New Haven Independent

Posted by: FIX THE SCHOOLS | December 5, 2007 2:27 PM

I wonder if anyone from the Board of ed. would care to comment on the issues raised in this video?

On it you can hear that one way to succeed as an adult is to own your own business. Presumably this was a pep talk to encourage scholarly pursuits. And yet, someone else on the video said that if you are a student of color in New Haven, you are YEARS behind the average student.

Someone needs to tell this guy to watch what he says or Mayo and his mob might just pay him "a little visit". Does anyone remember last year what the highest paid official in the city did to a small group of parents from TEACH OUR CHILDREN last year? Can anyone recall what the educational leader of the district did along with 100 of his employees and cronies at a ConnCAN education forum?

But if you ask the Mayor or Supt. who bears responsibility for the education problem, they blame poor parenting.

They've actually changed their tune over the years. They used to blame the lack of money. And even now (as another Independent article indicates), the mayor continues to focus on delivering more and more financial resources from the State to the school district. But hopefully it's getting tougher to do that when you have a district that spends over $13,000 per student and has nothing to show for it.

So how is it that the Board of ed. spends over half of the city budget in their schools and yet when they only fail their students (not just my opinion, listen to the video) their stock response is to blame parents? Since the mayor and the supt. believe that they have such little control over the educational outcomes in the schools, perhaps they should cut taxes and give back some of their $300 million to all of those poor parents so that they can send their kids to a decent school.

Posted by: on whalley | December 5, 2007 3:09 PM

@ FIX THE SCHOOLS

That's too funny. Throw money at a problem, it gets worse and worse, blame parents.

If they are so comfortable naming parents as the problem why not throw money at them?

What's the definition of insanity? Doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result?

Just keep throwing money at it.

I was throwing change into a pretty deep pothole on my road the other day. I noticed it because the city's website claims these late season street sweepings (that got P.Bass a hefty ticket and a tow) are to ensure the plows will function properly (because with 100's of pounds of snow in front of them a few leaves could cause a catastrophe). Back to the pothole.

I figured if the city was so worried about the plows surely they would come fix the potholes. Nope. I took it upon myself to do what they would do. Not dig it up score the wound and repave but throw money at it. I must have thrown a few dozen dollars worth of change before giving up. I threw and threw and you know that pothole didn't get any better.

How come the city has this magic and I don't? They must truly be great beings.

Posted by: True New Havener | December 5, 2007 6:10 PM

I admit I have never previously agreed with On Whalley but this is by far his/her funniest post yet.

Posted by: Ned | December 6, 2007 8:50 AM

If parents are going to take credit for their child's success, why not take the blame for their child's failure? From talking with a few parents of children in the New Haven Public School system, it seems that these parents don't realize how badly their children are doing relative to the competition - outside of New Haven. They are, apparently, under the impression that because their child is "doing well in school", relative to other under performing kids in a lousy school system, that their child is succeeding academically - ouch.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/05/education/05scores.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Posted by: FIX THE SCHOOLS | December 6, 2007 10:46 AM

Ned is right. There is not enough recognition that educational attainment in New Haven is woeful when compared to performance in neighboring towns.

But with a mayor and supt. who regularly manipulate the data to cover the fact that most kids aren't learning in the schools that they run (for over a decade now), it is tough for people to understand. Most folks just see big beautiful new school buildings going up and read puff piece press releases about performance gains. It's a bunch of hooey.

Maybe the young film students at Media Rights can dig deeper into this. If done right, they would have an award winning documentary. But they would have to watch out when the mayor and supt. sent out their attack sqauds.