Praise the heavens they want to close Enterprise Charter on Oak St~!
Here is the press release regarding the audit that sparked the state education department's recommendation to close the school.
Here is a Buffalo News article regarding poor test scores, fraud and the recommendations to close the school. Not that I am a fan of standardized testing. Standardized testing is failing. I present myself as proof.
Here are my 2004 observations about my experience in the school. These are pages of journal entries, not quite a literary masterpiece. My overall rating of the school would be--children for sale. Read them if you would like.
This one I think is kind of funny--
[box]
Now that I have seen Enterprise first hand I can honestly say I do not think it is a good school. However their test scores turn out, this type of environment is a huge disservice to all that attend. This school is nothing more than a processing mill of unskilled workers. I'm saddened when I think of these kids and see most of them will have very low chances of success in America. It's not because I think that these kids aren't capable people. They are and they want to be, but their environment is one that fosters failure rather than enhancing their capabilities. If I went to this school I think that I would start to wonder if I was even human.
I haven't felt something so cold and sterile since I worked in a cubicle in some big corporate office. Can you imagine what it must be like to come to school everyday that has an actual reception desk at the front door? You only get four weeks off in the summer, yet the school has no windows to see out of and no grass to play in either. The walls are all starch white with grey carpeting. There are no lockers so the kids just throw their coats in a big pile on the floor of their homerooms. This isn't just disgusting it's not very healthy either and allows for the easy spread of pests. All of them are made to wear uniforms that make them look like they are being cloned to work at Walmart. Could you possibly have pride for a school with a name like Enterprise anyway? It's just terrible what these kids are given in life. If anybody disagrees with me, than they would have to explain to me how they would like to go to school at a place like this. These kids are just uncared for. Nobody seems to respect them, they are just capital. I'm aware that I haven't seen the whole school, but I really do not have to see anymore to come to these conclusions. I'm just wondering if this actually is an improvement over their other schools. If it is than we are just going to have to admit that America really isn't the land of opportunity and freedom that it's made out to be.
The actual classroom that I was in had nothing pleasing on the walls. The main focus was on the teachers poster of his favorite hockey player, which hardly has any relevance to anything. To the left of me was cheesy cardboard cut outs of all the presidents' heads probably from some textbook company. Behind me were a couple of pictures the kids drew. One said "You is ugly" and the other "Yo teeth is messed up." There were a couple of other small posters up again from one of those textbook companies. Oh and I almost forgot the "Let's Roll" sign cut out of construction paper above the chalkboard. Trust me, there wasn't any rolling at all."
[/box]
Here is the other one. The two journals together are based on 7 classroom visits.
[box]My third session at Enterprise Charter was a better experience than the first two times I came. When I came in the classroom nobody had arrived yet, and the room was a disaster. I quickly found out this was because they had a sub at the later part of the day. It must really be hard to be a sub, because you almost never get to know the kids. I also remember how badly subs got treated when I went to school. Who knows maybe that's where I'll end up initially.
When class began he went around and checked to see if they had done their homework. Many of the students didn't answer the last question. From what I understood it was a critical thinking question. He scolded them and told them that they had to do those and that they couldn't get them wrong. After the homework task he began to question them on last weeks class. The topic was WWI. The kids were answering the questions correctly, which I was surprised because they were dates. He asked them if technology was a good or bad thing during wartime. This was interesting because he told them that it could be up to your interpretation of history and that is what makes history fun.
The class was lighthearted today. There was also more instruction than usual. The lecture was pretty good with lots of descriptions, many dealing with the horrors the soldiers went through during the war. He did fun things to get them to remember how to say names. This class was going pretty well, but than there were several interruptions outside of his control. All of these interruptions were a bit more than the class could handle and eventually they were lost. He regained control, but then ended early. One of the kids pointed out to him that he still hadn't bought new markers for the board. It has been a very long time now that he's been telling them that he would do this.
The next class I learned was going to be a special ed class. That isn't what he called it though and unfortunately, I can't remember the name. This class has more than one teacher, but it only seems like only one of them does anything. The teacher that I was observing had to step out for a while and one of the others was yelling at them to get their homework out. Faggot and Lesbian were thrown around several times well the teacher was out. This class was fuller than the last and I counted about twenty-five. The way the desks are, I think makes it hard to keep control of a class. They all sit at big tables of about five. This really makes it ideal for them to talk and make it hard to figure out exactly where it is coming from. I think that traditional desks are better because if you want to you can move them to make groups, but with the tables they are always in-group transformation. These kids have trouble with reading he told me before hand, so they read to them. The class was largely the same as the last except they had different worksheets to work on. He also told me that they were far behind because he spent a lot of time on prepping them on things they didn't know that should have before the course. Now they had to go from WWI to the end of Vietnam in six weeks. When they were misbehaving he threatened to give them homework if they didn't finish. They did worksheet on reading. He praised them a lot at the end for a good job and gave them the last ten minutes to themselves.
