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| The Jewel of Black America loses its luster: APS is built on lies. |
Award-winning gains by Atlanta students were based on widespread cheating by 178 named teachers and principals, said Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal on Tuesday. His office released a report from the Georgia Bureau of InvestigationUS history. that names 178 teachers and principals – 82 of whom confessed – in what's likely the biggest cheating scandal inWe wrote about this brewing scandal back in March - it should be noted that majority-Black Clayton and DeKalb County are having serious problems as well - and don't have much to add. All stories of Black achievement in grade school academics must be taken with a grain of salt (sorry Urban Prep) as the dust begins to settle on a decades-long falsification of test results in APS.
This appears to be the largest of dozens of major cheating scandals, unearthed across the country. The allegations point an ongoing problem for US education, which has developed an ever-increasing dependence on standardized tests.
The report on the Atlanta Public Schools, released Tuesday, indicates a "widespread" conspiracy by teachers, principals and administrators to fix answers on the Criterion-Referenced Competency Test (CRCT), punish whistle-blowers, and hide improprieties.
It "confirms our worst fears," says Mayor Kasim Reed. "There is no doubt that systemic cheating occurred on a widespread basis in the school system." The news is “absolutely devastating," said Brenda Muhammad, chairwoman of the Atlanta school board. "It’s our children. You just don’t cheat children.”
On its face, the investigation tarnishes the 12-year tenure of Superintendent Beverly Hall, who was named US Superintendent of the Year in 2009 largely because of the school system's reported gains – especially in inner-city schools. She has not been directly implicated, but investigators said she likely knew, or should have known, what was going on. In her farewell address to teachers in June, Hall for the first time acknowledged wrongdoing in the district, but blamed other administrators.
The fact that per-pupil expenditures for APS students is $12,090 is irrelevant in this discussion, right? Well, when you realize this is 30 percent more than most other counties in Georgia spend, you understand that no amount of money can ever close the racial gap in achievement. Or cheating. If we continue Waiting for Superman to save the day, all that will happen is The New York Times will persist in publishing articles that show the proficiency of Black students is lacking (as they did in 2010 and 2002) and Mark Zuckerberg will continue making donations totaling $100 million to try and be that Kal-El.
It should be noted that the pupils being educated in Atlanta Public Schools are overwhelmingly Black (79 percent Black and 12 percent white). According to January 2005's Atlanta Magazine, APS was 88 percent Black, produced students who had an average SAT score of 847, and 80 percent of the students are eligible for free lunches. Here's an amazing pdf from the Regional Atlanta Civic League that details per pupil spending in APS as compared to other urban areas.
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| Unbelievable... |
Based on the lies peddled as actual students work by primarily Black administrator and teachers in an overwhelmingly Black school district, all academic miracles of the racial gap closing must be heavily scrutinized.
Thus far all attempts to close the racial gap in academic achievement between Black students and, well, everyone else, have been monumental failures. Now one of the brightest areas of hope that Superman might have come to deliver Black children in the city too busy to hate some academic miracles, it all turns out to be a cleverly manufactured Lex Luthor-style plot that will ultimately cost APS its accreditation and drop property value in areas that have majority white public schools.
Remember that property value correlates to "good schools" - okay, predominately white areas - and even the capital of Black -Run America is no exception to this rule. What are all those good white liberals who live in Buckhead going to do? Flee to Johns Creek, Sandy Springs, and Dunwoody where white flight will one day be declared illegal?
No, there weren't any Jamal Wallace's walking the halls of APS schools, only future employees of MARTA and the public offices of the city of Atlanta. Or Neal Boortz's dead thugs.
Here is Volume 1, 2 and 3 of the cheating summary courtesy of the Atlanta Journal Constitution. The summer of 2011 will continue to show that 60 years of denying nature will only bring tears in the end. It's high time we end the nonsense and quit pretending massive racial differences don't exist. We won't though, because those in power in every sector of American society must pay lip-service to Black-Run America.
