Among other things charter schools in this election were touted as being good for students who are not doing well in regular public schools. We know that highly diverse/high poverty schools generally have proportionately higher numbers of students not making the grade, with black and brown students most often performing the worst.
As the community outreach director for the Kent School District, I facilitated cultural competence workshops for several years, reaching hundreds of school district employees, as well as employees of a few community organizations.
The Kent School District Board selected Edward Lee Vargas as superintendent three years ago. Prior to the nationwide search, the board conducted a survey of the stakeholders – including community, families and district employees – to determine what they thought the district needed in a superintendent.
Kent's East Hill is one of the most diverse areas in the state and perhaps comparable to any single community in our nation.
Back in the day the mantra was, and still is, “all students can learn.” By golly that’s right, all students can learn; that is, “when they want to learn” and what they want to learn.
I was asked by community residents to write about the historical significance of Bill Boyce, a black man, having been elected to the Kent City Council.
These days, in some school districts both teachers and administrators are being evaluated to some extent based on student performance on standardized tests, and their jobs may depend on how well their students perform. Back in the day, with less diversity, there would have been only a few problems using students’ scores on standardized tests as a significant part of a teachers’ evaluation. However, in some areas student populations have dramatically changed in a variety of ways.
I could be a great critic of school systems, especially in the light of all the battles we have fought during the past 20 years to dismantle the structures in the system that foster disproportionality and a number of disparities affecting impoverished students of all colors. However, educators are not the only ones responsible for educating students in a given community.
