Fewer schools meet standards: Only 10 county schools make perfo...

Continuing a four-year trend, the number of schools in San Juan County that made Adequate Yearly Progress decreased this year.

[Whit]

Some of us have maintained in the past and will continue to criticize parents for their failures in passing AYP each year. Parents are not preparing their school children for school, especially alloting time for homeworks. Turn-off the ipods, TV, and videos until weekend or holidays. Dress your kids properly and no baggy pants, no weird hairduos, no printed shirts, no drugs, no alcohols, no tobacco, no late night outings, and no profanity laced verbages.

[Concerned For America]

Amen Whit--and Thank President Bush for making our
schools responsible by NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND.

[Cheeky]

lmao Whit!! I'm sorry,but you, like a few others here are bound and determined it's the parents fault. While that may be true in some cases, it really isn't in most. I have 3 children, 1 makes honor roll every year, the second does so-so and the 3rd, well, lets just say he isn't so interested in the programs. As I sit and do homework, read with them, make sure they are in bed by 9 every night, after their 50 pages of homework is done, I cannot go to school with them to ensure they turn their work in, or pay attention in class.

[notalotaharmony]

The story claims only three Central Consolidated Schools made AYP last year, that being Newcomb Elementary. And that IS WRONG! Newcomb Elementary, Kirtland Elementary and Grace B. Wilson Elementary were the three CCSD schools that made it.

[active grandparent]

So 68% of the schools in New Mexico did not make AYP this past year. If you know much about the laws of probability and the bell curve, it doesn't take a math major to see that the fault may not be with the students who are taking the test, but the test itself. How about we make all the politicians and bureaucrats who support the NCLB test mandates take the state test themselves? Just for those out there who don't know, at the high school level, the state standards test is about 155 pages long.

[TEST_THE_POLITIC AINS]

Who make the laws!!! I agree! They should ALL be able to pass the test (100%) pass rate, but of course it's do as they say and not as they do... Any statistician that has given or is giving NCLB weight seriously needs to be fired. I can't believe a government as big as ours cannot hire competent people to judge THIS data!!

[comment]

Half of the Los Alamos schools didn't make AYP, including the High School. What does that say?

[fed-up staff]

no matter how hard you tried to teach every students, there's some that falls through the gaps and that makes it like the whole class failed, especially when some parents make their child missed school during the testing periods and instead of making their dr.'s appt. at other times or don't care less to make them come to school everyday. some student(s) missed as much as 35 days of school. this NO-CHILD LEFT BEHIND doesn't work, why are other school failing?

[justataxpayer]

It's funny when people post all these diatribes about low student performance being the parents' fault.

How do they explain that George W. Bush, the man behind No Child Left Behind, could barely achieve passing grades. What was wrong with his parents?

[what]

Cheeky wrote:

lmao Whit!! I'm sorry,but you, like a few others here are bound and determined it's the parents fault. While that may be true in some cases, it really isn't in most. I have 3 children, 1 makes honor roll every year, the second does so-so and the 3rd, well, lets just say he isn't so interested in the programs. As I sit and do homework, read with them, make sure they are in bed by 9 every night, after their 50 pages of homework is done, I cannot go to school with them to ensure they turn their work in, or pay attention in class.

You do understand that you are the type of parent that "Whit" is advocating, don't you? Many of the students in SJC don't have parents who sit and read with them every night.(BTW I hope it was a typo that you "do homework" - I assume you supervise their homework time, not do it for them.) Of course you can't go to school with them, but your attitude toward school/education/teachers will translate into your children having the proper attitude that will make them WANT to turn in their homework and pay attention in class. If all students had parents who were involved, the outcome of the annual performance indicators would be different.

[Chief Hill]

What about the BIA/BIE schools in San Juan County? Beclabito Day School achieved AYP for the last 5 of 6 years. Where's the recognition on that? I'm proud to have my kids going to school there. Keep up the good work teachers and support staff.

[comment]

This is really sad actually. The kids who decide to go on to college will be the ones who are going to have to work their butts off just to get into the classes that they are supposed to be in as freshmen. There are alot of kids who will have to take remedial courses at a community college/junior college before they can even think of getting into a University. Pretty unfortunate.

