Tulsa Public Schools Spending

[Red Arrow]

College graduation or vo-tech graduation, and employment with accompanying self-sufficiency are the only valid measures of success.

Passing tests was part of my college days.  Taking tests in High School was good preparation for that.

[custosnox]

Never said I had a plan, William.  It's not my place to do so.  My SUGGESTION is that parents get more involved.  Do you have children?  I'm just curious.

Parenting should be like driving.  Take a course, get a license before you do it.  Although that's not realistic, I know I'm not the only who thinks that way.

lack of parental involvement is one of the biggest problems facing the school systems (lack of proper funding being another, a crappy curriculum is yet another).  It's also the one problem we really can't do anything about.  As far as taking a course?  I've yet to find someone who has actually figured out how to raise every kid.  Sure, this method might have worked with johnny, but poor tom still is having trouble even though the same method is being used on him.  Come to think of it, this is another problem in the classroom, they try to treat them all like they are all alike.  

[custosnox]

Passing tests was part of my college days.  Taking tests in High School was good preparation for that.

I'm sure not too much has changed in that time period, so I'm would go out on a limb and say that just like today the instructors in college put together their own tests which matches what and how they were teaching.  Not to mention most college students ask around and find what instructors are best suited to what they are trying to do (learn something, get an easy a, be challenged). 

[Red Arrow]

Let's take a school that has 50% of the students passing the test in 3rd grade and 75% of the kids passing the test next year as 4th graders. Compare that to a school where 90% of the kids pass the test as 3rd graders and then having 90% of the kids pass the test as a 4th grader.

If only 50% of the 3rd grade students pass "the test" in 3rd grade and then only 75% of them pass the 3rd grade test as 4th grade students, maybe some of them should have repeated 3rd grade.  Maybe they just haven't matured enough and need to be held back a year to catch up.  I wouldn't necessarily flunk a kid based solely on a written test score.  Other evaluation methods should be available for poor test takers that actually have learned the material.

[Red Arrow]

I'm sure not too much has changed in that time period, so I'm would go out on a limb and say that just like today the instructors in college put together their own tests which matches what and how they were teaching.  Not to mention most college students ask around and find what instructors are best suited to what they are trying to do (learn something, get an easy a, be challenged). 

I took my 2nd college literature course from the same prof as my first lit course partly because I got a B and partly because the prof presented material in an interesting manner.  She explained the social events going on when the books were written and they made a lot more sense.

Courses in engineering were a lot more limited in choosing when you took a course and who taught it.  The options of what courses to take were also pretty well defined with most semesters at 18 hours each.

[AquaMan]

Parenting should be like driving.  Take a course, get a license before you do it.  Although that's not realistic, I know I'm not the only who thinks that way.

Hey, even licensed drivers are pretty stupid!

"Parental involvement" is like a bumper sticker. If you mean PTA, back to school nite, parent/teacher conferences, fundraisers, help with homework, then yes, that is good to be involved and it is usually associated with performing students. It is not a necessary component for performing students. Some parents are just poorly prepared for any parenting at all. Do you really want them involved?

If you knew the many tasks and roles that teachers, counselors, security, police, administrators, bus drivers, cafeteria workers and others all perform as "in situ" parents you would simply be amazed. To criticize them for students performance as though they were solely responsible is pretty offensive to those who see and work with these kids every day.

Discipline, structure, compassion and social skills are huge deficits these kids bring with them from parents who are poorly educated, whose parents beat them, who are stressed economically and who often see their kids as either an anchor or a meal ticket. This all didn't just start in 2008. These problems have been building for a long time. The best solution is more widespread economic stability for lower and middle class segments, basic levels of funding that aren't dependent upon political dogma and the ship will start to right itself within a decade. Anything else is just pure bs.

[Red Arrow]

What is better evaluation is what TPS has starting doing.
http://www8.tulsaschools.org/4_About_District/academic_performance_main.asp

From your link.
I hope the instructor teaching about airplanes knows more about airplanes than the author of this:
(Emphasis is mine.)