There job and lively hood depends on it. We are stuck with merely surviving BRA's demise. Judging by the quick demise of three major metro Atlanta school districts, that day is coming swiftly.
Waiting for Superman is like Waiting for Godot. Neither is ever going to show. In the mean time, we'll continue learning all about the massive fraud necessary to maintain some illusion that the racial gap can close.
48 comments:
It's hard to blame the lowly teachers for this as they were given an impossible task by the Federal Government and their other superiors: make children with an 85 IQ perform at the level of a child with an IQ of 100. No one wins and everyone loses in this farce. No lessons will be learned and a new X, Y, or Z explanation will be found to explain away this monumental problem of black underachievement. They should just try the Steve Sailer method and mace white children prior to test taking.
As long as we're on the topic of cheating by school officials, I would like to point out a handy way to check up on claimed graduation rates. Look up your target school online, and check out the grade pyramid. If they claim a dropout rate of 25%, and have 1000 9th graders and 500 12th graders, they're lying. They've got 50% dropping out before they even become seniors, plus some more who quit in the last year. This is a common trick, only counting those who quit mid-semester as dropouts, and pretending that those who don't return after summer have just moved away or somehow otherwise statistically disappeared. No social statistics that are not sorted by race are valid, and any statistics that show anything approaching equality between Whites and Darks are deeply suspect.
"It's hard to blame the lowly teachers"
Wrong. The teachers deserve the MOST blame. Instead of being catalysts for change, they are the primary perpetrators of the BIG LIE.
The teachers union...if they had an iota of integrity...should stand up and shout to the world...TRUST US, IT IS NOT POSSIBLE TO TEACH BLACK CHILDREN TO THE SAME STANDARDS AS WHITE CHILDREN...instead they just play along with the charade.
Fucking PC cowards.
"any statistics that show anything approaching equality between Whites and Darks are deeply suspect."
This applies to virtually everything.
Point to ponder: I've been a public high school teacher in Georgia nearly 23 years. I've worked in three different systems, all of which had significant black student populations. (Two were majority black.) Yet, in 23 years, NOT ONE black student ever achieved Star Student (highest SAT score) or valedictorian. I can literally count on one hand the number of blacks who were honor graduates, and these were black girls. Surely there's a profound truth to be found in this.
Interesting you bring up Rhee. Negroes on the ground in DC were incensed that a Korean girl (by heritage) could ever be placed in charge of their "black" school system. She was essentially run out of town.
Her own history includes allegations of "covering up" the alleged sexual misconduct of her boyfriend, Kevin Johnson, over Obama's AmeriCorp workers. The investigating IG was fired by the Obama administration creating a scandal--some believe it was simply a backroom deal to absolve Johnson, a popular figure in the "black community," and one who could be counted on to bring in the votes (as if Obama needed help with his kind).
Why a Korean woman would hook up with a philandering Negro is itself unusual, especially given the bad blood between the Korean community and blacks, not to mention the general racial dislike shown by Asians as a racial group (especially Asian women) toward Negroes (Asians are generally quite racist when it comes to Africans, and Asian women are more prone to hook up with whites, and hardly ever with Negroes). Perhaps for Rhee it is true love. Anything is possible. But others may conclude differently, and suspect that the woman is simply a high powered opportunist.
A black radio host in Indianapolis agrees with SBPDL . . . at least in principle.
His article is titled, Call A Spade A Spade and may be read here ►
Meanwhile, back at the ranch...
So Casey Anthony is acquitted. Another murderer walks. What could be worse than strangling your own child?
Well, I suppose burning the child to death in a microwave would qualify. Can you just imagine the ensuing media furor had that happened?
But wait! It has!
Ms. China Arnold has recently been convicted of that very offense! Apparently she did it because she was annoyed at something her lover- de-jour had said or done. So why didn’t it get blanket coverage like the Anthony case? Why was it largely hidden away in local outlets like the Dayton Daily News?
Well??? Why hasn't the MSM touched this one?
Answer: Ms. Arnold be black.