The next class I attended was a study hall. They were supposed to be doing work on the computers, but they were down. To get their attention he shut off the lights. This worked initially but people started talking over him. He yelled at them and told them to get work out. It's fairly quiet and most of them seem to be working. Before class began, I was just observing the students interactions. Was a little shocked at the amount of hated they were displaying, but then again it wasn't too much different from when I went to school. Actually the difference is it's a little bit more verbalized in this school. What startled me is the acute hatred towards homosexuals in this classroom. This hatred and the conversation itself (that I observed) seems to stem from the boy's church. Someone in his congregation was gay and living with another man. He just couldn't understand how this person could call himself a Christian because he was living in sin. He was complaining that this gay person was saying that he was born that way. It makes me sad that this boy was receiving this poison from his own church. This poison in their young minds causes irreversible damage that breeds fear and violence in the classroom and out. I wanted to say something but I didn't. This isn't my classroom and I'm here just to observe. When I do have a classroom, I'm going to work on removing the hate that fills our schools. What is interesting is that studies will show that the more education people hold the less homophobic people are. I have a friend that is still in high school. He is openly gay, but also very popular. The surprising thing is he attends a Catholic school. The difference between these schools is the amount of education their families have received. Although he is in a religious school where the belief is that homosexuality is an abomination, he is more welcomed here than he would be in many public schools where there is supposed to be separation of church and state.
Next I observed the special ed class for the second time. He began the class 12 minutes after they were supposed to start. A graded assignment was returned to the students, and he announced that grades close on Wednesday. He asked the students review questions of what they had learned about WWI previously. A commotion was starting with a couple of students, but I couldn't hear what was going on. Then one of the students asks the teacher "Sir, Do you think I act gay?" Apparently the one boy said that the other acted gay. This opened the door to a discussion on the issue, which is kind of funny considering what I had observed quietly in the class before. He replied that he wasn't sure what acting gay is and that they would be surprised at the number of people who were gay that you wouldn't have any idea. Another student asks "Don't you go to hell when you die if you are gay?" He said that it depends on what you believe in, but there wasn't any difference between hating gays and hating blacks. The kids who are mostly black really didn't' comprehend this. They think of homosexuality as a choice versus their skin color, which is innate. He also shared with the class that one of his roommates is gay and said that he was glad to be able to talk to them about this.
The class went back to topic for a while, but again morality was bought up. This time it was when the teacher bought up the death of Pat Tillman the football star that turned down millions to join the war on terror. He was telling them that he was a real hero compared to the ones that get arrested for rape, domestic violence and drugs. One kid called him (Pat Tillman) stupid for turning down the contract (this was before the teacher told them that he had died in combat. This made him really mad and he yelled at him and than told him that he had died in the war. I guess the point of me bringing these things up is that as a teacher you have a profound influence on what kids think on a variety of issues.
The last class I observed was when the teacher was going over the student's grades with them individually. He was out last class for a family emergency. He wrote questions on the board for the students to answer while he was meeting with the students. It made me laugh when they started asking, "Is it going to be graded?", "Do we have to write in complete sentences?" and "Do we have to write out the questions?" The answer was yes to all three. One kid I noticed was bugging me because he only had his uniform shirt around his neck and his arms weren't in the sleeves, he looked like a punk. I think those uniforms are more trouble than they are worth. They are always getting yelled at for having them un-tucked or some other infraction. Yet this guy didn't' get yelled at even when he went up to the teachers desk. That really annoyed me, because I figure why yell at someone because they don't have theirs tucked in when he is just wearing his around his neck? Initially the class was going well before he sat down to meet with them individually. Then everyone was talking. I counted the amount of times he yelled at them for talking while doing the grades...it was at least 8 times. He made two kids split up and told them they weren't ever allowed to sit together again. Yet he only moved the one boy to the wall only a foot away form the other boy. This didn't solve anything because they were still close together. Again those desks are terrible because they can get away with a lot in them. He also threatened them by saying he would put another question on the board. One kid he made write 20 times that he will not talk in class. Towards the end he said, "I want it quiet for the next ten minutes and if its not you will get more homework. If you stay quiet you will get time to talk." They continued talking anyways and he only gave one student extra work and let them all talk for ten minutes at the end anyways.
One girl went up for her grade and he gave her a high five. She was beaming with pride. I think those are the moments that make teaching worth all the aggravation. They are graded on a level of 1-4 at this school. He told the class that 13 people got a 2 or above this marking period compared to 0 last marking period. I wonder if this is because the students got better or if he got more lenient?
I'm glad that I got to see a a Charter School first hand, although I spent a lot more time there than I would have at a traditional school because there periods are longer. The teacher I observed does pretty well when he teaches, but I feel that there wasn't enough instruction. This I thought led to many of the behavior problems because it gave the students time to act up. His job isn't easy and I often wonder how I would do in the same setting. One thing that he told me was he doesn't do much planning because he had done this all before. I thought that this was reflective in the amount of gaps there were in the instruction. I'm now more aware the amount of planning it takes to be effective. I also can see the importance of being very specific of what you want done and when. I think it's important to let the class know what is going to be accomplished that day. Filling the class with instruction and other activities I have learned will be the best classroom management strategy because it gives them little time to do otherwise.
[/box]
Here is the school's website. It is quite a crock of shit and I only clicked on one link and it didn't even open.
i love that song! especially from certain singers!
i like that song a lot. Diana Krall has a version of it too.
did you love juno? I freaked when I heard kimya like ALL OVER the movie! Paul should go see it just for that.
oh yeah and i like 'your' song too.