Re: SUPERVISION OF INSTRUCTION

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Jesus H. Christ, that's long. How many people do you think
will actually read that? Not me.

Suggestion: Next time post a paragraph or two that tweeks a
reader's interest. This supply the rest in the form of a web
link.

On 3/04/05, DR. PROTUS TANIFORM wrote:
> 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&37; 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