to the number of foster children we are now obliged
> to put up with, and, worse of all, the large number of
> children and adults with special needs in the field of
> education.
>
> The Resurgence of Prostitution
> Prostitution, the oldest, known profession, has
> taken an abominable turn in American inner-cities, despite
> the fact that the profession has already been outlawed in
> most federated states of the United States of America.
> Tough economic circumstances have snared many run-away
> girls into urban prostitution in the major cities of the
> United States. Many of these runaway girls are below 18
> years of age and have dropped out of school for one reason
> or the other, with a considerable number of them coming in
> from the countryside and poor outer-city dwellings. The
> swelling number of inner-city, teenage prostitutes lures
> even more students out of high schools to increase the
> number of prostitutes. Immoral and risky though the
> practice might be, it turns out to be a lucrative endeavor
> for many adventurous, young ladies, and the side effect is
> the increase in the number of students who drop out from
> schools. Exotic dancing in strip clubs has added another
> twist to the prostitution ring. Other young prostitutes who
> cherish a safer haven sought refuge in the city of Las
> Vegas, Nevada, where prostitution is legal.
> With rising crime rates in the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s
> and 2000s and also the understaffing and under-financing of
> the Los Angeles Police Department, many inner-city streets
> of Los Angeles County have basically been abandoned to
> prostitutes and pimps, amongst which are segments of the
> famous Figueroa Street and Sunset Boulevard. Poor police
> supervision of the streets has even helped many young
> students to join the illegal prostitution rings, strip
> clubs, and prostitution-imbued escort services. A thin line
> has been established between prostitution and escort
> services.
>
> The Proliferation of Street Gangs, the Augmentation of
> Crimes
> The Italian Mafia’s rules of operation have touched
> down on inner-city gangs, where young gangsters have
> indulged in padded deals, shady deals, racketeering, armed
> robberies, burglaries, prostitution, pimping, strip-
> clubbing, murders, life threats, and many other imaginable
> crimes. The indoctrination of vulnerable, unsupervised
> children, mostly young boys, who have been taught to admit
> gangs and criminality as an institutionalized cult, has
> helped to stretched the rosters of inner-city gangs; gang-
> related shootings on school grounds are a common scene in
> inner-city schools, a phenomenon which has also tainted the
> safety of school campuses with wanton insecurity. A
> tremendous number of students have been known to stay away
> from school for fear of being murdered by students from
> rival gangs. While caught in the dilemma of informing
> students about shootings outside school campuses and on
> school campuses, and, therefore, frightening students to
> stay at home because of fear, or not informing students at
> all about any hazards on campus, many school officials have
> chosen not to dramatize school violence reports, because
> they do not want to traumatize their young students. The
> school officials always choose to handle these incidents
> with law enforcement officials, but student attendance
> still dwindles. Poor attendance is one of the major
> contributory factors of poor academic performance in inner
> city schools.
>
> The Cruelty of Revived Capitalism
> With the arrival of European colonialists in North
> America in the late 1400s came a group of aristocrats, who
> carried with them the entrenched values of private
> ownership. The importation of european capitalism had set
> the stage for the continuous exploitation of the rich by
> the poor, thereby widening the gap between the rich and the
> poor as the colonies evolved into confederated states, and,
> later, the eventual creation of the United States of
> America. The practice of slavery in North A merica
> created a unique settlement pattern for African American
> slaves, who found themselves with basically nothing after
> the abolition of slavery in 1865. Many of the freed slaves
> fled to the big cities in the northern states of the United
> States, to look for low paying jobs in the industries. They
> worked under very poor conditions- poor housing, lack of
> adequate medical care, poor nutrition, and more.
> Even in the early years of the 21th century, it is
> still very evident that this migration pattern has survived
> over more than a century, from 1865 to 2004. Many blacks
> are still moving from the southern states of the United
> States into the major cities of the north, east, and west
> of the United States. While in their new environments they
> have met poor immigrants from Central America, South
> America, and other parts of the world, and together they
> have constituted the inner-city population. Due to the low
> level of education in the inner city communities, this
> population provides most of the unskilled labor that is
> needed in factories and other businesses. This population
> is also the recruitment ground for prisons and plantations.
> American capitalism has taken another twist, which
> has added kinks to the quest toward the salvation of inner-
> city education, by instituting welfare incentives. The
> government, through its Social Security Administration,
> hands out checks and food stamps, and offers free housing
> to many single mothers and their families who meet the
> requirements provided by legislation. The same practice
> also provides some minimal health care to needy inner-city
> children, but social security support has proven to be much
> more of a hindrance to the salvation of urban education in
> the United States than help. No sooner had these benefits
> to the economically disadvantaged been instituted by the
> federal, state, and local governments than many students
> embraced it as a career in its own right. Many students
> systematically welcome teenage pregnancy, get on welfare,
> and drop put of school, thereby creating a chain reaction.
