Reply to New Budget Recommendations -- eliminate AAP busing and centers

Forum Index » Advanced Academic Programs (AAP)

Reply to "New Budget Recommendations -- eliminate AAP busing and centers"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Is it possible that the proposal to put level 4 in every ES is just a backdoor way of saying "no more centers."

How would there be any savings if you are putting local level 4 classes in every ES and still keeping all the existing centers?  Wouldn't that be more expensive????  Unless you are actually closing the centers ----->  thereby saving the costs of busing and perhaps saving the costs of selecting kids for centers.  Maybe part of the "savings" is that AARTs and teachers just place kids in local level 4s  (no busing, no "in pool" committees)? [/quote]

That couldn't be, that would just be tracking.  I agree, not sure how it saves money and might even cost more (as centers may maximize economies of scale).[/quote]

AAP as a whole is tracking!  It's one big tracking program, so they might as well end it and [b[b]]simply track kids into the appropriate groups.[/b]

So easy to say, and people say it all the time on DCUM. If schools just "track kids into the appropriate group for them," what happens if that group is only four kids in the whole grade? Or only 12? Not enough for a class. Oh, yes! Teachers are supposed to "differentiate in the classroom" and keep up with teaching both the four kids who are able to move faster, take in more and understand more complex material -- and at the same time, the same teacher is supposed to meet all the needs of kids who are in the middle and kids who need remedial help as well. All in one package: The teacher who can meet the needs of every single level of learner, simultaneously, daily. But the teacher has to do it without much additional training or help or resources, because, by gosh, we can't afford[i] that[/i].

Pull-outs? Sure. Pull out the top math kids for more advanced math. Maybe, if the school has a teacher who can do that, or if logistics permit. And the kids who could benefit from pull-outs for more advanced work in other topics? Sorry, no such thing, except maybe a higher-level reading group. Or additional assignments that the kid is expected to do on his or her own to "stay challenged" while the teacher of necessity must give most of the focus to the kids who need more help.

That's why the centers work. They create classes with enough students who work at similar levels of understanding so the students can have more challenging work in depth. Just doing "differentiation in the classroom" with one teacher, or a few pull-outs, does not work, especially now that teachers are under so much pressure all year long to bring up overall test scores for the school's sake (and their jobs' sakes).

We were told over and over that keeping our kid at our base school (no level IV available there, then) would be fine as teachers would differentiate their instruction for all kids and meet all needs. Not doable and that's not the teachers' fault -- why do we expect one teacher to be able to work equally well with kids who need remedial help, kids who are doing fine and on level for their grade, and kids who can do more if they're challenged? And going to level IV at every school sounds nice and fair, but in reality, it's going to end up just as the "tracking" people here seem to want, since many schools will lack enough students to create AAP classrooms.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics