Uh, no. It's called a mentor program. A teacher or another adult, already being paid a salary, would be assigned several at-risk students. Many of whom are at-risk because of lack of good parenting. Or would you rather we just say "too bad you picked bad parents but we'll be happy to pay for your welfare babies/jail cell later on!"
Allow me to give some background. I teach in the Houston School District.
First, schools in Texas are all rated by the state on several key factors including test scores and drop out rates. These ratings are very very important and are actually a factor in principal's salaries and bonuses.
So, it was no real surprise this year to discover that many high schools with sterling ratings were actually lying about their drop out rates. Instead of coding kids as droping out, they were coding them as going to a private school or moving to another district. The reporters tracked down several of the students, well, ex-students, and proved that the school administration was lying. So, instead of 0% dropouts at one high school it was actually 15% ( I think, it was a high number).
This greatly embarassed the school district. Now it must show that not only will it crack down on bad data, it will improve the drop out rate in the high schools. This is what they came up with.
Actually, if used correctly, it can be a positive tool. At the high school level, a teacher might teach 6 periods of 20 students each, that's over 120 students. And we definately can tell the factors of what kids are likely to drop out. Hispanic immigrants, children labeled emotinally disturbed (they have a drop out rate of 50%) children with one or both parents in jail, children whose families move a lot.
You can look on the database and see what risk factors the students in your class have. At the elmentary level, you have to have a written plan in place for some of those children. It's a way to hold teachers and adminstrators accountable.
Of course, it can still be used in a heavy handed and stupid manner, but so can every other tool. And it's not like teachers don't already have access to the child's permanent record folder, which has this information in it.
Autism is used to describe a spectrum of disorder, from children with low intelligence (the majority of people with autism are also retarded) to high functioning people. Personally i think autism is simply a term we are using to lump several different conditions, which seemingly have the same symptoms, togather.
By this I mean that autism is really several different disorders being confused as one and those different disorders probably have different causes.
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Uh, no. It's called a mentor program. A teacher or another adult, already being paid a salary, would be assigned several at-risk students. Many of whom are at-risk because of lack of good parenting. Or would you rather we just say "too bad you picked bad parents but we'll be happy to pay for your welfare babies/jail cell later on!"
Allow me to give some background. I teach in the Houston School District. First, schools in Texas are all rated by the state on several key factors including test scores and drop out rates. These ratings are very very important and are actually a factor in principal's salaries and bonuses. So, it was no real surprise this year to discover that many high schools with sterling ratings were actually lying about their drop out rates. Instead of coding kids as droping out, they were coding them as going to a private school or moving to another district. The reporters tracked down several of the students, well, ex-students, and proved that the school administration was lying. So, instead of 0% dropouts at one high school it was actually 15% ( I think, it was a high number). This greatly embarassed the school district. Now it must show that not only will it crack down on bad data, it will improve the drop out rate in the high schools. This is what they came up with. Actually, if used correctly, it can be a positive tool. At the high school level, a teacher might teach 6 periods of 20 students each, that's over 120 students. And we definately can tell the factors of what kids are likely to drop out. Hispanic immigrants, children labeled emotinally disturbed (they have a drop out rate of 50%) children with one or both parents in jail, children whose families move a lot. You can look on the database and see what risk factors the students in your class have. At the elmentary level, you have to have a written plan in place for some of those children. It's a way to hold teachers and adminstrators accountable. Of course, it can still be used in a heavy handed and stupid manner, but so can every other tool. And it's not like teachers don't already have access to the child's permanent record folder, which has this information in it.
Autism is used to describe a spectrum of disorder, from children with low intelligence (the majority of people with autism are also retarded) to high functioning people. Personally i think autism is simply a term we are using to lump several different conditions, which seemingly have the same symptoms, togather. By this I mean that autism is really several different disorders being confused as one and those different disorders probably have different causes.
who read sci-fi are interested in exploring space? What about my mother who reads romance novels and is firmly in favor of space exploration?