The "black underbelly" is the pressure to eliminate the gap between black and White students. It is the sad outcome of Brown vs Board of Education in which the presumption was that black students sitting with White students would attain the same level of academic achievement.
The truth is: Blacks have an lower aggregate intelligence level than Whites. There is no level playing field. Blacks have been better served academically in their own schools.
A black radio host in Indianapolis agrees with SBPDL . . . at least in principle."
A dirty little secret is that most blacks agree with SBPDL in principle. The blog Unamusement Park had the tweets of black people in Baltimore after the usual black buffoonery in the Inner Harbor on the 4th.
The comments were all along the line of "too many blacks" and "why can't we behave like other races."
@ anon 4:54
Niggers and public service unions...really on each other to commit their greedy crimes on the backs of white tax payers.
Union members are classic nigger lovers...wait and see.
Niggers who are union members are the most dangerous to traditional white values of fair and healthy competition.
Cheating niggers who will rely on the union to protect them will make my point... wait and see!
@ anon 5:53
MSM doesn't care about black heathens, no more than I do when they successfully kill each other off, MSM has no higher expectations for black heathens as they would for feral pigs who eat their own litter.
MSM still believe that whites should be held to higher white values which include not killing your own offspring.
Expectations are defined by what is and isn't reported.
If you take a look at the comments on the AJC Web site, the excuses are already being thrown out.
Oh, those poor teachers were under pressure. They were scared to speak out or they'd lose their jobs. We place too much emphasis on the CRCT anyway. They couldn't help it, you know. Let's not go hard on those poor teachers. We expect way too much of those poor black kids. The federal government sets test score goals too high for them.
Guess what? APS set those crazy goals themselves and then lied/cheated/erased to make them.
What part of cheating do these excuse makers not understand? If the school system is telling you to lie and change test answers, you SAY SOMETHING. You get out of the system. You say NO, I'm not going to lose my integrity by cheating.
How can we expect APS students to have integrity and to stand up for the truth if their teachers are morally bankrupt? Apparently, it's okay to cheat if your boss asks you to, you were just "going along." It's okay, you did what you had to do. You "kept it real".
Frankly, I am waiting for the race card to get played and it's already starting to emerge. One commenter on the AJC page wanted to know why other school systems weren't being probed like APS, that it was a "witch hunt" on blacks.
You want to know why? Because other school systems did not have statistically impossible test score jumps in a few years' time, that's why!
If APS was going to go to such great lengths to cheat and change answers to raise test scores in order to gain praise and awards, why didn't they do it gradually over a long period of time instead of a massive jump within one or two years? Surely they knew someone was going to smell a rat. They couldn't even cheat well!
It makes me sick that even more people are going to ask me why I stay in Atlanta when it is going to heck in a handbasket. I am asking myself the same thing. If my widowed mother was not still living here, I would be gone in a flash.
It's been fifty-plus years since Brown v. Board. Trillions and trillions of federal dollars have been spent to make blacks academically competitive with whites. Politicians have legislated countless social engineering programs to close the racial academic achievement gap. The media has been propagandized political correctness for the last thirty years in order to sway society's views. LESSON LEARNED?...Academic parity between whites and blacks is simply not going to happen.
There is a culture of anti-education in the urban black community. If you prize education, you are accused of trying to be "white" or passing. Ask all the Asians that go to the same school how they are treated. The teachers had to cheat because NCLB basically made it mandatory. NCLB made the administrator in charge, all they care about is funding, the more they can get from uncle sugar under NCLB the better. The higher the scores, the more funding.
Did anybody watch "The Walking Dead" on AMC last year? I did - all six episodes. Reading this story about Atlanta made me think of that show. As you may know already, "The Walking Dead" is largely set in the city of Atlanta, which has completely collapsed from a zombie apocalypse, along with the rest of the world.
