My problems with Rod Dreher's perspective

Have we really stooped to criticizing a school for identifying and recruiting good students? It is disappointing that the complex socio-economic issues at play in a modern urban high school can be so overly simplified and trivialized, or that the statistics can be spun to such a degree.

Yes, let's do look at the schools statistics. Specifically, let's go to the TEA information Mr. Dreher refers to. For some reason, I can't get a direct link to it to work, so go to the TEA site, click on Accountability, then follow the links for Academic Excellence Indicator System Reports (AEIS) and continue to follow them to get a 2007 campus report  for campus 057905022. The TEA, in their wisdom, list the performance requirements in a separate document, not in the AEIS reports, so go to here and look at item 2 on top of page 2 for the Standards for both 2007 and for 2008. You'll need this to properly interpret the data. Don't miss the footnote that Dropout Rates for 2003 through 2006 are not comparable to 2007 due to a change in the way these figures are calculated.

"The school's TAKS math and science numbers are especially grim. The overwhelming majority of Woodrow's white students meet state standards, but only a minority of blacks and Hispanics do."

What his comments don't say, but what the statistics show, is that the passing percentage of minority student subgroups in 75% of the subject areas, while still too low overall,  meets or exceeds the current standards set by the Texas Education Agency. Only the math and science scores of a single minority subgroup fall below those goals. Neither does he bother to point out that these low scores are confined to the 9th and 10th graders. After a couple of years within the academic rigor of Woodrow, all student subgroups of every ethnicity in the 11th grade test well above the TEA goals, including a clear majority of African-Americans and Hispanics. I don't know how to read that as anything but success in teaching all kids, not "mostly white kids", as Mr. Dreher states.

Anyone, columnist or parent, who thinks "...bringing more neighborhood whites into Woodrow would lift the school's overall scores" isn't paying attention. Overall scores don't matter. As noted in my previous post on this subject, the two accountability systems administered by the TEA take the No Child Left Behind concept very, very seriously. A school  can be deemed academically unacceptable if only a single ethnic subgroup fails to perform up to requirements in a single academic category. No increase of any number of high performing students in any other ethnic subgroup or subject area will change that. The school will still be deemed academically unacceptable as long at that particular subgroup continues to struggle in that particular subject. No school can hide this problem behind the performance of it's highest achievers.  Certainly Woodrow doesn't try. The trick is to balance the schools resources so that the needs of both the lowest and the highest performers are met. I think the current Woodrow administration and faculty do an admirable job of this as reflected in the increasing success of the lowest performers as well as the  continued success of the highest. 

To put my personal perspective in context, I am the current chair of Woodrow's Site Based Decision Making Committee (SBDM) and expect to have my third child graduate at the end of May. And yea, I'm one of Mr. Dreher's "White Folks". Not that it matters. Over the past few years I have come to appreciate the difficulty faced by our educators. The factors that influence our children's success or failure within the school are as unique and diverse as the kids themselves. It is only within the TEA statistics, let's remember, where the kids are categorized by race. I suppose that makes it tempting, even easy,  to make the flawed assumption that performance differences between these classifications is racially driven. Other reasons would have to be purely anecdotal because the stats aren't kept that way. That doesn't mean, however, that those other reasons are invalid.

I have been in the school and can say with confidence that any suggestion that kids are denied opportunity, resources or support of any kind based on their race is incorrect. Absurd, actually. I have witnessed first hand the very significant efforts of Woodrow faculty and staff to address the academic needs of the school's lowest performing students. I know of the many sincere efforts by all involved parents and staff to reach out to all segments of the Woodrow community. I know that participation in any program, sports, music, tutoring or AP classes, is open to all who wish to undertake them. Mr. Dreher's allusion otherwise is simply misguided.

Comments

[Kyle Rains]

Woodrow has always been attacked by others - those barbs only serve to galvanize the faithful. Sometimes the critics are jealous and or just can't understand what Woodrow is all about.

I predict one day Rod himself will have kids attending Woodrow. It's only a matter of time before he sees the light.

[Lee G.]

Shorter Rod Dreher: Woodrow would be a great school if it weren't for those idiot minorities.

Dreher's a racist. He masks it behind alot of dodgy rhetorical hedges, but that's what he is.

[Robert]

While reading this I couldn't help but think that while 75% meets or exceeds the average. Since when is 75% acceptable? If I rememer when I was in school a 75% grade was barely a "C" grade. Should parents or schools strive for better?

[Norman Alston]

The 75% number I used refers to the fact that there are 4 TAKS subject areas, Reading, Math, Science and Social Studies, and there are two ethnic subgroups specifically identified by Mr. Dreher, African-American and Hispanic. That means there are 8 different sets of scores to be considered. My point was that of those 8, the percentage of students passing the TAKS in 6 of the 8 (75%) of them met or exceeded the requirements of the TEA.

