This pisses me off so badly I can hardly type.  

This fucking state is doomed as more INVADERS keep swarming in.

Close and mine the fucking border NOW!.

www.signonsandiego.com/news/education/20050519-9999-1mi19vusd.html

GATE-closing plan stirs parental debate at Lincoln Middle School

By Adam Klawonn
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

May 19, 2005

VISTA – Parents of Latino students at Vista's most ethnically diverse school are incensed over a campaign by other parents to preserve an honors program there.

The policy debate is taking place at Lincoln Middle School, where the principal is proposing mixing some of the school's most gifted students with others of mixed academic abilities in an effort to pump up test scores.

The proposal to dismantle the Gifted and Talented Education, or GATE, program at the school is supported by the Latino parents, opposed by parents of the GATE students.

The matter returns to trustees of the Vista Unified School District for review Monday night.

"All students should be treated equally," Latino parents said in a letter to the board and district administrators. "We believe that the school should not create differences between students who know more and students who know less."

Given the reaction from Latino parents, Principal Larrie Hall yesterday said he doesn't "have the faintest idea" what will come of the meeting.

After news of the proposed changes to Lincoln's GATE program became public in late February, parents whose children are in the program protested on the school steps at lunchtime.

They held signs that read "Don't punish the bright ones." They said the change would be "dumbing down" their child's rigorous education.

One parent said mixing the brightest with other students wouldn't work because "you can't compare an orange and an apple and say you'll get the same juice."

In a written response, Latino parents said they "don't understand why the parents of the GATE students don't want to work together in public school.

"We want to reduce discrimination through uniting and working together." (In other words lets dumb down the smart kids so they don't show yours aren't so smart.)

GATE parents said preserving the program is about making sure their children stay challenged so they have a better chance at college.

It has nothing to do with ethnicity, said Crista McClure-Swan, a Vista real estate broker whose daughter is a GATE student at Lincoln.

She expressed disappointment that Latinos had raised the ethnic issue.

Robb Scheele, another GATE parent, agreed. "What we're saying is, 'Why get rid of a program that has worked so well?' "

GATE programs at Vista's three other middle schools have been eliminated.

The student body at Lincoln is 63 percent Hispanic or Latino. Of the school's 1,293 students, 437 are English-learners, and 99 percent of those speak Spanish.

That group has pulled down test scores, putting Lincoln on "program improvement" status under the federal No Child Left Behind Act. (so of course you want to dumb down the other kids that are making your spawn look bad)

The act allowed parents to transfer their children to another school within the same district by March 1.

But faced with a flurry of transfers, the district extended the deadline to May 24 so Hall could work with parents on his proposal to change the GATE program.

Meanwhile, nine parents have changed their mind about transferring their children. But much of Hall's proposal remains unchanged, and 192 Lincoln students are set to transfer to either Roosevelt or Madison middle schools next year.

The school board meets Monday at 7 p.m. at the Lincoln gymnasium, 151 Escondido Ave.

Quoted: "All students should be treated equally," Latino parents said in a letter to the board and district administrators. "We believe that the school should not create differences between students who know more and students who know less."

Spelling doesn't matter
Math doesn't matter
Everyone is equally smart

Glad we finally got that straight

That's why we HOMESCHOOL!


Anyone one else go to Reloading 101?

The United States is becoming like a World War II convoy.  Hundreds of ships sailing to Europe with goods and supplies to save the world.  Ships of all sizes, colors and conditions.  What was the common thread?   The convoy could not go any faster than the slowest, rustiest, worn out piece of crap in the group.  Compare that to our schools today:  no kid can be better than the stupidist, least motivated dumb shit raised by fucked up parents  in the school.  

Quoted: Quoted: The end result is that everything will move towards the least common denominator.  Moving the smart kids in with the mediocre will simply cause them to work less and achieve less.  Prepare for massive white flight from that school district in short order. Our old district sent a notice home with out GATE son at the end of last year that they were ending the program due to budgetary reasons.  Our house was on the market within the week and we bought the new house in the new district within the month.   White Flight

interesting article, not PC but telling it how it is.

Some states place those stickers on books discounting evolution....


sounds like this school should put stickers on books discounting intelligence.... just make sure it's in Spanish, so only those that need to read it's message would understand it.

here

Fucking Disgraceful
It is sad to watch our public schools go down the drain..

If any of you are in California... Get out Let the muta f#%$er BURN. It is a lost cause. It will have to be considered our Palestine.

I went through the French Catholic school system in Canada (yes, I'm still here).  One thing about the arrogant French is that they love to stratify people which is a great thing in education.  There were four levels in my high school: Fundamental, General, Advanced and Enriched.  You could pick whichever level you wanted but had to compete with the other students in that group.  I always took the highest level available (sometimes there weren't enough students for a particular Enriched class).  Universities obviously took notice as to what level you were taking in interpreting your score.  You weren't going very far with an A+ if all the classes were Fundamental.  NB: The French Catholic schools were still public schools.

