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7 low-performing schools get $20M in grants

By Jessica Brown • jlbrown@enquirer.com • June 18, 2010

Six Cincinnati schools will get $17 million in federal School Improvement Grants over the next three years to improve their academics. A Mount Healthy school will get $3.3 million.

The schools' enrollment totaled nearly 4,000 students last year.

The U. S. Department of Education gave a total of $132 million in stimulus dollars to the Ohio Department of Education to disperse as apart of the Obama administration's American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

The state awarded $95 million of the grant money on Friday. Another $30 million will be awarded during a second round of grants starting next spring.

The grants are intended to encourage low-performing schools to look for innovative reforms to improve students' academics. The local schools' plans for the money include improving technology, adding instructional coaches and summer programs, extending the school day or school year, and buying textbooks and other materials.

Quote:Grant recipients

Seven local schools will receive more than $20 million in federal grant money over the next three years to improve students' academic performance.

Cincinnati Public Schools:

Hays-Porter Elementary, West End - $2.9 million

Rothenberg Preparatory Academy Elementary, Over-the-Rhine - $2.75 million

South Avondale Elementary - $2.9 million

William H. Taft Elementary, Mount Auburn - $2.75 million

Virtual High School (online school) - $1.95 million

Woodward Career Technical High School (Roselawn) - $4.2 million

Mount Healthy Schools:

Hoop Elementary - $3.3 million

tigerone2 wrote:
How about a lesson to the kids parents on the simple fact on "holding their kids accountable for their actions".

O wait, the majority of these students who go to this schools have entitlement to certain things, because everybody is holding them down!
6/18/2010 5:53:00 PM

http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20100...ls-get-20M

I do feel everyone should be responsible for their own actions, but how can you blame a kid if their parent's a f@ck up? I have no problem with the money going there. Sure the right to education isn't in the Constitution, but maybe this will help get some kids outta the cycle of poverty.

(06-18-2010 06:59 PM)Lush Wrote: [ -> ]I do feel everyone should be responsible for their own actions, but how can you blame a kid if their parent's a f@ck up? I have no problem with the money going there. Sure the right to education isn't in the Constitution, but maybe this will help get some kids outta the cycle of poverty.

Lush--

I largely agree here...with one caveat...the $ going to these districts should be merit-based (the better said school performs over time, the more $ it gets). There should also be some way to provide incentives to the students, but at Elementary-HS level there's nothing there that I can think of (other than long-term goals, which to a lot of these kids are so abstract as to be meaningless). It's easier to provide incentives at post-secondary levels due to the scholarship factor.

Perhaps if there was some way to pay the students for performing well (such as a savings bond or a delayed monetary reward) that might work, but I don't think that's legal in a public school system. At the college level, I've advocated in-house scholarship programs whereby maintaining a certaing GPA LOWERS your tuition payment automatically...this would be particularly meaningful in "for-profit" colleges and universities.

We can't blame the kids for their parent's shortfalls, but, at some point, the kids own their behavior--that's when the consequences should take effect...I think early teens is just about the perfect time for that. The sooner these lessons are learned, the sooner the behavior is corrected. The unfortunate fact is that until the cycle of ignorance is broken, many of these kids will follow the path their parents have laid down for them to follow. It's extremely difficult to do battle with a culture that actively de-values education and runs down these kids psychologically (telling them "they can't make it" or "the man is keeping you down"). As a teacher I try to cheerlead these kids into achievement--sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't...but the worst thing you can do is give them a passing grade for failing work--you are just helping to sink their chances in the long run.

That's one of the reasons I'm in favor of open enrollment--give everyone a shot to pass or fail initially, and leave it to the institution's educational chops to transform an uneducated, disadvantaged student into a functioning member of society...often with an advanced degree. In my mind, that shows an institution's educational chops more than anything else.

Once again, government is ensuring the survival of the least effective. Rewarding those who can't get the job done ultimately leads to failure of the entire system.

converrl, by the time these young people start to grasp the consequences of their actions, or inaction, it CAN be too late. I don't want to make excuses for them because to a point I agree with you, but I have no idea how some of these kids make it when I see their knuckleheaded parents.

