Re: Birmingham cheating: Artilce #4 - Blaming the Victims

[Anne Nonniemouse <ShopMathEdu@AOL.COM>]

Dear FairTest list readers:
With great interest, and appreciation, I have read your comments regarding
the fourth newspaper article which I posted to this list this morning.

I appeal to you on this list to give me feedback as to whether this
presentation is clear and rationale.  After reading the article myself, I
came away with a picture of 115 disruptive students, some of whom are
involved in arson and chaos in the school hallways.  Would you agree with
this summation?  The ironic comment in the article was the challenge at the
end, for those of us who are critics to "walk in my shoes" and experience
these 115 disruptive hooligans in a classroom.

This is precisely the floodgate which I have been hoping would be open,
because I can speak with first hand experience about 15 of the very same
pushed out students who entered the continuing education program where I
work.  Let me say emphatically that I have not stepped foot in Woodlawn High
School for several years so I cannot speak about what is going on inside the
school other than what I have heard from our students or comments which are
attributed to teachers or parents in the newspaper.  I had never heard about
the rash of arsons until this issue came up.

If students are suspected of arson, or violence, or disruptive behavior, my
understanding is that they are suspended or expelled, and at the least, sent
to Kennedy School which is a public school for juvenile delinquents.  I have
never heard of the procedure of "withdrawing" disruptive students.  This is
new to us.

The science teacher quoted in the article states that "They (the students)
have made a choice.  They have decided school is not what they like."

My experience differs from this comment.  These students have voluntarily
enrolled in our continuing education program.  Some have even enrolled in a
second program housed at our facility, a pre-apprenticeship program.  Our
program ran through the Spring break and pushed out students showed up.  Our
program is running at this moment although the rest of the public schools
closed for the summer in the last week of May.  I counted 5 pushed out
students at one time in our class this past week, even though their fellow
students are out on summer vacation.

Furthermore, even though these students have only been enrolled in our
program since March and April, they have showed measurable progress
[ironically, I am relying on these horrible TABE (Total Adult Basic
Education) standardized test scores when I make this claim].  The students
who have progressed are absolutely thrilled.  Imagine that!  Smiling and
progressing academically all at the same time!

They came to our program totally humiliated, with broken spirits and
devastated souls.  Please try to imagine how you would feel if you went to
school one day and were sent home with a withdrawal slip (which you did not
sign) which describes you as "lack of interest."  Just for a moment, try to
imagine how a young person breaks this news to their parents, their doting
grandparents, their aunts and uncles, their sisters and brothers.  Imagine
how they must feel when they wake up in the morning and have no place or
routine, and all of their friends are in school.  Their days are idle, and
they have nothing but lots of time on their hands to think about how
"useless" they are.  According to the students, at school they were told,
"You will amount to nothing.  You will end up in jail."  This is what our
students have been subjected to.

I have heard enough of these stories, independently, from different students,
that I am convinced in the collective authenticity of these accounts.

I believe that I have shared with this list already that I am not claiming
that these students are saints nor angels.  But neither are they hoodlums or
dangerous to society.  They are good kids who have been lost through the
cracks many years ago.  They are 9th-12th graders currently functioning in
the 4th-6th grade level.  This is devastating for them!

They deserve a round of applause for locating a continuing education program.
 15 found their way to my site.  Another 15-20 went to a closer location.
And still others may have ended up at our central school building downtown.
And, that is just from one of the high schools.  Keep in mind 7 are on alert.

To my knowledge, 99.9% of the pushed out students are African-American.  I do
not have access to the data in the predominately white or affluent school
systems and I think that information is very important.  I do not believe the
pushout phenomena occurred there.

These students engage in a meaningful curriculum in our program.  We are
instructing practically 15 different classes because each student is at a
different level and special needs and issues.  They are working on dialogue
journals where they are reflecting upon their life's experiences.  They have
artwork on our classroom walls.  Prior to attending our class, one student
always threw his drawings away.  They are accessing the Internet for the
first time in their lives.  They are checking books out of the library for
the first time.  One is reading Shakespeare and I can't pry the book away
from her.  They are all studying in preparation for the GED.  Some who are
older than 18 have registered to vote. We are helping them with resumes and
practicing job interviews with them.

We are celebrating with them when it is their child's birthday.  We
commiserate with them when they suffer from morning sickness.  We laugh with
them when they review their test scores in our class and see that they have
beat the low expectations their former school had of them.  We laugh with
them when they read humorous stories they have written.  We hug them when
their brother or cousin is shot out on the streets.  We cry with them when
their parents pass away.  We shed tears with them when they tell me that they
were withdrawn because "I missed too much school."  "What was going on that
caused you to miss so much school?" I asked.  My student responds, "I had a
baby and he died 9 days after he was born.  I didn't go to school then......."

Are you getting the picture?  Am I communicating the magnitude of the human
tragedy here?

There are 7 volunteer tutors which are matched with these students and who
are the greatest asset to our program once a week.  They would concur with
the description I am providing.

Dear friends on this Fair Test list:..........Please help us.  Please read
these remarks with a critical or skeptical eye.  If I cannot stand up to your
criticisms, how will we be able to face the crush of the bad publicity and
vilification which we are facing right now?


If there appear to be holes or loose ends in this account, please challenge
me.  I will accept all of your remarks as constructive criticism.  We need
your input immediately.  Our students are counting on us to defend them, and
we are counting upon you on this list to assist.

It is been one of the greatest honors in my entire life to work with this
group of students. It has been a truly reciprocal working relationship as I
have learned more about life and death and the will to survive.  And, as you
can well imagine, my instruction has been informed and improved by what works
and does not work with each student.

I have remained anonymous on this issue so far, but I am informed that the
Board of Education has finally fingered me and has "leaked" a document to the
newspapers.  The coming days will reveal more.  From jump street, I was
advised by many colleagues that I would not survive this exposure of these
procedures.  What a pity, because I believe that I have something to offer to
adult education students, and it would be a deep wound to my heart and spirit
to be severed from this population and this career.  However, it would be a
deeper wound to my integrity if I did not follow my obligation to bring this
injustice to the light of day.

To you staunch souls that have made it to the end of this post, thank you for
listening to the other side of this story.

I shall remain in communication with this list through the tumultuous winds
of this controversy.

Y'all hang in there.

>From Birmingham, Alabama (one of the cradles of the civil rights movement in
this country.  FYI - besides this scandal making front page news, the other
breaking story is the arrests and upcoming trial of Frank Cherry and Thomas
Blanton who are accused of the heinous bombing of the 16th Street Baptist
Church.  This past September 15, 1999, at 10:22 AM, I took 40 of our students
to the church at the precise moment that the blast occurred.  There are
threads to our history and this present crisis..........), I remain yours in
the effort to guarantee education to our youth.
===============end====================

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