Stratifying students in public schools according to their abilities is absolutely critical if we want to compete with the global market.  

Like Neal Boortz says "Parents who send their children to public schools should be convicted of child neglect/abuse" or something like that. Besides a "gifted" student in a public school is taking classes that would be considered average in a private school. The private high school my brother went to had most of their classes accredited at college level so he got a high school diploma and an AA degree at the same time. I went to public school and I feel like I wasted a lot of time there because didn't really do anything but sit around. Political correctness and equality like this in education are going to be the downfall of this country. Maybe the private school kids will save us.......

They can only influence your children if you let them do it.

But Immigration is good for this nation

MAN, That article PISSED me off to NO end. I keep moving my children further and further out in the Publik School system as their current schools keep being FLOODED with 3rd world and Inner city TRASH

  Sorry bud, you lost me at the part where most spoke spanish at the school, thought this was the USA, not Mexico. Anything past that point is just more PC BS by education apologists.

Two words: Private School.

Public school sucks, just as public transportation sucks.

Cant even respond with out my blood boiling.

Quoted:   Sorry bud, you lost me at the part where most spoke spanish at the school, thought this was the USA, not Mexico. Anything past that point is just more PC BS by education apologists.

I remember a local report I saw several years ago here in San Diego.  The first question that they ask prospective teachers is "What languages do you speak?" and that the students in the schools here speak 51 native languages, that is their first language is something other than English.

There are many places in the Southwest where English is hardly heard or seen.  I'm fucking sick and tired of it.  It's one of the few screwups that the Founding Fathers made, not designating a National Language.  I know that they had their reasons, but they could have never foreseen the day when so-called "diversity" would become more important than the idea of creating a common culture.

For all intents and purposes we have no borders and we are rapidly losing any semblance of a common language (and I flat out REFUSE to use any language than English in my own fucking country!).  How the hell are you supposed to maintain a sovereign nation under those conditions?

The civil rights movement continues.

3 words

Lowest Common Denominator

If I had the intelligence, the drive, the talent and the clout, I would have written my book on devolution some 10 years ago. In fact, I would have written the book on biological devolution first, then followed it with the social devolution to which it is inextrcably linked.




And yes, I do buy tinfoil in bulk.



ETA: I think that closing the border and ejecting all those who are illegally present or have illegally entered will not cure this sort of attitude. The idea that all men are created equal has been distorted to mean that all people, no matter what their abilities, accomplishments or failings, should be equal in all ways. I do think that the issue will largely be staked along racial lines, however, since it has been alleged more than once that the evaluation of students is racist and disadvantages minorities. Standardized tests have been under attack for this alleged discrimination for quite some time IIRC.

Obviously no parent wants their child to be stigmatized by being put in the remedial class, etc. but why restrain those who can excel? If an 8th grader can do trig, why on earth would you not offer that option, if feasible? Why handicap those that can excel by boring them with material they have already mastered? Why teach children at such a young age that there is no payoff for excelling?

Honors courses in gradeschool offer an enormous advantage that is evident throughout high school and the same classes in high school help many students get into colleges and also show their value throughout college.

I attended two different high schools. One was private and I was enrolled in honors classes. The other was public and did not offer honors classes. The most advanced senior science program at that public school was less advanced than the freshman honors courses. Shameful...college gen ed science was no better.

By the time I finished my sophomore year in high school, I had learned all the biology and chemistry I would ever learn at school. Don't even get me started on the geography and 'social studies' coursework at that public school. I always wondered if I would have made something of myself had I been permitted to finish high school at the private school.

I am not a terribly religious person and I despised the Catholic schools I attended as a child but man were those schools fantastic places to learn. Should I ever have children and am unable to home school, I'll force them to attend a private parochial school and hope that they thank me later. Although I thought most of my catechism was BS, it is invaluable as knowledge

The student body at Lincoln is 63 percent Hispanic or Latino. Of the school's 1,293 students, 437 are English-learners, and 99 percent of those speak Spanish.

Wonder what  percentage is illegal alien?  Since the teachers can't ask the kids of their parents, and the tax dollars have to be stretched to cover illegals.............

They will forever live in the ghetto, unable to compete with the rest of the US.

The "crabs in s bucket" analogy comes to mind. Then one crab tries to improve himself and climb out of the bucket, the others grab him and pull him back in...

Sad.

Quoted: I went through the French Catholic school system in Canada (yes, I'm still here).  One thing about the arrogant French is that they love to stratify people which is a great thing in education.  There were four levels in my high school: Fundamental, General, Advanced and Enriched.  You could pick whichever level you wanted but had to compete with the other students in that group.  I always took the highest level available (sometimes there weren't enough students for a particular Enriched class).  Universities obviously took notice as to what level you were taking in interpreting your score.  You weren't going very far with an A+ if all the classes were Fundamental.  NB: The French Catholic schools were still public schools. Stratifying students in public schools according to their abilities is absolutely critical if we want to compete with the global market.

