Speak Out
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Sarah Nash May 10, 2013 at 02:18 pm
Just had a chance to read this story. Loved it! While I believe that conscientious students would…Read More try their best at the test, as I did when I took state aptitude tests in school, I can hardly imagine staying up nights worrying about it! There is nothing at stake except perhaps personal satisfaction so the test itself shouldn't impose stress. A high-strung parent, on the other hand, might.
David April 27, 2013 at 03:09 pm
Oh come on, Rob. You talk about me cherry picking stuff?
10/10? Sure. And as I've shown you can…Read More pull out Maxwell Park, North Oakland, parts of SF (Glen Park, for example), parts of El Cerrito and other locations to show that API scores aren't well-correlated with property values.
Again, why do homes sell for the same $/sq foot in Maxwell Park as Estudillo Estates? San Lorenzo's API is about the same or better than most of SLUSD. Property values there are lower.
The clearest example of what effect API scores have on property values was mentioned below, about a 10% difference depending on which side of the tracks, er, 580 you live on in Castro Valley. 10%? whoopdedo, that kind of variation is washed out when you factor in commute times, crime, amenities, etc.
In fact, API scores are likely to continue to shrink as a factor in RE values as more and more parents flee the public schools, no matter what the API (witness SLUSD, the 30% drop in OUSD enrollment in just the past decade, etc).
In another generation, we'll be accused by our children of child abuse by having sent them to public schools.
Rob Rich April 27, 2013 at 12:38 pm
If you accept the premise that API scores are poorly correlated with real estate vualues, then is it…Read More coincidental that the top school districts are in areas with high real estate values? http://www.greatschools.org/find-a-school/7046-ten-california-school-districts-highest-test-scores-2012.gs. In the old days, 10 for 10 was considered pretty good correlation.
David April 15, 2013 at 09:58 am
To my point.
Fred, we can agree to disagree, but here's my point:
Leah, you have repeatedly sung…Read More the praises of BUSD. More than a few of your neighbors and those in the other upper middle/lower upper class areas of SL think similarly.
BUSD, as I have also pointed out, does a *worse* job, relative to SLUSD, of educating what I presume you'd call "stressed" kids--those in poor socioeconomic strata, blacks and Hispanics of whatever color.
Yet, you hold BUSD up as a great system. It's not. The only reason you and your fellow travelers in the Broadmoor/Estates/Bay-O think it is, is due to the presence of "enough" upper class white/Asian kids who perform well enough to drag up the overall scores. This has a beneficial effect on property values, demographics etc in places like Berkeley and certain neighborhoods in Oakland.
How to quickly achieve that in SLUSD?
Re-organize the schools so that they're K-8. We'd automatically get better scoring K-8 schools in the Roosevelt/Bancroft districts, and with those high performing schools in the Manor. With a stroke, you'd get 40-50% of K-8 kids in SLUSD in "high performing" API 800+ schools.
And Fred, we'd just have to disagree here. Schools of reasonable size like Hillcrest (K-8, upper class area) do just fine, I think a similar dynamic would work here in the Estates etc.
David April 15, 2013 at 09:54 am
Leah, I *highly* doubt the kids' poor outcomes result form "everyday stress." As I've…Read More repeatedly pointed out, 7/8 of my great-grandparents never progressed passed 8th or 9th grade, yet they all achieved higher levels of literacy and numeracy than those demonstrated repeatedly by Mr. Heverly's high school students. As for everyday stresses, need we go into life in the 1880's/1890's and how easy people have it today? You want to compare today's "stresses" to those of being a black girl in Mobile Alabama in 1890, or a black guy in Beaumont Texas in 1890?
Moving on to today's world, and your ridiculous comments. As Fred points out, kids today get food paid for by us taxpayers, classes under 30 students (not that class size has *EVER* been demonstrated to do anything for students, but it does increase the numbers of teacher union members...).
Cont..
Fred Eiger April 15, 2013 at 02:23 am
I doubt it David, times have gotten worse. With billions of money wasted on welfare, rent…Read More subsidies, free school breakfasts and lunches all we have to show are fat, lazy ignoramus' sloths who only want more welfare and continue to produce idiots. Leah, your educational views are abject failures. It's times for you and your ilk to just go away and leave the educational system to the adults who know what works.
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