Bennett-Kew

[George Sheridan <learn@JPS.NET>]

Bennett-Kew Elementary School in Inglewood, California has attracted
national attention for being an urban school that has successfully raised
test scores--a high poverty, high-performing school that has been visited
and praised by President Bush, Governor Davis and other dignitaries. The
former principal of Bennett-Kew, Nancy Ichinaga, is now a member of the
California State Board of Education. In a letter to the editor of the
California Educator, a teacher from a nearby school suggests that
discipline problems, learning-disabled students and students who speak no
English have been transferred from Bennett-Kew to other schools.

I do not have personal knowledge of the situation at Bennett-Kew. But if
true, these allegations cast a different light on the widely-publicized
story that Bennett-Kew's success is due to its high expectations and "no
excuses" policy.

*****Forwarded Letter*****

Bennett-Kew, along with other schools in Inglewood, has undoubtedly
achieved high success levels and deserves commendation for this. As a
fellow Inglewood teacher, however, I must call into question the notion
that the "independent spirit" of this particular school is being unfairly
punished by the district. The writer of the article (October 2002 issue)
states that Bennett-Kew is not overcrowded and should therefore be allowed
to maintain its exclusive single-track system.

I work in a school within easy walking distance of Bennett-Kew that is
desperately overcrowded and has been labeled "underperforming" by the
state. The teachers of Worthington Elementary School, rarely recognized,
are dedicated, capable and hard-working. So are our administrators, office
staff and students. Our school, though, has four tracks that are all full.
New teachers must rove each month; this is a highly challenging assignment
on top of the other stresses of being new to teaching. Furthermore, all
classrooms are roved into by these new teachers, which leaves no teachers
in the school any free time to work in their rooms (except for one
meeting-free half day graciously provided to us by the district at the
beginning of the school year in July).

On top of all this, we regularly receive students who live in the
Bennett-Kew area or who started there, but who can mysteriously no longer
fit in the school. The reason given to teachers at my school is that
classrooms at Bennett-Kew are full. Many teachers at my school, however,
cannot help noticing that most of these children are "problem" students who
are hard to handle. We never seem to get any high-achieving, high-scoring
test-takes who could not fit at Bennett-Kew.

Currently, I have a student who cannot go out to recess or play with his
peers at lunch time without getting into an extremely violent altercation.
He left Bennett-Kew a couple of months ago because they did not have any
space. In the past I have had similar students as well as learning disabled
students and students who spoke no English who for some reason "could not
fit" into the "not overcrowded" Bennett-Kew.

Rather than question those in the district who could be attempting to make
the Inglewood Unified School District a more equitable system, perhaps your
publication should look into the truth behind some of Bennett-Kew's
legendary success. Perhaps the uncrowded campus of Bennett-Kew could
lighten the load at Worthington by taking a few hundred or so students and
switching to a multi-track system. At the very least, they could make a
greater effort to keep their own "problem" students who began in their school.

Douglas Mirk
Los Angeles


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