Dropouts

I was listening to NPR this morning when I heard that a study was conducted regarding high school drop out rate in Chicago Public Schools (CPS). They followed 9th graders thru to their 12th grade year for x number of years to see how many students dropped out, why they dropped out, and to pinpoint exactly who is most likely to be a dropout.

I was SHOCKED to hear how many students dropped out of Chicago Public High Schools between 9th and 12th grades. Are you sitting down? 44%

Yes, 44% of all high school students do not finish high school in CPS. That's a lot of fucking kids! Approximately 30,000!!!!

They were able to pinpoint 3 distinct groups of dropouts:
1. Students who started freshman year at age 15 or over.
2. Students who fail a core subject (reading, math, social studies, or science) in their first year of high school.
3. African-American students (49%!!!!!!!!)

This study is going to prompt some action on CPS's part, as it should. I'm sure it'll also cost us a bazillion dollars. Supposedly, they will hold countless meetings, offer mentoring to students in the 3 at-risk groups, now that we know exactly who they are, and create "freshman on-track labs" in 6 high schools that have the highest dropout rates that will investigate the problem further and come up with strategies to address it. Oh, and this study will also create, for the first time ever, a freshman orientation for incoming freshman.

Are you kidding me? These kids have never had a freshman orientation???? 8th graders in CPS go to school at a K-8 school. Yes, they share a school with 5-year olds, and you're telling me there's never been any kind of help with transitioning them from their elementary school of, let's say, 700 kids to a high school that has perhaps 3,500? Hell, I'd drop out, too! Not because I didn't want to finish, but because I probably wouldn't be able to find any of my classes!

Who's running the show here? [Insert monkey commerical here].

Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow

All I have to say about today is that it should AT LEAST be Wednesday.

Something I forgot to mention about the lazy-ass computer teacher from yesterday:
When she was done "teaching" (in this case meaning "doing absolutely NOTHING) my class, she just walked out. Not one word to tell me she was leaving. Good thing I looked up from the paperwork I was doing to catch her rounding the corner out of my room or I would have never known she'd left and that the period was over. Grrrrrr!

Dear Staff:

This is the beginning of a memo I got today. With the exception of the last name, which I changed to protect privacy, this is exactly what it reads:

Staff:

One of our parents, Mrs. Johnson, who have 2 children at our school, was burned out on Monday of this week. The family lost everything...

I am not trying to minimize this family's terrible situation, but who the hell wrote this thing? I really hope it's not someone who is a teaching position because this is just sad.

"Computers"

So I was all set to vent about how annoying the parents of my students can be, but I just got an email from one of the parents that said, "I hope you and your family have a happy Thanksgiving holiday!" How am I supposed to bitch now?

Okay, I'll bitch about something else. Today my kids had computers. The class is called "computers," but the kids learn nothing about computers. Instead, they complete these academic quizzes for 40 minutes twice a week. It's sad, but what am I gonna do? Now I don't like to complain about other teachers since we're all on the same team, but what happened today was ridiculous! While my class was in computers, I was in my classroom grading papers. One of my students walked in. When I asked her why she was here, she told me that the computer teacher wouldn't let her use her kleenex. The teacher told her to come to the classroom to get a piece of kleenex so the girl could blow her nose! Are you kidding me? FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, LET THE KID USE A PIECE OF KLEENEX! Instead, the kid had to walk all the way to our classroom with her hand covering her nose.

This is the same teacher who, if a student's computer is not working for whatever reason, will not let them switch to an available working computer. She just makes them sit and read. WTF??? Your tax dollars at work!

Are You Effing Kidding Me?

They say a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. When dealing with a school, I'd say the equivalent saying is: "A school is only as strong as its main office." Really, if the main office can't get it together, then the school is screwed. We're screwed. The office is definitely our weakest link.

Today I gave a math test. I mistakenly only ordered 19 copies of the math test instead of 20. While I only have 19 students (a blessing), I used one of them to make the test key, so I was short 1 test. Totally my fault. I sent a student down to the office to ask them to make one simple copy of the test. The test was 2 pieces of paper, with the first page being back to back, so I needed a total of three copies. I sent a reliable kid with the test and a very nice note explaining my request. FIFTEEN minutes later, the kid comes back up with the original test and my copy. However, the copy is only 2 pages: the first page and the last page. When I asked him where the middle page was, he said that the secretary told him to tell me that she couldn't copy the second page because it was on the back of the first page. I said nothing. What I wanted to say was "Are you f*cking kidding me?"

So I had to manually write out the 10 problems and the 4 multiple choice answers for each problem on one of my student's test because the secretary was too dumb to figure out that all she needed to do was turn the paper over to copy the back.

We shouldn't worry so much about the future of America. We should worry about its present.

Halloween in the City

Halloween in the city always depresses me. I tend to compare the childhoods of my city kids to my own childhood (which I probably shouldn't do, but can't help). Our situations are totally different. It may sound terrible, but I believe that the way it was for me during my childhood was better than the way it is for them during theirs. Allow me to explain:

Kids in the city go trick or treating at stores, not houses. This bugs me to no end. This probably happens because most dwellings in the city are buidings and not walk-up single-family homes. So I understand why this happens. I just hate it.

Many kids do not dress up. They just put on a mask or something and then trick-or-treat. That's cheating. This is most likely not the child's fault, though, so I should be more understanding.

One of my kids asked me yesterday what it was like to go trick or treating because she has never gone! This is not a religious thing. Her parents just don't let her. *sigh*

I heard on the radio this morning that a pregnant woman got shot in the head while bringing 3 small kids trick or treating. 'Nuff said.

So I guess forgive me for thinking that my childhood was superior to my students'. I never heard of anybody getting shot in the head while trick or treating. The worst thing that happened were some cars getting egged.

One thing that was exactly the same, though, was that everybody's lunch today consisted pretty much only of candy! That's the way it should be the day after Halloween.

All is Well

I sometimes get overwhelmed by the problems in the world and think that we're going to hell in a handbasket. On the news we hear about crime, poverty, illiteracy, children raising themselves, etc., all of which are such huge problems that feed into one another it boggles the mind. It's enough to want to cry and quit.

While this is wholly depressing, I'd like to report some good news: Kids, no matter where they live, or how shitty their home lives are, or how tough they pretend to be, are still kids.

On field trips, they still crank their arms like mad to make truck drivers honk their horns. They still like to draw with sidewalk chalk. They cheer for no homework or extra recess. They still have compassion for small animals. Girls think boys are gross and dumb and boys think girls are gross and weird.

And for the things about kids that scare us: the violence, the poor performance in school, the "gangsta" mentality that many idolize, etc. We have no one to blame but ourselves: adults. We have modeled it. And if we have not modeled it, we have allowed it, perhaps by doing or saying nothing).

"We have been so eager to give our children what we didn't have that we have neglected to give them what we did."