I guess at least the French in Canada are not lecturing us on separation of church and state.  The French in France are the ones that stressed egalite and made it "always equal".

Maybe California will secede one day and Washington will just shrug its shoulders and build a fence, that wouldn't be so bad. I lived in Northern California for a bit, I liked it, I'll revise and say when Southern California secedes..........Plus if Cali were to leave the US that would mean no more Boxer or Feinstein or whatever, this is sounding better by the minute.

So what are the Latino parents pissed about? Is the GATE program restricted to only certain ethnic groups...?

Quoted: So what are the Latino parents pissed about? Is the GATE program restricted to only certain ethnic groups...?

Just some guesses:

1) Children in normal or slow classes are stigmatized and perhaps mocked by various people.
2) Advanced classes tend to be smaller and the children tend to get more individual attention and superior faculty.
3) They may believe (right or wrong) that the school system has given up on all but the easiest to teach and that those students are provided with better facilities, equipment, etc.
4) This is probably affecting Latinos in particular because of the limited English skills. Many of the parents probably believe that their children are smart but that the school is not doing enough to make sure that they are adequately educated because of the various complications invovled with non English speaking students in a country where most folks use English.
5) Lastly, this promotes the exaggerated notion of equality that, if carried to its logical conclusion attempts to reduce everything and everyone to the lowest common denominator, whether by giving one group a leg up or by handicapping another group.

Obviously, it will take more time (and money) to educate a non English speaking child in English than it would a native speaker unless you decide to teach them strictly in their native language which, IMO is a great disservice to someone who plans on living and functioning in a primarily English speaking country.

In any event, it is silly to 'remedy' the issue by taking away the ability of gifted students to take advantage of their superior abilities. Often when a bright person is not challenged, they get bored... sometimes they become withdrawn, antisocial or otherwise act out. Taking away advanced programs, in addition to diminishing the quality of education, has potential to waste or destroy young minds at a young age.

Quoted: Like Neal Boortz says "Parents who send their children to public schools should be convicted of child neglect/abuse" or something like that. Besides a "gifted" student in a public school is taking classes that would be considered average in a private school. The private high school my brother went to had most of their classes accredited at college level so he got a high school diploma and an AA degree at the same time. I went to public school and I feel like I wasted a lot of time there because didn't really do anything but sit around. Political correctness and equality like this in education are going to be the downfall of this country. Maybe the private school kids will save us.......

+1  

I believe that (public) HS was the biggest waste of my time!

WOW! I can't believe this shit!

I was in GATE in public schools after switching froma private school in sixth grade. There weren't many children in the GATE classes, but there were a lot in the "LD" or Learning Disabled classes. I won't make mention of any racial differences between the two different courses, but no-one complained. The kids in the LD classes liked it because they got candy and field trips and rewards and such for showing effort and us kids in GATE liked our classes because we didn't have to listen to the same crap year after year; were encouraged to think on our own and challenge each other.

Oddly enough I ended up dropping GATE in 10th grade becaus it was considereed such a "nerdy" thing and I wanted tyo be "cool" (ya, I know...stupid), but if anything, the dumb kids made fun of US more than we made fun of the "Learning Disabled".

Strange indeed, but than again; Everyone spoke English and the few children who popped up throughout the years who didn't speak our Language too well had to learn it, just like we were required to take 2 years of a foriegn language of our choice to graduate.

Anyone ever read Harrison Bergeron? -sp?

Quoted: Besides a "gifted" student in a public school is taking classes that would be considered average in a private school.

I went through a private school from pre-k to second grade (and got a good education), homeschooled on the same curriculum up to fifth grade, went to a private school for sixth and seventh grade and learned absolutely nothing except that mediocre kids can be quite cruel to those who excel (not to mention my evil liberal teacher who mocked me in class on a daily basis for no discernable reason), then home schooled until eleventh grade.

I took college courses in tenth and eleventh grade and got enough credit to skip my senior year of high school and most of my freshman year of college, essentially giving me an eight month summer vacation before heading off to college where I immediately went into the honors program.

Currently, my grades suck, but I think it's more because I'm lazy as a result of never having had to put effort into anything before in order to exceed expectations. I know I'm capable of much better, it's just difficult to get me back in the habit of working to do better than everyone else. This upcoming semester will be different, I guarantee it. I've already started studying material for my various classes and won't allow myself to goof off, especially on the internet, until I've totally finished reviewing the material we went over in class that day.

I've always been better than my peers, academically anyway. Morally superior to a lot of them too, but I won't get into that. I just allowed myself to get lazy because I'd never had to put any effort into being better than them. Now I'm having to work my ass off to prove that I'm of superior quality.

Frankly, I needed that lesson.

As for home schooling, I learned more doing that than I did anywhere else. Adding 4-H and the Texas B.E.S.T. Robotics Competition to the mix really gave me a well-balanced education. I fully intend to home school my children and put them in 4-H, should I have any.