Just finished reading the second NPR installment regarding the KCPS. Take a look if you haven't already:
Saving Kansas City Schools Means Rescuing A City
And here's the thing . . . NO, IT DOESN'T.
Funny, Mayor Sly's old, busted and NEVER GOING TO HAPPEN MAYORAL TAKEOVER PLAN is part of the reporting . . . Never mind that Mayor Sly has grown bored with the KCPS and has now moved on to something else.
The article glosses over "The Absorption Plan" (ew) which is way closer to happening than anything else given that the GOP in Jeff City favor that option.
But it's the grandiose language of the headline that kinda sticks out in my mind . . . As if having schools that meet with basic accreditation standards is like some pie-in-the-sky impossible dream.
Is it that much to ask for an active electorate that holds school board members accountable?
Probably.
Still, there's one option that nobody has really considered and it's starting to look more likely right now . . . Maybe NOTHING MUCH changes for the KCPS and the district continues to putter along. With a few less-than-convincing promises of improvement . . . That seems to be the direction we're headed in now and it's a rather classic Kansas City solution.
here's the thing: yes it does (save a city).
ReplyDeletehow do you not have a successful city and society without successful, educated, productive, healthy citisens?
answer: you don't
and where do those successful, educated, productive, healthy citizens come from:
2nd answer: first, from homes. secondly, from schools
but you wouldn't know about educated people from schools, would you?
How many thousands of times has this been addressed? How many billions thrown at it and it only gets worse? Around 1995 60 Minutes did an expose about Central High School. The first billion dollar school in America (and may still be for all I know). It had the best of the best of everything. Still the school performed terribly and has only gotten worse. Several years ago the Star columnist E. Thomas McClanahan wrote an editorial about how the KCSD is nothing but a fiefdom for black people to hire their friends and family for jobs they were not qualified for. I couldn't believe he came right out and said it. I thought he just ended his career which I was good with because I disagree with almost everything he writes. Amazingly, he received zero crap about it. Nobody will talk about the 800lb. gorilla in the room. Parent(s) who don't care about education have kids who probably won't care either. The change has to come from within. The school board can't make people care. Corporations can't make them care. Go to Armour & Troost on a nice day and see how many school age kids are just hanging out when they should be at school. Look at what they are wearing. Invariably they have at least $300 worth of clothing on. Their Jordans are $200 so I'm probably low-balling it. Such a huge percentage of people within the boundaries of KCSD have unbelievably misguided priorities. Sixteen year olds who have babies don't give a shit about school and neither will their kids. Repeat cycle in the hood.
ReplyDeleteThere are 13 other school districts within the city limits of Kansas City Missouri.
ReplyDeleteexcellent point.
ReplyDelete5:05 is right. The KCMOSD is not KC. Children are being educated all around the city and its suburbs every day.
ReplyDeleteIf you are in the KCMOSD and send your child to the schools, you are an indifferent or uncaring parent. It is just that simple.
Our daughter has a friend who claims "we cant afford anything else." You cant afford this. Your children are going to suffer their entire lives. Either move or suck it up and pay tuition.
5:02 is exactly right and anyone who knows anything about the KCPS knows it to be true.
ReplyDeleteThe district has been nothing but a big pot of tax money for years and every family member, contractor, consultant, grifter, and deadbeat in KCMO has had their hands in the pie. And they'd still just love for that to continue, which is why the Urban Summit gang proposed to take over the district and cut out the middle man.
Thousands of students have left for charter schools and the population the KCPS serves has dropped dramatically as crime and violence have forced more folks who want decent lives and educations for themselves anbd their families have left for the suburbs.
All this discussion and all the meetings in the world aren't going to change the realities of the KCPS and the needs of the children who actually want to learn continue to come last.
It's time to dissolve the KCPS and parcel the schools out to surrounding districts that are run as educational institutions instead of jobs programs and money pots for consultants.
Time's up.
Do people really think it's the allegedly badly run school district, or is it the culture of the area it serves? Is it a coincidence that urban school districts, where poor inner city families life, fare badly all over the country?
ReplyDeleteI think if you look at the dropouts and the low performers in ALL school districts...are the poor, uneducated families who raise poor uneducated children... no matter what the content of MOST of the student body is.
Radio man your argument is easy to disprove by just looking other poor areas who have met the minimum accreditation standards. WyCo struggles with just as much poverty and violence as KCMO on a per capita basis but their schools are not doing so poorly. It is a case of management.
ReplyDeleteOver fifty percent of the geography and the majority of KCMO's population live outside of the Kansas City Missouri School District. About one third live north of the river. THE FUTURE OF KANSAS CITY MISSOURI LIES NORTH OF THE MISSOURI RIVER.
ReplyDeleteThe areas the District serves are very poor and have a great deal of problems. However, those problems are nothing compared to the mismanagement, corruption and incompetence of the KCMSD Administration and School Board. The only way to fix this and give these already troubled kids even a remote chance is to break up the District. There is no other viable option.
ReplyDelete9:12- I'd agree that the IMMEDIATE future of KC is north of the river.
ReplyDeleteBut give it another 10-20 years and the Northland will look like much of the older parts of Johnson County. A few nice neighborhoods in the midst of a lot of old, busted, rundown tract homes.
The signs are already showing up north and today's development sins aren't without consequence. Enjoy your time in the sun.
My daughter goes to KCPS. She scores above average on statewide tests and she speaks Spanish fluently even though my wife and I only speak English. Obviously my wife a I care about her education but she got that education from the KCPS. The problem lies with the Parents and moving these kids out of the district simply means they won't eat as well as they did in the KCPS.
ReplyDeleteVOUCHERS NOW!
ReplyDeleteKeep crying for vouchers and the KCPS will just keep on keeping on. Barely half of the kids eligible to attend KCPS, attend KCPS. There is no need for vouchers.
ReplyDeleteThere is a need to eliminate KCPS. VOUCHERS NOW! Why? Does it fix KCPS? No. Will it make the problem go away? No. The current bill they are trying to push through the house is so loaded with voucher and charter school crap that is very unlikely to pass and if it does it is going to be a train wreck.
If they dumped 3/4 of the crap out that bill, it would pass and the KCPS problem would be solved; no more KCPS.
Instead they are listening to you voucher people and now there are pages upon pages about vouchers and the restrictions placed upon the schools accepting such vouchers.
If I were running a private school, why would I want all of the same restrictions that public schools face. Good private schools are not going to accept those vouchers because of the restrictions placed upon them.
I cain't do my homework, Dude. Dr. Covington done gone to Deetroit. How speck me to do my homework?
ReplyDeleteWe is Negroes. We is victims.