Monday, September 29, 2008

Sci-tech school courts minorities

This new school should be a great success --- but --- they are making some serious mistakes.
Sci-tech school courts minorities A 'Dream. Discover. Design' curriculum will require each student to specialize in one of four fields and work with industry, academia or civic groups to solve science problems. A balanced enrollment likely will be viewed as one indicator of a successful school launch.
The curriculum is a much bigger problem than the lottery to get into the program.

Industries are not the one's pushing schools in Pittsburgh. If anyone noticed, most of the industry that was in Pittsburgh is now gone. People in industry that are here are a little too busy to worry about a middle school.

Pushing occurs in the schools with parents, teachers, unions, students themselves and academic weenies in the educational fields. Government makes a bit of a push too.

We'll be watching:
To that end, the district Wednesday will launch a school Web site at www.pghscitech.net and mail postcards to district families promoting the school and registration process. Information sessions will be held at 6 p.m. Oct. 8 at the Carnegie Library in Homewood, at noon Oct. 11 at Carnegie Science Center on the North Shore and at 6 p.m. Oct. 16 at district offices in Oakland.
When the Sci-Tech school web site is working, do try to give a little bit of web site attention to the schools that are already open. Some of the school web sites throughout the district are a bad joke.

Schenley's web site -- in a school that just opened too -- is way out of date. The IB program need students too.

There are boutique schools in Pittsburgh now. That is the trend.

Meanwhile, the other schools are still drop out factories.

Furthermore, the new schools are not proven to work wonders, with the exception of CAPA. But, CAPA is getting a major upheaval next year too as the high school will begin to accept students in grades 6, 7 and 8.
...the school will be rigorous. That's why graduates will get an honors diploma.
But the school will not be offering AP classes. An honor's diploma might not be worth the paper. Time will tell. It is unproven and without a hook to national standards that can easily transfer into college credit.

... Pittsburgh officials have planned a special advising process, other academic supports and flexible scheduling to help students pull through.
Advising and support are two of the many elements that coaches offer students and athletes. Sadly, Pgh officials are going to not have any scholastic coaches in this building. No sports.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

My experience (as a parent) with sports coaches in school is that they are only concerned about the star players. I never noticed any advising or encouragement of my son...he was just an average player. So lets not knock a lack of sports in these new schools...everyone is not a great athlete, nor wants to be.

Mark Rauterkus said...

We have some serious problems with the school sports in Pittsburgh. Sure, many of the coaches are not worried about the depth of the team. But, I have the opposite approach and opinion.

Coaches help many more than just the great athletes.

Furthermore, most of the boys in high schools are on a team -- nation wide.

In other nations, they are going more and more to sports participation. Here, the PPS is going away.

I am going to knock the lack of sports in the new schools at every turn. To have NO sports is to mean low academics. Participants in sports do better in school work. Participants in sports drop ou much less than those not in sports.

Huge body of evidence and research support the inclusion of sports in schools.

Anonymous said...

Bottom line is that sports cost money that the PPS does not have. We have to pour money in to teachers contracts so that we might be able to get EVERY child able to read and calculate.