The situation in Compton's McKinley Elementary is continuing to be focused on the Parent Trigger petition that initiates a change of the school's operators. A petition has to have 51% of the parent's signing it to have this become effective. Now, as reported by the L.A. Times, the opposition is claiming that many of the signers were not told the truth and that some are rescinding their signature.
"Effort to convert Compton school to charter draws fire- Some are withdrawing signatures given under the 'parent-trigger' law to make school a charter, saying they were intimidated or misled."
By Howard Blume and Teresa Watanabe, Los Angeles Times, December 11, 2010
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-1211-compton-school-20101211,0,4177045.story
So the parents are really saying that they did not read the petition, but they signed it anyway. There are some claiming intimidation by the petition signature gatherers and it appears from the story that pressure is being put on many to rescind their signature. The way it looks to me is that, unless there is outright fraud, like having forged or fictitious signatures, the number of those signing the petitions should be left alone.
I doubt that the legal process requires that once the petition initiating the change is presented with the sufficient number of parents signing it, that there has to be any more samplings to see there is no "buyer's remorse," otherwise there is no certainty, something necessary for planning, on the decision represented by the petition.
I am for this change to see what actually can be carried out by the new operators as specified for a couple of basic reasons: 1. Time is up: The school has had a long time with poor performance and recent improvement still did not move it up to the acceptable level; 2. Immediate change will happen in operations once operations are transferred. No assurance of any such move away from "status quo" condition can be made by the school district by leaving it alone to continue with whatever plan is in operation.
The defenders of the school use the big jumps in test scores to show effectiveness but the jumps can be very huge when you start off with a very poor performance. This goes for most conditions in life. Any improvement is a huge one when things have been going wrong. When things go better, the corresponding changes to plans will unlikely to be so dramatic.
Another analogy for this idea, a school analogy: A student can move up his or her grade from a "Fail" to a "D" relatively easily by eliminating some things he is doing, be it truancy or not turning in tests. A move up to a "C" level would be also within reach by a little more action on weak areas. This still leaves the grade at an "average" level, but a tremendous difference from a "Fail."
So, moving the grade in this condition becomes more difficult, though not impossible, when seeking a "B." More effort by the teacher, student and with the studying, that can be helped at home by a parent simply allowing a set amount of time daily for the student to do homework.
In Compton, the gains may be, for sake of example, moving from the "Fail" level to a "D" level, and then later to a "C" level, or close to it, but attributing the continued gains by leaving the situation as it is set just does not assure the continued rise in scores will happen.
If this change does happen, there is nothing to tell you that it will happen with any appropriate speed. Maybe a bit of explicit discussion of timetables and a recitation of actual plans could reassure me on this but we are past that now that the Parent Trigger petition is filed.
I think thae the accusations on both sides will begin to heat up and the district was mentioned in an earlier news story as not allowing any charter schools to operate in Compton so far, nor would the district appear to be changing that condition volutarily.
In this overall situation, I am looking at the impact, positive impact, on the students. I don't say too much for what the future holds for the current faculty roster or others who would be displaced at McKinley by the change. That's another situation connected to this matter but that concern will no doubt be working on stopping the change from happening, and that would just continue to frustrate the situation, doing exactly what the Paent Trigger was created to change.
We will see what develops and whatever happens will be something that I am sure that many other districts are looking at for future changes that may be heading their way. Again, tough as it may be, the parent involvement needs to be cultivated by teachers and anyone else seeking to improve education. In the case of low performing schools, their very existence as they are set up could depend on what the parents perceive is happening in the education of their children. Again, it's the perception important here, not any actual good showings, but that helps, too.
The Compton parents reached a critical point in terms of confidence in the future of education of their children and that's what controls the situation. On the surface, it does not seem to be an unreasonable choice. For children, education delayed is education lost. There are lots of students performing at below-grade-level by the time they enter high school and it's not fun for teachers or for students as extra work has to be done to remedy that deficiency.
Consider that here is where you get that dark shadow of poor performance falling upon many of them, heading them into deeper into the direction of "at-risk" or "high-risk" and then, too often, they don't get out of it, and instead, they encounter more unsuccessful experiences than successful experience in high school, lose interest in school and ultimately they drop out.
Yet another separate factor for problems in education is that these student often becoming involved wtih gangs somewhere along the line. That impact nearly always is a negative one as it relates to schoool performance, be it a distraction in the best case scenario or an obstacle to gaining progress in school performance.
If the Parent Trigger is followed up in Compton, you should take the opportunity. When LAUSD was operating in our days, even while fooling around in school, it left most graduating with a fairly usable level of skills. Not the best conditions for all, of course, but way better than what you see for too large a number of students now. If you recall from that era, we could fill out an employment application well. Now, especially if you have been in a position to see them, too many cannot even do this task without assorted difficulties entering the process.
I will end this here and see what happens next in this situation.
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