"In order to shut up the clowns" at the Alabama State Department of mis-Education just change the name of failing shools

Push to drop Johnson High name still on, despite opposition from some in northwest Huntsville

  Huntsville Superintendent Casey Wardynski, center, and school board president Laurie McCaulley, right, listen Monday afternoon as Huntsville resident Carlos Mathews talks about the choosing of possible names for a new northwest Huntsville high school to replace Johnson High. Behind Mathews are pictures of astronauts Ronald McNair and Mae Carol Jemison, whose names may grace the new high school and a new junior high to be built on the same campus. (Crystal Bonvillian/cbonvillian@al.com)       

Chapman Middle to be removed from Huntsville's list of "failing schools" under the Alabama Accountability Act blares the headline. At first read it sounds wonderful, then you go inside the story to learn Chapman Middle school will soon be taken off Alabama's list of "failing schools" because the school no longer exists.

Malissa Valdes-Hubert, a spokeswoman for the Alabama State Department of Education, confirmed Friday morning that Chapman Middle will no longer be considered a "failing" school under the Accountability Act.
"Huntsville requested to close the Chapman Middle School and reconfigure a Chapman P-6 school to be a P-8 school," Valdes-Hubert said. "The students that attended the Chapman Middle School are now part of the Chapman P-8 school."
Valdes-Hubert said the process of making that change includes approval from a school's local board and a request to the state Department of Education. Both have been obtained in Chapman's case, she said.

According to the article, the school district began the process of turning Chapman elementary and middle schools into a P-8 campus in the fall of 2012.   I'm still trying to figure out when the local Board of Education presented, approved then requested State Department approval, but like other issues of importance it was probably done in secret, I mean executive session, without input from the public, you know those pesky people who pay taxes which fund the schools.  Snark

Let's recap ( some of the links inserted for emphasis are mine):

A total of 78 schools across the state were deemed to be failing under the law, which was ruled unconstitutional late last month by a Montgomery County circuit court judge. That ruling is under appeal.
On an updated list released in January, Huntsville had the most failing schools of any district in the state. It will not stay that way for long, however, since the Huntsville district is also closing Davis Hills and Ed White middle schools.
Those schools are being combined into one at the new McNair Middle School now under construction on Pulaski Pike. McNair will be located on a combined campus with the new Jemison High School, which is being built to replace Johnson High.
The new Jemison could potentially knock Johnson High off of the failing list, as well.

Once again the school district is using smoke and mirrors as a means to an end (pun intended). They aren't solving the problem, they are just slapping the good names of black astronauts on the outside of a $65 million dollar school located less than half a mile from an active rock quarry and calling it fixed. 

Mission Accomplished.

And you wonder why the Huntsville City School Board of Education not only objects to citizens' comments but the Federal Judge digging into the desegregation data as well.

U.S. District Judge Madeline Hughes Haikala said she would review databases stored on the education web sites belonging to Huntsville, Alabama and the United States.
Within those three government sites, she could find relevant data on just about anything she wanted to know about Huntsville schools, from how many white students were paddled to how many teachers have advanced degrees to how many second-graders qualify for subsidized lunch.
"The websites listed in the Court's Order contain an expansive amount of information much of which falls outside the scope of scientific facts, matters of geography, or matters of political history," reads the objection from Huntsville, which is signed by board attorney J.R. Brooks.

Translation, don't believe the data stored on the education web sites, believe the data we gave you, nod, nod, wink, wink.

Changing the name is a gimmick to get off the list, a trained, certified, educator would know the performance of the students who will remain at the school is the reason the school is on the list in the first place.  Changing the name does nothing to solve the problem, but who cares as long as the school is off the list.  Snark

And why is Chapman P-8 in partnership with Athens State  University instead of the local state institutions of higher learning,  Alabama A&M University and/or The University of Alabama in Huntsville?    Why is Chapman, as well as other HCS's getting to keep their names, but Johnson, Ed White, and Davis Hills are not?  Never mind.  We know why.  It's life's unfairness.  RedEye Roll 

Rarely is the question asked, "Is the children learning?"

Hump Day Hypocrisy Diary

 

Breaking News!  Recent Polls suggest calling someone a republican is insulting.  I wonder why?

The independent political polling company NSON Opinion Strategy [1] recently published the results of a case study in which 250,000 randomly selected American voters were asked a series of questions. The details of how and where the study was conducted have yet to be released but the results are clear: 87% of Americans consider the word “Republican” to be synonymous with greed, racism, and violence.

Bradley Manning exposed war crimes, torture, abuse, soldier laughing as they killed civilians...leaks not responsible for any deaths and is sentenced to 35 years in prison.  George Zimmerman  profiles, stalks and shoots There is more than a whiff of injustice.and kills an unarmed teenager  is walking around free.  And they want us to sing God Bless America?  There is more than a whiff of injustice.

Taxpayers who thought they had guaranteed rights that don't exist in black and white.  So, African American taxpayers  thought they could transfer their children out of predominantly black, underfunded, failing schools, to school non failing public schools, or private schools under the Alabama non Accountability Act, and white taxpayers thought they could take their gun anywhere, anytime,  including schools and athletic events under Alabama's  new gun laws.

  NOT.