My point was that Mr. Dreher's characterization that "only a minority of Blacks and Hispanics" pass the TAKS is a glass-half-empty spin on what is really going on. In fact, the Hispanic passing rate met or exceeded TEA requirements in all 4 subject areas.

Also note that my very next statement was "while still too low overall". So no, Robert, I don't think nor did I suggest that anyone is or should be satisfied with those numbers. Since you brought it up, let me go a little farther.

I said I objected to Mr. Dreher's spin, not that he was wrong. Something I have alluded to but no one has said plainly is that the current requirements from TEA for 2007 only require that 40% of the students taking the TAKS science test pass it to be "Acceptable". It's 45% for math, 65% for Reading and 65% for Social Studies. So technically, less than half the students in a subgroup can pass TAKS and still be acceptable under current TEA standards. Take heart, however, in the fact that those requirements go up every year with the goal to get the requirements in all areas to 70%.

[Typical White Person]

Rod Dreher makes a living out of being a racist and a homophobe. He is a media whore. His holier than thou attitude is disgusting. He has a beard.

[Edie]

What's wrong with education is that many parents, of all races, make it known to both their children and to educators that they believe the child is entitled to graduate whether they do the work or not. They make excuses for what they have failed to instill in their children and blame educators for it, very often. There used to be a limit to how much of this the administration will tolerate, but in recent years, the ends have fallen off the envelope.

I do agree that Rod Dreher has a beard and am not well enough acquainted with his work to speak as to whether he is a racist or homophobe, but I did like the column he wrote on Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who I think deserves a medal for her dedication under great adverse pressure.

[Rick Wamre]

Typical White Person, your comments are over the top on Dreher; we don't allow name-calling here at Back Talk, but since Edie has already commented on your post, we're going to let it stand. Had she not commented and debunked your post, we would have pulled it. Besides, Dreher is entitled to his opinion, just like everyone else is, and this isn't the first time he has — deliberately or otherwise — stirred people up. The DMN's Points section has become much more interesting since his involvement with it, and he has written some thoughtful pieces; in fact, he wrote an interesting piece ostensibly about the Trinity vote awhile back (http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/opinion/columnists/rdreher/stories/111107dnedidreher.1fd64cd30.html) that addressed some of the bigger issues better than anything else I saw published during that whole deal.
Edie: Your comments about parents and their sense of entitlement are correct. Over years of observing fellow parents in both public and private school settings, I've seen and heard about far more cases of out-of-control parenting than out-of-control teaching. I wish I knew the answer to that problem, because solving it would definitely impact the quality of our kids' education.

[Edie]

Good points, Rick. Any solution would have to be complex and expensive. Where I would start is having a special branch of social services, complete with family therapy, look into the parents and home life of children who are failing, whether academically or criminally. Make the parents culpable but also offer them some insight and solutions. I am actually astounded that this approach is at least not in place for parents of underage teens who cause pregnancy or become pregnant.

As a preventative approach, I believe we need to have more thorough sex ed and particularly parenting classes mandatory in early high school, classes which incorporate economics and other practical matters. I'd also like to see safety education teaching psychological and practical basics about sex offenders, stalking/jealousy, abuse, substances, and other common teen issues. Ironically, it is often the very best parents who can't fathom any parent who isn't as conscientious as they are and so cannot understand that this is needed for what may well be the majority of teens who DON'T have the best parents and won't get this information otherwise and will only continue the cycle.

Generally, I think we need to see much more comprehensive and mandatory psychological counseling in schools, which involves the parents. I know how people rail against "interference" by the government, but I think if anyone is watching the news right now with the raid of the polygamist compound, they may gain a new perspective.

Because of the isolating potential of home-schooling, I think that needs to be under the eye of a social services agency as well, because although most home-schoolers are blameless, home-schooling has the potential to hide abuse by isolating a child from having an outlet to report abuse and also by preventing them from having anything to compare their existence to so that they know if it is out of the norm.

There are solutions, but they don't come easy and they don't come cheap. Meanwhile, at the very least, we need to return power to the educators and stop allowing those parents who yell the loudest at the teacher dictate their kids' test scores. You know, a few years ago, Texas set a very low limit on how much a physician could be sued in a civil malpractice case. Maybe it's time we freed our educators of the fear of civil lawsuits from parents as well. It isn't as if they don't have just about everyone breathing down their neck monitoring them all the time anyway, whether it be parents, politicians, or press. Like you said, there's more out-of-control parents than out-of-control educators. It's time we held them culpable.