Being that "The Walking Dead" TV series was very likely written and produced solely by Hollywood DWL's, one episode of this show has a stereotypical Georgia white redneck racist character named Merle - he gets his comeuppance after using the en-word several times and acting like a total meanie toward the non-white characters. Then there are the several noble negro characters featured in most of the other episodes, negroes who always do and say the right things, save the day for their fellow survivors, make the ultimate sacrifice, etc.
Now, contrast all of that fiction of this zombie-theme TV series with this real life story about the widespread cheating scandal in Atlanta's negro-dominated schools. Long story short - negroes are basically not all that smart, so the only way to make it seem like they are performing adequately in their schooling is by means of malfeasance en masse. So, if there ever really was a zombie apocalypse to unfold, it would simply be a foregone conclusion that most of the world's negroes, and perhaps latinos too, would either die, or wind up as part of the zombie hordes themselves. Only groups of smart and resourceful Caucasians and Asians would have any chance of surviving long term. It would all amount to being the ultimate Darwin award.
Absolutely Priceless!
I will be buying a few copies of yer book -
Black man sucker punches white man to death in Vegas. Victim allegedly called the man a "black man in a yellow shirt" while in the bathroom.
Instead of shrugging the comment off, the black high school football coach follows the man outside the restroom, exchanges words, turns his back like he is leaving then quickly wheels around and punches the man so hard he dies.
It's frightening how little self control the average black has.
So black children in America know who their favorite sports hero's are and can name them, but can't tell you anything about our system of government. They can rap the most dreadful lyrics possible, but don't speak any semblance of proper English?
What will be the end to all of this confusion. How will blacks survive in an increasingly technological society. Will the failure of black-run cities carry over into the rest of rural America?
I'm just wondering where all this going. We all know that the politicians will be clamoring for ever more taxes to sustain the unsustainable. This will not set well with the average American; could you imagine if our government had the racial makeup of the Atlanta school board? Oh wait! I forget it does, doesn't it?
Take incompetence and add PC nonsense, shake liberally (pun intended) and what you have is a recipe for failure; hence, every black run city in America.
There really needs to be a black reformation movement, where blacks like Herman Cain or Bill Cosby can take over the microphone instead of the Al Sharpton's, Charlie Rangel's, any black minister, or Profiteering White Liberal. Just as I think black criminality will be the downfall of BRA, I think that a vocal "Uncle Tom" movement will be the remedy. I can see the conversation going like this:
Successful Uncle Tom: We black people are failing at life because we don't accept responsibility for our actions and depend on handouts.
Black Hive: You is tryin to be a YT suka! We wuz slaves day dem YT's be owin us for dat!
SUT: You're proving my point. Every race that has ever lived has been subjugated by someone more powerful than them, yet they all recover because through sheer determination.
Black Hive: Dat wrong! Ohhh you iz a cracka!
SUT: Listen you illiterate buffoons, you've been "keeping it real" you're entire lives and where has that got you? You women have a net worth of 5 dollars, have babies from 3 different daddies, and rely on hand outs from the white man. Not to mention your kids are absolute nightmares. Half of you men can't graduate from high school and end up dead or in jail. At least 20 percent are UNEMPLOYABLE!
BH: Ahh you dun be hatin on us you cracka luva!
SUT: I don't even understand what you just said, please speak English. Why is having a 2 parent family, obeying the law, studying hard in school, working your ass off, SAVING MONEY instead of wasting it on "Bling" ACTING WHITE? Look at China, India, Jews, Arabs, hell even the Mexicans, they all do it, why the hell can't we do it? If I have gotten through to at least one of you tonight, that makes one less welfare momma or dead beat daddy and for us black people that's progress. Good night.
Yes, if you enter into Amazon.com through the links on the left hand side of the page, I'll get a percentage of your purchases.
There really needs to be a black reformation movement, where blacks like Herman Cain or Bill Cosby can take over the microphone instead of the Al Sharpton's, Charlie Rangel's, any black minister, or Profiteering White Liberal. Just as I think black criminality will be the downfall of BRA, I think that a vocal "Uncle Tom" movement will be the remedy.
