Here’s to you, Ms. Jewell-Sherman
Richmond’s school superintendent, Deborah Jewell-Sherman is stepping down from her post at the end of this contract year. Will this make things better? Worse? More of the same? Aaaaaaaand go!
Richmond’s school superintendent, Deborah Jewell-Sherman is stepping down from her post at the end of this contract year.
Will this make things better? Worse? More of the same?
Aaaaaaaand go!
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Valerie Catrow
Valerie Catrow is editor of RVAFamily, mother to a mop-topped first grader, and always really excited to go to bed.
Notice: Comments that are not conducive to an interesting and thoughtful conversation may be removed at the editor’s discretion.
Hmph. LET’S HIRE FROM WITHIN! MORE OF THE SAME!
I think Doug Wilder should do it.
OR someone like Happy the Artist.
Whether Jewell-Sherman stays or goes isn’t important, I don’t think. School superintendents are transient figures. The system itself is broken.
I have friends of mine who say they’d not send their child to any public school, no matter where it was in the U.S. There reasoning is complicated: that students are being trained to be unthinking good little consumers; that they are taught to take tests; that school boards use the education system to indoctrinate not educate, and you can go on.
Some have chosen to home school–but in these cases they are one or two kids. How it’s done I’m not sure; but the young people I know of getting that style of schooling are bright, confident and mature beyond their age.
This secession from the public system doesn’t bode well, though. It has all but killed the lives of U.S. cities. The suburbs are going to start, and some are, feeling the tug as people choose to move further and further out. Whether rising gas prices will ever affect these decisions is, well, doubtful.
A chasm has opened between the burbs and the cities big enough to lose a country in.
Public schools are now rigged to fail, as the required tax base needed to maintain them has left because they are so poorly run, and poorly run because there’s less money.
Then again, I’ve had African Americans taught in segregated schools were students had to share books, and make do without much, that they feel they got a fine education because they were hungry and motivated to change things. And discipline philosophy was different, too.
But as one parent explained to me–and this is years ago, “You saw ‘Saving Private Ryan’ right? You know what happened to the first guys onto the beach, right? Imagine that’s your child.”
It could’ve been different in Richmond and the region. Maybe. We’ll never know, though. In January 1972, federal district Judge Robert Merhige ordered the consolidation of Richmond, Chesterfield and Henrico schools. The decision, undertaken to integrate the schools, was met with howls and protest marches.
In May 1973 the U.S. Supreme Court reversed Merhige’s decision by a narrow vote that wasn’t helped due to the recusing of Justice Lewis F. Powell Jr., who’d served as a Richmond School Board member for many years.
Whether today we’d have a series of schools that were all operating at sub-par levels, or a concentration of them, is hard to say. If we’d not ripped up our public transit system in 1949, there’d have been less reason to bus kids, and schools could’ve been built according to public transportation availability.
Powell was influential in other ways, too:
http://www.mediatransparency.org/story.php?storyID=21
Zero tolerance policy and over emphasis on the low standards of learning and bullying principals and all spineless and/or corrupt individuals need to slither right out the RPS door with Jewell-Sherman in order for all schools to improve.
Also we need to bring an end to the ridiculous silent lunches. Kids are having a hard time digesting food while a cafeteria monitor barks, “Shut Up!” Imagine only twenty minutes of free play and socialization, that is recess, during a child’s entire day of school.
School officials tell you homeschooling is bad because there is no socialization. Funny!
Everyone should revisit Pink Floyd’s “Another Brick in the Wall.”
Who says thing are not improving in Richmond Schools? Over Jewell-Sherman’s tenure the system went from only two SOL accredited schools to all but two schools accredited under the SOLs. By no means would I say that RPS is perfect or that Jewell-Sherman brought about the improved test scores by herself, but in many ways the schools are getting better. There is a lot of work left to do, but RPS bears a undue amount of criticism and bile (particularly from our lovely mayor) and hardly any credit for anything good that they do.
As for Harry’s comments on public education, this is the result of putting politicians in charge of education and not teachers.
Kyle, I thought only two middle schools were accredited in Richmond. Also notice how families aren’t scrambling to get their kids into all of those fully accredited schools. Mary Munford has seen the largest number of out-of-zone applications they have ever seen. I have found that actual experience in the schools is far more telling than what you read on paper, i.e. SOL scores.
Gray,
I keep reading over and over in your posts about your concerns. And as they are valid posts, instead of writing about it, why not volunteer to do something about it? Volunteer to monitor the lunch room, see if you can get some parents together. Be the change you want to see. Talk, although its a start, it will not change anything, which is why I am teaching. Take action.
Teacher,
I have volunteered all the years my kids have been in RPS and I’ve given money when I’m unable to give time.
Taking notes on what I witness and hear and getting the word out is part of the job of exposing injustices and bad policies. Writing is volunteering.
Almost weekly, I have lunch in the cafeteria and sometimes stay through several lunches.
Think about this –RPS spends over $13,000 per pupil and you’re telling me to monitor the lunch room.
To anyone interested, check out http://www.saverps.com .
Harry,
I experienced busing in the 70s. I still remember thinking that it made no sense that we (my siblings & I) could not continue to go to a school 3 blocks away but had to be bused across town. I was 8 at the time & yet I knew that there was something wrong with it.
Poorer schools need more federal funding. The allocation of funds needs to be done in a manner that gives all schools equal opportunities for their children. You cannot let children fall behind by not offering programs, ie: AR, Sunshine Math, etc. that other publc schools are able to offer because they live in a richer neighborhood and have a “more active” PTA. To me this means that the parents are wealthy enough to have at least one parent home & the finance to donate to the school through fundraising activities. Most parents in schools in poorer sections do not have the same time or finances available to them.
I was born & raised in Richmond & when we started our family my husband insisted we move to the suburbs. I am very happy with our Henrico County school & am glad I do not have to fight for justice within RPS the way my friends & family do. As a matter of fact, I dont have to do anything. Effective programs, from accelerated to special needs, were already in place before we came to our school- with the same programs across the board in Henrico. Perhaps RPS should study what our $8000/ child offers opposed to the $13000/ child RPS spends.
I think both the way the funds are distributed within the school & from school to school should be reviewed for a more efficient & fair system.
This is our children’s education. There should forever be an ongoing debate as to how we can improve it.
Kyle- I have to ask, do you know Jewel-Sherman on a personal level? Because though she might be a nice woman personally, cronyism & corruption occured on her watch. She is an unfit administrator & you should want the best for the children in our community.
I am glad to hear that you are doing something. Too many parents in this system talk about what needs to be done but too few do anything about it.
Yes they are spending $13,000 per pupil, but yes I say monitor the lunch room…its a place to start. But it looks like you are already in the lunch room. That money has nothing to do with my comment of monitoring the lunch room.
I am in the classroom everyday I see where the money is being spent or where it isn’t being spent is a better to way to phrase it. I NEVER see parents in our lunch room, unless its a birthday. It saddens me that no matter how much I reach out and try to involve my families, a handful will come in but most don’t. And I am talking at this point beyond the lunch room.
Thank you for helpping
Thank you Teacher.
I would love to see more neighbors whether or not they are using the district school to become involved or give money. Now there are many children of single parent families in our school and they are hard at work, in many cases, for low wages. We need outside help and grant writers. A great neighborhood school makes a great neighborhood.
I would also love to see a teacher’s wish list. It can be anything from supplies, copiers, software, teacher’s assistants, Accelerated Reader, less testing, to smaller classes. Besides parental involvement (we know in some poor schools this won’t happen to the degree schools need it), what would teachers like to see happen or given to the classrooms? What are your top three wishes?