Berkeley High School to cut science labs...

[Rogue 9]

...to eliminate the "racial achievement gap." Source.

Berkeley High May Cut Out Science Labs
The proposal would trade labs seen as benefiting white students for resources to help struggling students.
By Eric Klein

Berkeley High School is considering a controversial proposal to eliminate science labs and the five science teachers who teach them to free up more resources to help struggling students.

The proposal to put the science-lab cuts on the table was approved recently by Berkeley High's School Governance Council, a body of teachers, parents, and students who oversee a plan to change the structure of the high school to address Berkeley's dismal racial achievement gap, where white students are doing far better than the state average while black and Latino students are doing worse.

Paul Gibson, an alternate parent representative on the School Governance Council, said that information presented at council meetings suggests that the science labs were largely classes for white students. He said the decision to consider cutting the labs in order to redirect resources to underperforming students was virtually unanimous.

Science teachers were understandably horrified by the proposal. "The majority of the science department believes that this major policy decision affecting the entire student body, the faculty, and the community has been made without any notification, without a hearing," said Mardi Sicular-Mertens, the senior member of Berkeley High School's science department, at last week's school board meeting.

Sincular-Mertens, who has taught science at BHS for 24 years, said the possible cuts will impact her black students as well. She says there are twelve African-American males in her AP classes and that her four environmental science classes are 17.5 percent African American and 13.9 percent Latino. "As teachers, we are greatly saddened at the thought of losing the opportunity to help all of our students master the skills they need to find satisfaction and success in their education," she told the board.

The full plan to close the racial achievement gap by altering the structure of the high school is known as the High School Redesign. It will come before the Berkeley School Board as an information item at its January 13 meeting. Generally, such agenda items are passed without debate, but if the school board chooses to play a more direct role in the High School Redesign, it could bring the item back as an action item at a future meeting.

School district spokesman Mark Coplan directed inquiries about the redesign to Richard Ng, the principal's assistant at Berkeley High and member of the School Governance Council. Ng did not return repeated calls for comment.

What a gigantic, steaming load of absolute bullshit. Eliminating science courses for reasons of racial politics of all things is just unconscionable; how the fuck are these people allowed to be on a governance council for a school?

[CaptainChewbacca]

Oh good goddamn this makes me worried to become a science teacher. Science classes are 'too white'? How about you kick out swahili class and require an extra year of physics if you want your race to achieve parity with the rest of the workplace?

[Questor]

Oh good goddamn this makes me worried to become a science teacher. Science classes are 'too white'? How about you kick out swahili class and require an extra year of physics if you want your race to achieve parity with the rest of the workplace?

I wouldn't be too worried. This school is going to be pretty desperate to find anything they can do to avoid losing accreditation. If you check them out, they don't have enough participation in the standardized tests to report an API score, and haven't for a number of years. They are re-engineering the school to a "small-schools" concept.

The district is TINY. For an area with 100,000 people, the district has less than 9,000 students. Their funding is going to be incredibly tight right now. I cannot find any information about their basic aid status.

They seem to have a real problem over there.
Here is the most recent SARC I can find, SARCs are a federal requirement You will notice how many fields are incomplete.

They do have a serious achievement gap, though. Here is their 07 assessment data.

They need to figure SOMETHING OUT.

EDIT:

Well, here's something interesting. On page 8 of the SARC:

The BUSD superintendent makes about 1/3 more than the average superintendent, and all admins are above average, while all teaching categories are below average. In fact, they spend 5% less than average on teacher salaries.

[Serafina]

Ah, the good, old "let's achieve equality by naking everyone equally bad!"-method.

Too many whites in your science classes? Ask yourself why?
Perhaps there are other, easier ways avaiable to "racial" children, so they (naturally, the white kids would if they could) take it. Something like courses in languages they are speaking anyway (such as a spanish course for kids with mexican parents).
Perhaps you even require them to achieve less from the beginning.
Or perhaps it is just the income gap - a kid with parents with college edcation is more likely to take a science class.
Or perhaps they can not hope to go to a good college, because it is too fucking expensive.

Either way, it has nothing to do with race, and at best with secondary factors.

Easy solutions: Make the science classes (and other important ones) mandatory.

[Patrick Degan]

Awwwww..... Too bad for Berkeley HS that they've got to meet certain science education standards as part of the Federal No Child Left Behind law and that they're just going to have to teach science whether they want to or not.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Ah, the good, old "let's achieve equality by naking everyone equally bad!"-method.