[Hillbilly]

I do put a majority of the blame on the parents. PTA meetings are a ghost town and parent teacher confrences are rarely attended. Some of the blame goes to our community, because we allowed federal money and a federally mandated curriculum into our schools.A good bit of blame goes to the fact that teachers are unionized. ( Please give me a pass on my spelling, I was a speech major.)

[IpityDaFool]

I believe they need to eliminate those "food days" and giving credit for B.S. They need to challenge children and hold them (and their parents) accountable. My experience is with FHS. several times a week my child would be looking for things (food) to take to school in order to get credits. Also, those teacher/coaches miss too many days practice/meetings/district & state competitions) because their priority is athletics instead of academics. So, why do teachers blame "No child left behind" when it is them that are cheating the students.

[Educator]

fed-up staff wrote:

no matter how hard you tried to teach every students, there's some that falls through the gaps and that makes it like the whole class failed, especially when some parents make their child missed school during the testing periods and instead of making their dr.'s appt. at other times or don't care less to make them come to school everyday. some student(s) missed as much as 35 days of school. this NO-CHILD LEFT BEHIND doesn't work, why are other school failing?

This posting is the best example of poor education offered by CCSD.

[Hillbilly]

The no child left behind is a bs program. Thank god for time at home and tutors, eitherwise my child would have been a victim of it. Educator, you are right on. This just further supports my feelings of getting rid of the teachers union.

[comment]

Hillbilly wrote:

I do put a majority of the blame on the parents. PTA meetings are a ghost town and parent teacher confrences are rarely attended. Some of the blame goes to our community, because we allowed federal money and a federally mandated curriculum into our schools.A good bit of blame goes to the fact that teachers are unionized.( Please give me a pass on my spelling, I was a speech major.)

Actually, For Your Information, the UNIONS ARE FIGHTING this law to make it FAIR so that schools that do make progress are not penalized, as they are now. What many people dont understand is that the law makes schools compare apples to oranges- you cant compare a teacher's class one year to the same teacher's class of the next year and expect them to ALWAYS progress at a higher rate. Sure, both classes should make progress, but that is not what the current law looks at, and in fact, pretty much all schools see progress of a particular group of students from year to year. However, like I said, that is not what they are looking for.

Unions are trying to fight this, NEA has done a lot to try to get the law changed (notice I did not say overturned, they are not trying to remove accountability).

[what]

fed-up staff wrote:

no matter how hard you tried to teach every students, there's some that falls through the gaps and that makes it like the whole class failed, especially when some parents make their child missed school during the testing periods and instead of making their dr.'s appt. at other times or don't care less to make them come to school everyday. some student(s) missed as much as 35 days of school. this NO-CHILD LEFT BEHIND doesn't work, why are other school failing?

I'm going to assume that you aren't on a school's staff as a certified educator. If you are, your post here is a sad example of someone who made it through the education system without the writing abilities necessary to teach our children. You should see all the red marks on my computer monitor from "checking" your paper - it's the teacher in me that made me do it. Anyone know how to clean red ink off a monitor?

[education is the key]

Just wondering how many of you know that the No Child Left Behind Act is simply the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act that was signed into law in 1965. It was originally in force until 1970, but has been renewed every 5 years since then. The NCLBA that Bush signed into law on January 8, 2002, reauthorizes the ESEA, but adds accountability to it. I'm not a proponent for the NCLBA, but I think it's important that we understand the history of the law. Schools want to accept the federal money, but don't want to be held responsible for the product? Parents want their children to get an education, but don't want to be held responsible for getting them to school? Some schools don't meet the requirements because of attendance issues - and some parents actually blame the teachers for not making school interesting enough! Rather than blast the whole law, get educators involved (novel idea!) in correcting/improving it. And I'm not just talking about high level administrators. Teachers need to be involved as well. Having politicians tell teachers how/what to teach is like telling a brain surgeon how to perform surgery. If you get teachers involved in the process they will take ownership of it and it will work.

[IpityDaFool]

Seems like some of the people that wrote after my post are educators. Why don't you comment on the "food days" and the reward system (additional credits) for participating?