In one area, the law says gun owners with a concealed carry permit are allowed to carry weapons to athletic events, regardless of whether they're hosted professionally or by a school. However, the law also gives property owners the right to ban firearms in places where there are strong security measures, such as guards.
The discrepancy has left many asking which part of the law supersedes the other -- are gun owners allowed to carry at athletic events that have additional security measures, like to a football game in Jordan-Hare or Bryant-Denny, or not?
The matter may have to be decided in court.

Since the Alabama courts are controlled by republicans look for the hypocrisy, I mean confusion, to continue.

Long Sigh

Huntsville Sitty Schools Ignore the Feds to Ignore the Feds Redux

According to Huntsville City Schools Superintendent Casey Wardynski the Feds instructed Huntsville City Schools to ignore the Alabama Accountability Act in favor of the Desegregation Order, which they are also ignoring. 

Despite Alabama law allowing all students to flee “failing” schools, Huntsville will not allow hundreds of requested transfers.
“Under the Alabama Accountability Act,” said Superintendent Casey Wardynski, “we don’t have to do any.”
In fact, district officials say Huntsville will grant just eight Accountability Act transfers this year, or one fewer than the number of “failing” schools in the city.

 Initially, Wardynski said Huntsville City Schools were expecting a couple of handfuls of transfers under the Alabama Accountability Act, but  the system rreceived 502 transfer requests under the Alabama Accountability Act and granted just eight.

Questions:  If "we don't have to do any transfers under the Alabama Accountability Act", why were  eight Accountability Act transfers granted this year?  Are you going to ignore the AAA, or not?

Let's recap:  The red, republican controlled, Alabama State Legislature, with all their infinite sleaziness, passed the so called Alabama Accountability Act under the guise it helped parents flee so called failing schools.  School Board President, Laurie McCaulley said, and I quote:

“We have a lot of parents who bought into the Alabama Accountability Act, and thought they had guaranteed rights that don’t exist,”

 Now why would parents/tax payers think they had rights that don't exist?  It's not like the state legislature passed a bill that became law or something.

Here's the rub, Huntsville still operates under a desegregation order that HCS has been ignoring for over 43 years. That order, based on constitutional claims, requires transfers based on student race.

“We’ve had to be very careful with respect to AAA transfers,” said school board attorney J.R. Brooks. “We can’t take any action which is resegregative.”

 There is only one problem with the school board attorney's statement...the HCS system is re segregated  and African American students aren't being allowed  to transfer on basis of race either.

Wardynski today estimated the system has granted about 200 majority-to-minority transfers for the coming school year, although figures aren’t final yet

 Two hundred granted, over a thousand denied.

In past years, Huntsville typically received 1,000 to 1,500 transfer requests under the desegregation order and other guidelines. The vast majority of requests came from black students in north Huntsville. The system usually granted around 500 transfers a year and rejected the rest.
Wardynski said this year some schools, such as Huntsville High, began the year over capacity and did not accept a single transfer. He said a longer list of south Huntsville schools, including Grissom High and Mountain Gap and Whitesburg, were able to take a small number.
For example, he said Grissom High had space for 10 children. The system allowed nine transfers based on the desegregation order and had space left for one based on the new state law.

Frustrated parents, who believe they have rights the school system has determined they don't have, are being told  if they haven't received written notification of a transfer request by the time school starts to take their students to their home school.

The court order does not say a student may transfer from a school where they are in the majority to a school where they are in the minority if there is space available, HCS added the if space is available.  That's how they ignore the court order and maintain a "resegregative" (sic) school system.

A dual school system is re-emerging in Huntsville, marked by race, separated by geography and sorted by income.

For the first time, blacks account for 43 percent of the students in Huntsville. That's an increase of four percentage points in five years. But what sounds like a high-water mark for integration is just the opposite.

Despite rising numbers, black students here increasingly attend school among themselves. In 1997, Huntsville had five schools where more than 90 percent of the students were black. There are 10 such schools now.

The racial divide is similar among teachers, principals, even janitors and lunch ladies.

 Attack Machine commentator  George has the solution to the problem;

 Why not consolidate the schools. HSV saw peak enrollment in about 1983 at 35k. Current enrolled is about 24k, and we about many more schools now.
It would be an order of magnitude cheaper than building another $50million high school.

 JOJ (J.O. Johnson High School) is at about 50% capacity, so there is no need for a new GHS (Grissom High School).  Buses are cheap and plentiful. Include BHS (Butler High School) and eliminate one school entirely and sell the property (and the other empty buildings) to get rid of the maintenance and utilities cost.
This could have included LHS (Lee High School) too, but that was really a urban renewal project and not a school issue.

This is a great idea, but of course it won't be done because then Huntsville City Schools would be integrated, and all students, regardless of race, gender, income, or zip code, would have equal access to a quality public school education, and parents wouldn't be forced to keep their students in schools they want to get them out of.  According to this commenter at AL.com Wardinsky is doing the job he was hired to do. Keep the public schools segregated and go around the tenure laws.

Casey you have to break the mold and prove you're not afraid of minorities, democrats, liberals, aclu types and the entire entitlement crowd! Do that, and you'll be doing the job you were hired to do! Oh yeah, not to mention striking down all racial transfers. And that includes allowing not allowing whites to racially transfer either. If you don't like where your child goes to school, move to where they can be zoned into a school of your preference, that's what I had to do!

 There is no right (pun intended) way, to do the wrong thing, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again hoping for a different result.

What George said;

 The question is, do you want busing, or to be under a federal court desegregation order in perpetuity? Or is there some other way to integrate HSV practically all white and all black schools?

There is another way, which I will discuss in another post.