Comments on: Board Applauds AAPS Achievement Gap Plan

By: Maria Huffman

Maria Huffman — Sun, 25 Mar 2012 17:48:23 +0000

SISS is there to give help, principals have to be prepared to take it.
The numbers are harsh regarding the achievement gap,measure it this way or that, it’s real and it’s hurtful for the kids.

By: ScratchingmyHead

ScratchingmyHead — Sun, 25 Mar 2012 17:21:54 +0000

Maria. I agree with you that a parent should not have to go all the way up the chain of command to have a problem presented. However, many parents who make contact with a principal does not receive the same courtesy and other parents do. I’ve seem this actually happen and I had the same experience when my students were in school. However, once the principal of the one school realized that I was an unengaged parent and that I knew how to advocate, their initial reaction never occurred again. If part of the evaluation of a principal performance was based on the number of parents who end up seeing Dr. Green because of the principal failure to resolve issues a the building level, Dr. Green would not have to see so many parents. While I realize a plan is needed, what concerns me is that teachers seems to overburdened by numerous other “tasks” that they don’t have time to adequately devote to teaching. Why is it that when the achievement gap is discussed,Black students are compared to white students and not Asian students. Those seem to be the high achievers or are Asian students classified as white?

By: Maria Huffman

Maria Huffman — Sat, 24 Mar 2012 13:33:36 +0000

My mistake, I meant Dr. Brown, is not the principals supervisor. Dr.Green is.
When SISS services are not happening well or at all, it is the principal’s responsibility to correct that. They are in the building to take care of administrative issues. That’s their job. A parent should not have to go through so many layers and wend their way up to Dr Green to ultimately have to talk to the principal, who should have been the one to take care of things properly in the first place.

By: Maria Huffman

Maria Huffman — Sat, 24 Mar 2012 13:15:51 +0000

It’s important to realize that if the goal is to change how the kids perform, it’s the adults who have to change how they manage the children first, and I applaud the emphasis on acquiring data to see how that particular piece of the puzzle is progressing in the district. Principals lead what happens in the building, they are the point people responsible for for actions, or non actions that occur at the building level. Dr. Green is not their supervisor.

By: Eric

Eric — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 00:19:43 +0000

A sure fire plan to waste time, squander money and humiliate, alienate, aggravate and drive the high quality teachers and students out of the system .

By: Scratchingmy Head

Scratchingmy Head — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 22:12:30 +0000

Again. I would like to thank Jennifer Coffman for an excellent summary of the AGEP that was presented to the Board of Trustees for the AAPS. From my perusual of the notes it seems that the plan covers several areas: Beyond Diversity Training; Equity Plan Rubric; Accountability; Holistic Accountability System; Personal Learning Plan and Professional Development. According to Jennifer’s coverage, the Board use terms like..”integrated,” “robust,” “powerful,” and “inspiring,” to describe their reaction and preliminary approval of the plan. I would encourage the board to go back 20, 15, 10, 5 years and review the plans that were submitted to address the “achievement gap” and please tell me what has changed in that time. When reading this article, I get the impression that the administrators…Alesia Flye and especially Superintendent Green, who has publicly made it known that she is hoping to retire to a teaching position at UM, is auditioning for their next job. I do not see anything in this plan that will address the issue at hand and Trustees Baskett and Lightfoot are correct in being coy about this plan.