> Their siblings and children end up being indoctrinated to
> follow the same pattern as the parent end up being of
> little or no support to their children’s education. These
> repetitive sequence that ensues results in the persistence
> of inner city ghettos, where the youth are focused on not
> succeeding. Even the best teachers, best educational
> infrastructure, and best education equipment in the inner
> city areas will never yield the level of academic success a
> modern nation would cherish. For such material and human
> resources to be productive, we need a total rehaul of the
> socio-economic status of inner-city communities; the
> process will not take several years, but would rather take
> several decades, if not years.
> The public housing pattern for the economically
> disadvantaged has doomed urban education to failure in many
> communities. Most schools surrounded by housing projects
> perform poorly and many of them in this category have no
> Academic Performance Index (A.P.I.) scores, because they
> have never succeeded to test enough students in order to be
> given just the chance to have an A.P.I. score, though too
> low the score might be. The problem stems from poor
> attendance and the preponderance of students on probation
> and at risk. Teenage pregnancy and early gang affiliation
> are serious problems in communities spotted with poor
> housing projects; these communities see a lot of crimes,
> violence, drug abuse, drug trafficking, prostitution, and
> much more.
> In the 2003/2004 school year, Locke High School,
> Los Angeles was going through another perilous year of
> state audit. One of the major expectations of the state for
> the institution was the establishment of an A.P.I. score,
> which meant Locke High School had to assure perfect student
> attendance that would lay the groundwork for testing. In
> order to improve students’ attendance, Los Angeles Unified
> School District officials launched many strategies, which
> were then passed down to the school principal for
> execution. However, the old school culture still took the
> front seat on campus. The usual violence and general
> discipline problems on campus prevailed and the inevitable
> stretched register of student suspensions frustrated the
> efforts the local school authorities deployed to put
> attendance back on track. Then came the long awaited
> testing month of May 2004, which met with still unprepared
> students, most of whom found themselves in high school
> because of social promotion. At this point it became
> evident that many students did not show up for testing, and
> many of the students that were even on campus did not want
> to be tested; this behavior brought to light the question
> whether these students even knew where they were heading
> to, being in high school. It came to a point where
> throughout a period of three weeks students were escorted
> to confined areas and actually forced to take multiple
> choice tests against their will, and they ended up bubbling
> artistic patterns on the bubble sheets. Despite all these
> efforts the school did not succeed to get an A.P.I. score,
> and at the end of the school year the school administrators
> took their frustration on many innocent veteran teachers by
> issuing false, bogus, negative evaluations. To satirize the
> whole situation, the school principal and some of her
> associates were demoted and transferred to other ailing
> schools several blocks away in the poverty-stricken
> community.
> Violence and crime have chased businesses off inner
> cities, and fleeing businesses carry with them job
> opportunities, and wealth. The government has put in
> insufficient efforts to revamp the socio-economic status of
> these inner city communities, and the negligence has taken
> a toll on the education of young innocent citizens. Many
> students whom I have interviewed are willing to learn, but
> students who glorify failure and perceive academic success
> as a threat to their vicious cycle negatively influence
> those students who want to learn and succeed.
> Capitalism has confined the economically
> disadvantaged child in the inner-cities where there is
> little hope for success, and the children are also
> systematically barred from the mainstream culture, speaking
> quite very different brands of English which are not
> accepted in the mainstream culture. Students who speak
> English as a second language are predominantly located in
> the inner-city populations, and language barrier has proven
> itself to be one of the major hindrances to education in
> the United States, especially in states like California,
> where the legislation entitled Proposition 207 went as far
> as outlawing bilingual education in public schools in
> California.
>
> Institutionalized Poverty
> State and Federal abandonment of Education to Parents-
> Disfavoring Poor Communities
> Formal education in the United States, as in many
> nations across the globe, has suffered drastic budget
> deficiencies over centuries; yet formal education, at least
> in the modern world, is one of the indispensable pillars of
> the foundation of society. Many nations have diverted funds
> from formal education to other departments or ministries of
> the government. For example, during the Cold War that
> emerged at the end of the Second World War and ended in the
> early 1990s, the United States, Russia, China, and many
> other countries invested a lot in armament and their
> military arsenals. The adverse effect of this move was the
> slashing of funds that had previously been allocated to
> formal education and other governmental institutions,
> public agencies, private agencies, charities, et cetera.
> Parents and guardians of students were abandoned
> with the task of shouldering the extra expenses and
> responsibilities that government, state, regional, and
> local governments have systematically turned over to them.
> In this perspective, affluent communities contributed hefty
> material, financial, moral, and human support to the
> schools their children were attending, but, unfortunately,
> inner-city schools, which had always been in a delapidating
> state, became faced with an even more deplorable situation.
