The Political Environment: Diversity Undermined In Waukesha Schools

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Diversity Undermined In Waukesha Schools

The Waukesha School Board is looking hostile to diversity.

9 comments:

eno said...: White Rock is 994th out of 1131 Wisconsin elementary schools. With an overall rating of 52.0 (top is 250). White Rock has been low scoring and poorly performing school for years, with some of the lowest test scores in the district... I would hope one should expect a principal to be canned if a school is performing as bad as White Rock does... I mean come on this ain't Milwaukee...; February 16, 2010 at 5:15 PM
james Wigderson said...: Oh, for Pete's sake Jim. The Waukesha School District is about to create a Spanish Immersion program. What the heck do you want? We're closing the underperforming schools and retooling the district for the future, unlike that big failure east of 124th street that the rest of the state has to pay for.; February 16, 2010 at 11:02 PM
Anonymous said...: I have no idea where Eno gets this data from but it doesn't appear to be accurate.

If you look at the DPI data website (WINSS), most of the children at white rock are proficient or advanced on the 4th grade WKCE tests, and pretty close to the state averages. And that's in a school where more than 80% of the children are limited English proficient.; February 17, 2010 at 10:09 AM
PurpleAvenger said...: James W - what immersion school? what the district said is that "Students receiving ESL/Bilingual services may receive services in their attendance area school or another school dependent on type of service needed." That doesn't sound like a comprehensive plan to provide language appropriate services to these students, much less like an immersion program. And btw, "Spanish immersion" works for English-speaking students who want to learn spanish - for spanish-speaking students, which is what White Rock largely services, you need either two-way bilingual programming or another form of ESL, so the children can learn English as well as maintain their spanish.

And the other fact is, the families of these children, and the community, really want White Rock to stay open. If you're advocating for parent choice on issues like voucher schools, then why isn't parent choice relevant to keeping a public school, with specialized programming, open? One also has to wonder whether the completely non-diverse Waukesha school board is giving lesser weight to the concerns of parents of color?; February 17, 2010 at 10:30 AM
Anonymous said...: If we focused more on education rather than catering to the non english speaking population, the illegal immigrant population would assilimate and catch up with the rest of us quicker. If you can't speak english properly in the USA, your chances at attaining a good career built on education are slim. To have schools that teach english as a second language just perpetuates the idea to non english speaking people that it is ok not to learn english. It seems that people are far too sensitive to anything La Casa de Esperanza says, perhaps out of fear of being labeled racist or predjudice, even if what we are doing is counterproductive. The bottom line is that if you barely speak english, you wont make it past being a maid or cook.; February 17, 2010 at 10:35 AM
PurpleAvenger said...: It taking some time for Latino children to learn English is nothing new. the Wisconsin constitution was written in German and Norweigian, as well as English, because back then a huge % of the European immigrants didn't speak English either.

And research shows that Latino first and second generation immigrants learn English as quickly as prior immigrants did, so let's stop these stereotypes about them. As well as the stereotype that these are all undocumented children, because that isn't true either.; February 17, 2010 at 11:45 AM
eNo said...: Purple... your point is seriously hampered by trying to argue for White Rock. White Rock has the lowest test scores and the highest absenteeism (almost 40%) in the district. No one is agrueing that Latino children should not the placed in a program sensitive to their needs... and the district has those programs. But why are people advocating to send children to such a bad school??; February 17, 2010 at 12:39 PM
Anonymous said...: Stop the M.P.S. bashing, they're getting it together. Just yesterday they added an extra $5,000 on top of the $260,000 salary to the new superintendent who went bankrupt and lied about his wife's job title. They had to sweeten that deal because without it, he would have simply started a day care and moved to River Hills.; February 18, 2010 at 6:15 AM
PurpleAvenger said...: Where are you getting the info that the schools performance is so awful? that's not what the offically reported data says. For example, in 07-08, there was 94% attendance reported, and 78% proficiency in 4th grade reading. that may not be perfect, but it's not failing, either. this info is easily searchable. http://data.dpi.state.wi.us/data/selschool.asp

And, I do think that the desires of the parents should carry some weight. That's the argument we always hear about the need for voucher schools . . . give the parents some voice in the system. So why isn't what these parents want important?; February 18, 2010 at 9:51 AM