There really needs to be a black repatriation movement. A decent way to get it started would be to build prisons in Haiti,Jamaica,Liberia,Ghana and other places,and when a black is convicted of a felony and finally (the third or fourth time) actually gets to do a stretch,lock them up in one of these expatriate prisons. Then upon their release,offer them some kind of one-time financial incentive to stay there ( employment as a guard,possibly? ). And a "no helping hand home" policy might also be a good thing. Release? "Certainly,sir,you've done your time. There's the gate,and the dock is right down the street. But I'm sorry,we have no funds allocated for your ticket back to the states,so you'll have to get a job and save for that."
@ Anon 4:50: You said "Why is having a 2 parent family, obeying the law, studying hard in school, working your ass off, SAVING MONEY instead of wasting it on "Bling" ACTING WHITE? Look at China, India, Jews, Arabs, hell even the Mexicans, they all do it, why the hell can't we do it?"
EXCELLENT COMMENTARY. COULDN'T HAVE SAID IT BETTER MYSELF.
"There really needs to be a black reformation movement"
I agree.
However, black behavior is genetic.
The predisposition to bad behavior can neither be be taught of out them or beaten out of them.
Dr. William Shockley noted that blacks with high intelligence were also less violent, more civil, and productive. They were not dependent on welfare.
Sadly, intelligent blacks also reproduced at a lower rate than violent blacks with less intelligence.
His solution was to pay blacks with IQs under 100 to voluntarily submit to sterilization.
Sound incredible?
"In an attempt to counter high population grown in Rajasthan, India, health officials in the western state are launching a new campaign encouraging men and women to volunteer for sterilization."
[SOURCE]
The net result would be a community of blacks Americans who were intelligent, non-violent and contributed to culture.
Possible? Yes.
Probable? No.
We could completely sidestep all of the many problems associated with attempting to educate Blacks by simply issuing each Black child a high school diploma and a PHD from an Ivy League college on the day they are born. Their moms are going to need to get the kids' birth records before they can add them to their welfare benefits and their EBT cards, so we can save them a trip by just attaching their degrees and diplomas to their birth certificates, separated by perforations for easy removal.
Black kids aren't going to learn much anyway, and their diplomas and degrees won't mean much to the employers who will have to hire them regardless of ability, so why burden the educable White and Asian students with their presence in the classroom.
It would be good for Blacks, too. Their computer picked college affiliations would finally give them an alternative to becoming Crips, Bloods, Gansta Deciples, Vice Lords, etc. The sense of membership that Blacks would develop as instant alumni of our finest colleges would change the way Blacks view Whites and each other.
Gang signs would be replaced by pointy banners and Whites would be the brothers of Blacks who wear the same ring. "Harvard be tighter than Cornell, nigga, BOOM, BOOM, BOOM!" Would be the last thing heard by both Blacks and Whites.
Problem solved. Mission accomplished. Equality achieved.
The current system that does not admit to the problem and passes them from grade to grade will continue. Their leadership will continue to make excuses for it. Crooked administrators and teachers will continue to profit from it. The community will continue to deny it. Violence, crime, drug addiction, poverty, and the destruction of the family unit will continue. Society as a whole will continue to suffer for it.
All of our kids are threatened by a school system where actually educating children is of the lowest priority.
Rush is talking about this right now and not pretending that race is not an issue (as he often does).
If there was an up front payment for voluntary sterilization, I think that would be best. You figure that the total cost per black vaginal excretion when you factor in welfare payments, schooling, and then incarceration, you could offer them $20,000 up front and still be ahead by well over a million bucks.
We hear a lot about how teaching is a “caring” profession where people go into it because they want to help other people and not themselves. This is total bullshit. Public teachers draw most of their ranks from the bottom quartile of the educated population so you would not expect them to be pulling down massive pay packages. What they don’t get in pay they gain in security through health care, pensions, and the impossibility of ever being fired or laid off. They form themselves into virtual collectives in order to maximize the risk reward ratio similar to the way a government bond holder gets a lower dividend than a corporate bond holder or stockholder. It does not mean it is a bad investment only that there is less risk so the return is less.