PLANE PURCHASED FOR STUDENT USE SET TO ARRIVE


TUE, SEPTEMBER 28, 3:00 PM CST
Contact
Thomas Roark
833-8555
roarkth@tulsaschools.org


A small plane obtained by Tulsa Public Schools to benefit students in McLain High School's magnet program flies into Tulsa next week. Thomas Roark, McLain strand coordinator, will pilot the plane from Kansas and expects to arrive at Harvey Young Airport at approximately 3 p.m. on Tuesday, September 28.


The TPS board of education used federal grant money to purchase the 1965 Cessna 150E, a four-seat model designed as an improvement over the original two-seat Cessna 150, originally constructed in the '50s.

Cessna 150s were never a four-seat airplane.  There are two adult seats and an optional/auxiliary seat primarily for children.  The limit for the seat is about 120 lb maximum.  The seat is in the baggage area behind the pilot.  The auxiliary seat and passenger weight are in place of baggage, not in addition to baggage.  The auxiliary seat was available from the earliest model 150 in 1959 through at least 1969.  I have only personally seen one Cessna 150 with the auxiliary seat.  I know of one more from a friend.  Overall, it appears to have not been a popular option.  That is all the newer my information goes.  The 150 was produced into the early 70s when it was replaced by the 152.

[Red Arrow]

Discipline, structure, compassion and social skills are huge deficits these kids bring with them from parents who are poorly educated, whose parents beat them, who are stressed economically and who often see their kids as either an anchor or a meal ticket. This all didn't just start in 2008. These problems have been building for a long time. The best solution is more widespread economic stability for lower and middle class segments, basic levels of funding that aren't dependent upon political dogma and the ship will start to right itself within a decade. Anything else is just pure bs.

Some way the kids must be convinced that economic stability is related to education.  If not, the ship will continue to list.

[AquaMan]

Some way the kids must be convinced that economic stability is related to education.  If not, the ship will continue to list.

Without a doubt. The teachers as leaders are competing with TV, internet, music, casino's, lotteries and criminal industries who argue against them. Guess who's winning?

[Red Arrow]

Without a doubt. The teachers as leaders are competing with TV, internet, music, casino's, lotteries and criminal industries who argue against them. Guess who's winning?

I know this is Oklahoma but I am going to add sports.  Sports is a high profile way out of poverty but only for a very few in the big scheme of things.  For those who make it, if they never learned enough to manage their life and money, they will end up poor again.

[jacobi]

I know this is Oklahoma but I am going to add sports.  Sports is a high profile way out of poverty but only for a very few in the big scheme of things.  For those who make it, if they never learned enough to manage their life and money, they will end up poor again.

Agreed.

[TheArtist]

Never said I had a plan, William.  It's not my place to do so.  My SUGGESTION is that parents get more involved.  Do you have children?  I'm just curious.

Parenting should be like driving.  Take a course, get a license before you do it.  Although that's not realistic, I know I'm not the only who thinks that way.

No I do not have children. 

Didn't mean to sound harsh or anything.   Just voicing the frustration of seeing and hearing the comments "It's the parents fault."  "The parents should be involved more".  etc.  over and over.  People often say that and then think they have come up with the solution, problem solved, put a smug look on their face and the conversation moves on to a different topic.   But if they were to think it through for only a moment, you would then see that in order to get these people to somehow be "good parents, etc"  it would require even more work, thought, volunteering and or bureaucracy, money, etc. than it would to get the kids to learn.  You would basically have to set up a whole other costly system of education/motivation/enticement, etc. for these adults.  Who would pay for that and or volunteer to do it?  And then we are essentially right back where we are now arguing about how best to do just that, but now on two fronts.  Part of the key imo is to remember that, todays kids are tomorrows parents.  Perhaps if we are in an area where parenting skills/life habits are lacking, then thats something we should be emphasizing and teaching in the schools.  Perhaps thats just as basic and essential a set of skills to learn, or even more so, as the three R's?   

