Report Cards are in ..

How about letting the kids take their books home to do their homework??? Think THAT might help just a little bit?

Ms. Andrew:

"The first letter grade for standards met is Vet's favorite, the old number of indicators reached out of 24. Middletown reached 8 this year, up from 6 last year. Again, no one is saying we are content with 8 but that is still improvement."

8 OUT OF 24 IS NOT AN IMPROVEMENT IF YOU WERE AT 10 OF 24 AT ONE TIME. IT IS TWO INDICATORS SHORT OF THE HIGHEST TO DATE. IN ACTUALITY, THE DISTRICT HAD REGRESSED 4 INDICATORS FROM THE PREVIOUS HIGH AND THEN IMPROVED BY 2. IT WAS A RELAPSE. WITH ALL DUE RESPECT, GOING FROM 6 TO 8 AND CALLING IT AN IMPROVEMENT, WHEN THE NUMBER TO BEAT IS 10, IS MISLEADING INFORMATION. THIS DISTRICT HAS NEVER APPROACHED THE HALF WAY MARK IN INDICATORS MET. IT HAS TAKEN THIS LONG TO REACH TWO SHY OF THE HALFWAY MARK. HOW LONG WILL IT TAKE TO REACH ALL 24? OTHER POOR DISTRICTS HAVE FARED BETTER. IT WAS DECADES, BEFORE THE RAMPANT LOW INCOME/SECTION 8 ONSLAUGHT HAPPENED. THE DISTRICT DIDN'T FARE ANY BETTER BEFORE THE TOWN WAS INFECTED WITH ADDITIONAL LOW INCOME. AFTER DECADES OF NON-IMPROVEMENT COMPLACENCY, ISN'T IT TIME TO FIND A METHOD THAT WILL PRODUCE UPWARD IMPROVEMENT RATHER THAN TO KEEP USING THE SAME OLD REASONS FOR NOT PRODUCING RESULTS? CAN WE GET PAST THE "WE'RE A POOR COMMUNITY", "WE MUST DEAL WITH AN INFUSION OF LOW INCOME HOUSEHOLDS THAT DON'T VALUE EDUCATION" AND "WE'RE DEALING WITH A TOTALLY DIFFERENT DEMOGRAPHIC THAN MOST DISTRICTS ARE" COMMENTS AND ADJUST THE METHODS TO MEET THE CHALLENGES OF EDUCATING THE QUALITY OF KID WE ARE GIVEN TO MEET THESE GOALS? ADAPT TO WHAT YOU ARE GIVEN TO WORK WITH. MANY DO. HAMILTON IS DOING BETTER AND THEY ARE SIMILAR IN DEMOGRAPHICS, RIGHT? HOW ABOUT FRANKLIN'S DISTRICT IMPROVEMENT. SIMILAR DEMOGRAPHICS ALSO. WHAT ARE THEY DOING THAT MIDDLETOWN IS NOT?

I’m also disappointed with the scores of our elementary schools.
However I’m also disappointed as I stand in line at the library and see bags and bags of children’s movies being checked out and not one book for these young children to read.
How do we get these parents to UNPLUG the TV and TURN OFF the cell phones and curl up on the sofa with their child and read a book with them?

If you get the Performance index of the schools up to a B. Then I will support the new school. Because once people see a clear improvement in the school, then hopefully people that will begin to move back to Middletown, because school performance is a Major factor when deciding where to move. I hope the Students, Teachers and Parents will rise to this challenge and prove the State and the region that Middletown can be a good school system once again.

While the letter grades are a new thing, the underlying measures that these grades are based on (at least the ones put out this year) are the same measures that have been on state-generated district report card for years.  So, you can compare and see that Middletown has improved from last year. 

Disappointing
Obviously we have a lot of work to do, and I think that we have a good team to bring on improvement.
And they could use a lot of outside help from parents and role models. Let's hope that it happens!

Based on this chart, it appears that all the so-called "negative" claims made by me and other school critics have been substantiated. Yes, indeed, with data provided, we have information which may be indefensible. Clicking on the details, I like the explanations given for this new grading criteria for each category. A maze created by mega-wizards for the purpose of confusion. How does one sit and think up this nonsense anyway? Guess they have to make up a conglomeration of crap to mask the real performance of a given district. What ever happened to just one grading system, understood by everyone and very user friendly? Wasn't hard to see at a glance......A's and B's are good......C is average (but can't you do a little better), D's are not acceptable but yet not failing at the moment and F's are bad news. Kinda simple. Why all the other rating scales to confuse the issues? Appears to be too many college educated eggheads trying to put their scent on something......and failing miserably.

What say you chmoore1? There's the data.