Teachers are on the front lines of society. Having an unfiltered view of the populace they unmistakably see the effects of massive third world immigration, lower black and Hispanic IQ, single parenthood, thoughtless crime, and the like. Rather than act as societies eyes and ears, teachers choose to collectively hide behind political correctness, race baiting, and overt socialism to help along their constituency at the expense of the rest of us. Their silence is worse than useless and they deserve whatever scorn is heaped on them.
Prof. Woland
Paul- Sorry to hear about your troubles. I just purchased a Kindle edition of Blackface via your blog link to show my support (and enjoy a good read!) I'm an ex-pat from the Northeast (conservative more than Republican) who learned my racial consciousness after a two year stint in the Middle East. I had always been been race-neutral in my thinking until then. I didn't suffer personally at all-- it was a business secondment which was plenty comfy. But it put me in a non-white environment and I started putting things together. I have no animus against any of the races I came into contact with but it was clear THERE ARE PROFOUND DIFFERENCES that are GENETIC and NOT CULTURAL. I read what you write (and the many excellent comments) every day. Keep the faith.
Off topic, and I’m sure some here have seen it already, but I had to share. Edwards is presenting a video so casually incongruent with modern (formerly) white civilization that it’s almost difficult to believe…even for one inured to negro pathology.
A black female is captured on video (though sadly not in a cage) nude from the waist down bathing in a NYC subway. She does this with the insouciance of picking her nose. As a warning, any men inclined toward sexual endeavor this evening will find all related thoughts cast from their mind upon viewing this.
Glancing at that headline on the AJC, I thought of something that made me grin...Instead of calling it "Unethical"...let's just call it "Ethnical"...get it? Maybe you can do something with that Mr. Kersey. You are a brilliant man.
Just bought my dead-wood copy of SBPDL Year One, now hopefully on the way across the Atlantic.
Best wishes and keep up the good work, Paul.
"There really needs to be a black reformation movement"
While I don't necessarily disagree with that sentiment what we really need is a White reformation movement. Whites need to take responsibility for us. Blacks and any other race for that matter are not our responsibility except to where they infringe on our ability to take care of our own. We need to disentangle ourselves to survive.
Anon @ 4:50 a.m.:"There really needs to be a black reformation movement, where blacks like Herman Cain or Bill Cosby can take over ...".
Really? Cain, Cosby? That's the solution?
Sad.
It's been fifty-plus years since Brown v. Board. Trillions and trillions of federal dollars have been spent to make blacks academically competitive with whites. Politicians have legislated countless social engineering programs to close the racial academic achievement gap. The media has been propagandized political correctness for the last thirty years in order to sway society's views. LESSON LEARNED?...Academic parity between whites and blacks is simply not going to happen. Anon 8:51
There is a culture of anti-education in the urban black community. MrG 8:55
Can anyone spot why the money was wasted?
"...you could offer them $20,000 up front and still be ahead by well over a million bucks."
How much do we offer the sows?
Anon at 12:11 AM: The money wasn't wasted, it was simply spent on other people's priorities. Do the politicians who gave our money to their constituents think it was wasted? Do those constituents think it was wasted? Does that retired White leftist teacher with the good pension think the money was wasted? To multi-cults, anything we do for ourselves is wasted, anything we give to them is well-spent. We are slaves, valuable only as producers of wealth for others to consume.
A couple of days ago, the Atlanta Urinal Constipation ran a front page story which basically said that the biggest reason for all of this cheating at the black-run schools in Atlanta was all because of the "No Child Left Behind Act" - a federal law which was signed by George W. Bush.
This same Atlanta Urinal Constipation story basically argued for letting all of these black "educators" off the hook, simply because as the article states over and over ad nauseum, they only cheated because they had to, in order to survive, etc.
So, the crypto commies have found a way to let these corrupt blacks off the hook after all - Blame it all on George W. Bush! Then, just say that these poor blacks had no choice but to cheat, because it was just a matter of survival: no raised test scores, no jobs, and no extra school funding.