[Gaspar]

Ok, so whats your plan to get these bad parents to be good parents?   Perhaps walk up to them and say "Hey you! yea you over there! be a good parent!"   That ought to do it.  Problem solved.  Right?   I can see them all scratching their heads and going "Oh?  Wow, thanks for telling me that, it had just never occurred to me."  "Gosh I am glad you were there to tell me I needed to be a good parent, I wouldn't have known to do that otherwise."

You can't.  Bad parents don't always produce bad kids though.  So you can't give 100% of the blame to a busy mom or dad. The child can be empowered to make marvelous improvements in their own lives in a number of ways, but sometimes I think our Public school system prevents, or acts as an obstacle to that because of how it structures what a child can and cannot have responsibility over.  

Basically, there is so much focus on structure, to provide equality in education from child to child, that exceptional qualities like leadership, and creativity are discouraged.

The British and Indian educational system in many ways offers an interesting model that we might take a few pointers from.  The administration has far fewer tiers, and the curriculum is strictly set by the state and branches off at about age 16 when kids are allowed to pursue specialized focuses.  That's not the interesting part though, the culture of the schools encourages the opposite of American public schools.

First, the house system still exists in most schools, where children are put in different houses or classes that then compete against each other academically, athletically, and intramurally.  This creates a community that I think kids need.  Kids are going to do this anyway because it's natural, but without such a system, it morphs into what we have here, where each sport becomes a click, and the kids not involved in those sports in many cases create their own "houses" in the form of gangs and other primitive community structures.

Second, the cultural norm is that the younger kids admire and "serve" the older kids in exchange for inclusion in activities and respect. Basically a fraternity type system.  Basically the older you are the more you are expected to act as a role-model, mentor, and "executive" over the younger kids.  In many cases, when younger kids get in trouble with a proctor, the older children in the "house" are punished for allowing it to happen.  

This system gives a great deal of responsibility to kids that grows as they mature.  Their class becomes, in many cases, their family, and the necessity (while it still certainly exists and is important) for constant parental oversight is less critical to the development of a child's understanding of responsibility.

I have a very close Indian friend who grew up in GB and Mumbai, and is very passionate about how the British model could improve our education system.  The more I am exposed to the system through my own kids, the more I realize that he has a point.  We do the opposite.  We discourage competition between classes and children because it's "unfair."  We do not engage the development of structured communities among classes or kids, and, as I learned last night from my daughter, they are not even allowed to sit with the same kids every day for lunch.  This forces kids to develop these groups on their own and create the hierarchy on their own, which is usually primitive and more tribal, or gang like.

I think this may be worth more exploration.

[Hoss]

No I do not have children. 

Didn't mean to sound harsh or anything.   Just voicing the frustration of seeing and hearing the comments "It's the parents fault."  "The parents should be involved more".  etc.  over and over.  People often say that and then think they have come up with the solution, problem solved, put a smug look on their face and the conversation moves on to a different topic.   But if they were to think it through for only a moment, you would then see that in order to get these people to somehow be "good parents, etc"  it would require even more work, thought, volunteering and or bureaucracy, money, etc. than it would to get the kids to learn.  You would basically have to set up a whole other costly system of education/motivation/enticement, etc. for these adults.  Who would pay for that and or volunteer to do it?  And then we are essentially right back where we are now arguing about how best to do just that, but now on two fronts.  Part of the key imo is to remember that, todays kids are tomorrows parents.  Perhaps if we are in an area where parenting skills/life habits are lacking, then thats something we should be emphasizing and teaching in the schools.  Perhaps thats just as basic and essential a set of skills to learn, or even more so, as the three R's?   

But the schools shouldn't be free babysitters.  They weren't that when I went to public school and I turned out ok.

[RecycleMichael]

I turned out ok.

We have been meaning to talk to you about that.