As to your statement on actively de-valuing education I wonder how often that truly happens.

As for scholarship alternatives in college, I don't know if these grants still exist, but there was a Pell grant where everything was covered for "disadvantaged" students. If those grants or others like them still exist there is not much incentive to go above and beyond when you know if you have to drop you can just get it next semester. I guess that kind of gets back to original point but this is complicated,yes?

They are actually rewarding them at the expense of the best teachers. The top X amount of teachers in CPS are going to be involuntarily reassigned to these underperforming schools.

Would the money be better spent at Walnut Hills?

"The local schools' plans for the money include improving technology, adding instructional coaches and summer programs, extending the school day or school year, and buying textbooks and other materials."

I like the approach listed here.

Build it and they will come.

Aiken is getting a new high school built next year - and I've already seen the quality of students increase last year.

Good facilities and salary for them and good things will happen.

Union challenges CPS over new teacher policy

By Jessica Brown • jlbrown@enquirer.com • June 17, 2010

The union that represents more than 2,500 teachers in the Cincinnati Public Schools is filing a grievance over a new policy that will involuntarily move the district's best-trained teachers to the lowest-performing schools next year.

The Enquirer reported on the policy June 15.

The re-assignments are part of a plan to scale down the district's teacher training program to save about $1 million next year. The new policy is also intended to improve academic performance at struggling schools.

The teachers' old jobs inside of the training program will be eliminated, saving money.

The union believes the new policy violates the union's contract, said Julie Sellers, president of the Cincinnati Federation of Teachers. The union also disagrees with downsizing the training program.

All of this comes during a critical point in contract negotiations between the union and the district. A chief item of talk, according to the union, is teacher assignments, including assignments at the neediest schools.

"But that process must be methodically constructed with balance, teacher input and probably some special incentives," Sellers said in a news release. "What the superintendent did here was shoot from the hip, which often only hits one's foot."

Superintendent Mary Ronan said earlier this week that she'll stand by her plan, even if it earns her a grievance. The administration believes the contract language gives the superintended the right to assign staff based on what will best serve the students.

The seven-member school board also stands behind the new policy, according to board President Eileen Cooper Reed.

"One of the things in the Race to the Top application that the state fell down on was the inability to put teachers in schools where the students needed the most help," said Cooper Reed, referring to the federal competition in which schools can win money for their plans for reform.

"The board fully stands behind the decision the superintendent made and she's well within her rights on the contract."

http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20100...-transfers

"The re-assignments are part of a plan to scale down the district's teacher training program to save about $1 million next year. "

That sounds like complete BS to me.

(06-19-2010 09:25 AM)beck Wrote: [ -> ]converrl, by the time these young people start to grasp the consequences of their actions, or inaction, it CAN be too late. I don't want to make excuses for them because to a point I agree with you, but I have no idea how some of these kids make it when I see their knuckleheaded parents.

That certainly can be the case--but since you can't take the kids out of there homes and place them with a responsible family unit except in the most dire circumstances, you have to start somewhere--that starts with the kids learning that there are consequences for their actions in the real world.

(06-19-2010 09:25 AM)beck Wrote: [ -> ]As to your statement on actively de-valuing education I wonder how often that truly happens.

It happens in black youth culture constantly--especially among those who are heavy drug traffickers. If you want to stop seeing black men in prison, you have to bust that type of thought process to pieces...education and discipline are a huge part of that.

(06-19-2010 09:25 AM)beck Wrote: [ -> ]As for scholarship alternatives in college, I don't know if these grants still exist, but there was a Pell grant where everything was covered for "disadvantaged" students.

I don't know the specifics of Pell grants--do you retain them based on performance, or is it simply assigned by socio-economic status? The program I'm suggesting is ENTIRELY merit-based...you bust your a$$ to get the grades, and your tuition drops automatically--thus there is a financial incentive to achieve that is concrete and immediate.

(06-19-2010 09:17 AM)QSECOFR Wrote: [ -> ]Once again, government is ensuring the survival of the least effective. Rewarding those who can't get the job done ultimately leads to failure of the entire system.

Word...