See it here: http://www.ajc.com/opinion/maureen-downey-coming-from-968538.html
From The Thinking Housewife today:
"At the heart of this scandal is the failure to recognize that blacks should not be held to impossible standards. It is not right. Black education should be different from white education. It is not compassionate to deny racial differences. The progression of subject matter should proceed at a different pace and black students should graduate to the working world, at perhaps a much younger age, with a command of basics and not the unrealistic, utopian expectation that they will study Algebra II in high school or go on to higher education that isn’t narrowly vocational. Of course, some blacks will do these things and they deserve the opportunity to succeed, but schools should acknowledge the general characteristics of black students and adopt realistic standards."
Now that financing for the Space program is being shifted over to helping the helpless negroids, I wonder what else will be sacrificed also?
I guess Mein Obama will put the National Parks System on the chopping block next, since national parks are a "white people thang" and, God forbid, we can't have any of those!
Any and all money must be funneled to support negroids with all of their various ailments and perpetual problems.
- Hispanic guy from Argentina
Argentinian Hispanic: I remember when some of the Reaganites wanted to privatize all the Federal lands, or give them to the states to sell off to developers. Will the greens fight BHO as they did the GOP? Or will the watermelons give up Mother Earth to elevate the Darks?
I may have a unique perspective on this issue. I was a volunteer for a collaboration between the Atlanta chapter of S.H.R.M. (Society of Human Resource Managers) and the Atlanta Mayor's Youth Project. For most Saturdays in March and April over the past few years, there would be all-day workshops set up at a building just a block from Turner Field, where Atlanta Public School's senior classes could go to get counselling, tutoring, job preparation courses, and an opportunity to meet with then Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin.
Every 30 minutes or so the students would shift to a new booth or worktable or conference room and get professional advice and help from people in the human resources field to help prepare them to enter the job market once they graduated in May or June and/or to successfully apply for a handful of internships with the different companies that had signed on to Mayor Franklin's Youth Program.
I'll start off by saying that Mayor Franklin was a very passionate advocate for these young people. She really wanted to help them, and she led several round-table discussions with the kids, getting them to introduce themselves and discuss what school they attended, what they wanted to do after high school, which careers interested them, etc...I don't blame her for any of this; it wasn't just a photo-op for Mayor Franklin. The assignments that I had volunteered for (and I did this over the course of two different school years) were to run the students through mock interviews in order to work out all the kinks and problems that they might encounter in a real world situation, in order to give them some insight into what employers would be looking for when doing an interview. It was my job to evaulate them and give them honest, yet helpful constructive criticism about how they presented themselves to me in order to improve their own performance when going out into the real world.
I knew back in 2007 and 2008 that these students "graduating" from the Atlanta Public Schools system were in trouble, because so many of them would come to me for their mock, 10-minute interview and had trouble reading the most basic forms given them, or articulating who they were and why they wanted the internship. In addition to having problems with deductive reasoning skills, they also came to the interview sloppily dressed, even though they had been told before the event to make sure they dressed in business attire. And these weren't just kids from one or two schools; they were from all over the district. They weren't poor; they came with fresh, clean jeans (hanging way below the waist), polo shirts not tucked into their pants, sneakers, baseball caps on sideways, girls wearing clothes that were too revealing, allowing their breasts or their stomach to spill out of their clothes, etc (not all of them, but too many of them to ignore).
To be continued....
Continued from previous post.....
After two school years of working with SHRM-Atlanta and Mayor Franklin's Youth Program, I gave up; didn't bother volunteering anymore (though I'm still on their mailing list). It was clear to me then that there were problems already in place that were so severe that nothing these workshops could do would help most of the kids. The workshops were designed to help underscore and accentuate the skills that these students were supposed to have already possessed, but unfortunately most of these kids needed remedial math and English language courses, which was not something we could offer. Most of the volunteers were white and from Cobb, Gwinnett, and Cherokee Counties, in addition to the North Fulton area, and all of the students that I saw (and I saw hundreds) were black. There were some good, decent kids out there who "got it", but the vast majority of the students, in addition to being woefully under-educated, were somewhat apathetic about school, themselves, their future, and the program as a whole. It was like I was speaking in a foreign language.