> Inner-city school districts could not provide, on a
> consistent basis, sufficient, basic materials in schools;
> for example, books, pencils, desks, and so on. Parent
> participation has historically been poor in inner-city
> schools, partly due the low-socioeconomic status of most
> residents of American inner-city inhabitants, and mainly
> because of the battery of problems that come with being
> economically disadvantaged. I have explored these
> ramifications of poverty earlier, and the bottom line is
> that inner-city parents and guardians contribute relative
> poorly toward the education of their children because of
> the financial short-handedness of most inner city
> dwellers. The literacy rate is lower in American inner-
> cities than in the suburbs and other peripheries, and this
> fact accounts for the truth that many parents and guardians
> cannot even help their children with their academic work at
> home.
> Even more dangerous and sensitive are the
> ramifications of illegal immigration. The federal
> government has guaranteed mandatory education for all
> children living in the United States, but parents who are
> in the United States on an illegal immigration status are
> reluctant to actively involve themselves in the education
> of their children, for fear of having their immigration
> illegality revealed, and, therefore, relinquishing
> themselves to deportation proceedings executed under the
> auspices of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. This
> department came into being as a result of the attacks on
> the New York World Trade Center and the Pentagon on
> September 11, 2001- its goal is partly to counter terrorism
> and illegal immigration; stringent measures from the
> department have placed the many illegal immigrants of the
> inner city in a situation of relentless vigilance and fear
> of prosecution and eventual deportation. Therefore, the
> reluctance of parents, who fall under the illegal
> immigration status, and are reluctant to openly involve
> themselves in the education of their children, has
> contributed to the failure of inner-city schools. This is
> an issue that the federal, state, and local governments, as
> late as August 29, 2004, still have not addressed, as one
> of the drawbacks of the harsh measures taken by the
> department of homeland security.
>
> The Glorification of Violence and Immorality by the
> Mainstream Culture and the Pop Culture
> Violence had been an indelible part of western
> civilization for millennia and still is part and parcel of
> the same civilization. With the advent of movies in the
> 20th Century, violence and immorality were glorified and
> generally accepted in movies, despite protests from
> conservative pressure and interest groups. Modern movie and
> music production companies have glorified hardcore
> pornography, profanities and obscenities are used in pop
> music and in movies, and violent movies are the order of
> the day. Hollywood movies have been criticized worldwide
> for incorporating to much violence into their scripts, to
> the point where Mel Gibson’s movie entitled “The Passion”
> (Spring 2004) was excessively violent and caught the
> attention of even the Vatican, where the sovereign pontiff,
> Pope John Paul II, criticized the exorbitant portrayal of
> violence in the movie, though digitally enhanced it might
> have appeared to be to many trained eyes. The Spring of
> 2004, therefore, marked a milestone in the appreciation of
> violence in movies, but, amazingly, The Passion was very
> successful and turned out more than 350 million dollars in
> its first five months at the box office.
> Inner-city street gangs have propelled violence to
> a different level, and teenage gangsters have carried their
> rivalry into schools. Shootings, though not only a
> happening of the inner-city as seen in the Columbine High
> School shootings, are generally speaking, more rampant in
> inner city schools. The violent movies from film industries
> and immoral lyrics chanted by rappers and pop musicians
> only help in deceiving young, misled students that they are
> on the correct track. As they become lured into immoral
> values, they stand a greater risk of neglecting and
> eventually abandoning their school work.
> Profanity, obscenities, violence, and hardcore
> immorality and sex are so much entrenched into pop and rap
> music, a brand cherished by the young population. Pop and
> rap stars, under the sponsorship of powerful film and music
> producers and production companies, make millions of U.S.
> dollars in sales of their compact discs at the detriment of
> young students most of whom are poorly supervised inner-
> city children. It is true that most parents and guardians
> might be crying foul, but parents and guardians from more
> affluent residential neighborhoods are better equipped to
> monitor and supervise their children than parents and
> guardians of inner-city children are equipped to do the
> same.
> It is not uncommon for students to be carrying
> posters of rap and pop stars characterized by indecent
> exposure. I spoke with many young students who were
> carrying Tupac Shakur’s portrait in their folders and many
> of them told me he was their hero and the he will be
> resurrecting from death. Shakur, an ex-convict and multiple
> felon, admitted to committing six bank robberies, was,
> however, a famous and notorious musician, who incorporated
> mob lifestyle into his musical career. In the fall of 1996,
> Shakur was killed in what was later investigated to be a
> gang-related shooting in Las Vegas. Images of the
> marijuana plant entertain the sight of students, many of
> whom have conceived the plant as a symbol of drugs, and, of
> course, many inner-city students deem the consumption of
> drugs and its trafficking as an accomplishment.
>
> Students Entrenched in the Wrongful Expectation of Imminent
> Stardom
>
> Chapter Three
> The Collapse of Teaching and Learning Attributed to the
> Politicization of Education
> Education Imbued with Employees and Leaders Who Chose the
> Wrong Profession
> Education Infested With Laid-off Workers Who Switched to
> Education for a Living
>
> Chapter Four
> Education Fast Becoming the Affair of the Economically
> Advantaged
>
>
> Chapter Five
> The Patched Solution Which Seems not to be a Solution
> Bilingual education, Carol Way Elementary

DR. PROTUS TANIFORM