I have to admit, I don't read the New York Times. But as word spread that Sanders-Clyde was on the front page of yesterday's paper, I had to pick up a copy. Personally, I think the writer's depiction of our "city of race and class divisions as old as the time-mellowed neighborhoods in this Old South shrine" was right on target.
What shocked me was our very own Dr. Rose so blatantly admitting something was amiss with the test scores at Sanders-Clyde. When did she realize this? Did she notify Dr. Goodloe from the beginning? When Dr. Goodloe stated she wanted Mishawna to duplicate her "success" at Fraser, did she mean what I now think she meant?
CCSD knew something was going on. So did the State Department. It's not rocket science. Whether Dr. Rose was upfront from the beginning...we may never know. Yet she certainly "saved face" with the New York Times, didn't she?
At least there's a few school board members and parents who don't mind speaking the truth, no matter how hard CCSD tries to hide it.
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Reading the comments on the NY Time website pertaining to this article I was shocked to see that people could not consider that this was happening.
But then I guess I would have thought that way a few years ago to.
I know that these kids can learn. They are smart. I also don't doubt that Miss. Moore had good intentions. But the reality is that she cheated those kids out of a true evaluation of their education levels, gave all of them a false sense of accomplishment that was national recognized and did more damage to them in the long run.
When will Charleston change? How long do people think that we can continue the fake persona?
What I don't understand is how the people who gained the most (county board members and officials like the superintendent) by shifting Sanders-Clyde from the failing to the successful column aren't being looked at as closely as the former principal. They would have to have been a willing party to any deceiption even if they chose to look the other way. The most damning aspect of their actions (even it was by their inaction) over the last 4 years is that it confirms their lack of belief that these kids could perform on their own if the ground work was put in place in the first place by CCSD. The sad truth is CCSD officially didn't believe these kids could do it any other way except by someone cheating "for them". The kids didn't cheat. The community around the school didn't cheat. Only CCSD and those who where just trying to make themselves look good cheated everyone else. I agree Ms. Moore's intentions might have been good, but if she took a short cut to success it did nothing for these kids in the long run.
CCSD had written this school off before Ms. Moore arrived. It was to be closed. Questions in 2004 were about not if, but when, would the school property be sold. Now CCSD is scheduled to open a new Sanders-Clyde in $20 million facility in January 2010.
Is anyone asking why CCSD didn't make an investment in the academic programs years ago. Even now the academic enrichment programs have been scaled back at the school. Once again a foreign language program was started and then taken away after just 2 years.
Tara Lowery essentially says here that if these kids were given the same opportunities in the classroom and on the schoolyard as Buist Academy students receive from the age of 4-5 years, they would have earned higher test scores on their own. Other public schools in other cities with similar demographics have excelled well beyond the official predictions when real and sustained resources are applied to meet the special social support needs of these children. No one needed or should have been allowed to cheat these downtown kids out of what they had a right to receive on their own and the satisfaction they would have knowing that.
Once given access to a quality education no one could steal from them the knowledge and confidence to acheive that each of these children would have possessed for life. A truly caring and nurturing environment should hold that goal as sacred and central to the whole effort. Without a firm educational foundation laid within each of these children they and their families have received nothing from CCSD or anyone else who would otherwise attempt to exploit them. That's what appears to have happened over the last couple of years.
CCSD so far has given them nothing. A new school is nice but it can be taken away from them at anytime. If Buist Academy is any example to the community, as the superintendent's pending school closure plan is too, a school building can be easily closed and placed out of reach of those who need access most. In other words, a quality education is for life and its something that can't be stolen later.
What will you do.... what will the DISTRICT do when SLED reports they can find no hard evidence of wrong doing? I suspect that there are other factors that haven't even been considered.
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