The APS can't blame this cheating scandal on No Child Left Behind or George W. Bush or "white-flight" or racism or systemic bigotry. The APS and the City Council are all black...the Mayors have been black for decades...the administrators and teachers have been mostly, if not all, black. All of the blame or all of the credit must be laid at the feet of the black community and the APS administrators. They had all the money and all the power and all the influence and still could not legitimately raise standardized test scores one percentage point without cheating. Maybe it's time for them to consider "school choice" or voucher programs or charter schools. Maybe they need to start considering boys only schools and girls only schools. But whatever they do, the black Atlanta community and the APS need to look inward, because that is where the problem lies. They were given everything and made nothing out of it.
PK Reloaded: Making nothing out of what you have been given is a the trait that best explains poverty in the midst of plenty. Look at the oil-rich Middle East. Look at Mexico. Look at American slums.
More on Atlanta - the 2nd highest black population in the country
"Buckhead is spread out more than people think. The one area you may wish to avoid these days is known as the "Buckhead Triangle" area. It's in lower Buckhead and is an area where Peachtree and Roswell Roads run into one another.
In years past it was a very trendy, someone snootishy night club area (think L.A. with a southern twang). In the last 3-4 years however several famous Hiphop and Rapper type guys have opened clubs in the area and at night, especially on weekends, it gets pretty hairy in that area. Night crime has shot up quite a bit (shootings, stabbings, muggings, etc). 90% of the time it's guys in those clubs getting into it and taking it outside, but bystanders seem to be caught up quite a bit... plus, noise in that area at night has seen a huge increase (cars driving up and down blaring high bass Rap, etc). Many people who live in the buildings surrounding that area complain about the noise and problem now. The local police installed a lot of cameras on the light poles which helped a little bit, but it's still an area I would not invest money in to live."
I have lived in Atlanta for 30 years. Buckhead used to be "the place" to go for nightlife and trendy restaurants. Now that the blacks have moved in, it is no longer the place to go. In fact, wherever they are, there tends to be a high incidence of crime. Buckhead is the scene for the infanous "P Diddy" shooting incident years ago. who wants to be around that? i am seriously consdering moving out of this town. i live in a suburb, but the blacks are starting to show up. better get out before my property
value tanks
Let's look at the whole picture
A teacher who is certified and who has the best of intentions takes a job in one of many urban cities.
Districts are now trying to fire these people based on performance.
Give me a friggin break
Look at research. Look at vocabulary development between a white child and a minority child.
Different world.
We ask these educators to be superheroes. Not only to raise scores, but to have some children who are functionally illiterate to pass a state exam when they come into the school system four grades below level.
Money is thrown through various programs and the whole bloody focus is over the test.
TSHIRTS-water bottles- pizza parties...you name it...
This is ridiculous.
Yes, I taught in this insanity.
I ran like hell and left.
When the curriculum tells me to teach MacBeth to 9th graders...I have a better chance of cooking a steak in an igloo...
Oh, the parent conferences...Jesus..I can still laugh at what would roll through the door in curlers.
1 out of 5 fathers in prison...
Single family households...h hell, quick story...my third year in...a couple showed up and I spoke with this very nice pair. Their student was excellent and I had assigned extra work. I turned to the man finally and asked who he was . He said "while I am Eddie's father."
My mouth dropped and I asked where he lived...
He said "with my wife and children of course."
He then told me that he had a job as the owner of a garage.
I dropped what I was doing and paraded the pair through the teachers lunch room, introducing them around.
Now, really...they must have thought that I was nuts. You see, I had never met a couple that were parents...we had three in the entire academy of 300 students...
It was like the odds of meeting a Yeti...
Really...I left the battle...and saved my sanity
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