Too many whites in your science classes? Ask yourself why?

Eh.. This being Berkeley, I think more like "too many Asians in your Science classes".

[Alyrium Denryle]

Wait... so... Because science is too "white" they are going to screw over the kids that like science in order to do what exactly? Maybe make the science classes mandatory would work better. After all, the science will reinforce other areas like reading comprehension, math, and critical thinking...

Oh wait, the people making the decisions probably dont know what science is.

[Master of Cards]

They're dropping optional AP science courses held before and after school to move the funding from the top students to the bottom students. They're not canceling 9th grade general science or anything that extreme.

[Simon_Jester]

What Berkeley HS seems to be afraid of is a situation where it's effectively got two separate curricula running in parallel: one for the designated-smart kids who actually take advanced classes and learn stuff, and one for designated-stupid kids who take basic, easy classes, get shitty grades even in those classes, and get so used to it that they don't learn anything and don't care. And when that happens, they really are falling down on the job, because they aren't supposed to be able to say things like "well, we taught a lot to the top 40% of our students, so it doesn't matter if the bottom 40% read, write, and cipher at a 7th grade level!" That sort of thing leads to pointed questions when someone looks at the gross inequality in test scores between the top and bottom groups.

But to fix that problem given a finite budget, sooner or later they'd have to take resources away from the top 40% and dedicate them to trying to kickstart the bottom 40% somehow. It sucks tremendously, but I'm not sure it deserves an automatic "this is evil stupid reverse-racist antimeritocracy in action!" response.

Realistically, of course, they're probably doing it sooner than they have to, and it looks like their execution is hamhanded (cutting all the science lab classes at once). But I'm wondering if there's a situation where this sort of thing would be justified, even if this isn't it.

[ArmorPierce]

I'm curious, given limited budgets, are you people for or against redistribution of taxes from schools that have top, well funded school districts to underperforming underfunded schools?

[Questor]

I'm curious, given limited budgets, are you people for or against redistribution of taxes from schools that have top, well funded school districts to underperforming underfunded schools?

It depends. How are you defining well funded. In places like California, you have more than one equation. LA Unified actually receives more funding that some of the "top, well funded school districts" so, for example, LA's per pupil expenditures are $10,590 and, say - Tustin Unified - spends $8,058. Do you really want me to bring out the API and NCLB data on those two districts? My district is funded little better than TUSD, but we are required to return "excess" money we get from being basic aid due to budget cuts at the state level to the state.

So yes, I am ALL FOR redistribution of money from "top, well funded" school districts to "underperforming, underfunded" schools.

(The above is sarcasm. Assuming that schools with the most money perform best is a simplistic assumption, at best.)

EDIT: So, in the feel of equalization, can you please write my district a check for $54,000,000? We're one of the top districts in the state.

[Simon_Jester]

Re: ArmorPierce

There's a bit of a difference between resource distribution across schools and within schools, I think. A well-run school that gets good results across the board deserves recognition, and shouldn't be punished by trying to cut its funding. The only time it would make sense to redistribute money from good schools to bad ones is if the bad schools can show that they are getting bad results because they are under-funded. Since there are a lot of other reasons they might be doing badly, that would be hard to prove.

But within a school, I think you have a different case. Any school that writes off the bottom half of its student body is doing a bad job, even if the top half does wonderfully. So if the inequality in performance between the top and bottom groups gets big enough to be a major anomaly*, shuffling money from the top to the bottom within the school can make sense. Since all the money is handled by the same people, that doesn't create as much risk of throwing good money after bad by giving incompetents a bigger budget to fail with next year.

*considering context, socioeconomic background, and so on...

[Questor]

Re: ArmorPierce

Good points RE: resource allocation

Continuing my thoughts from before, I ran a Similar Schools report of Ed-Data for Berkeley USD. I limited to Unified districts with an ADA of +/- 5% of BUSD's 8,954 and a Free/Reduced Lunch % of within 5% of BUSD's 40%. I got two results, Snowline Joint Unified District in San Bernardino County and Lincoln Unified in San Joaquin County. ADA is average daily attendance, and is the measure used to calculate funding in California, this is different than per pupil spending. From the looks of things, BUSD is a basic aid district, and that may be part of the issue that they are having this year. I have not looked for their financial statement this year. That's boring enough reading for my own district. A discussion of Revenue Limit and Basic Aid are also beyond the scope of this post.

Berkeley USD:
ADA: 8,954
Expenditure per ADA: $12,396
Revenue Limit per ADA: $5,961
% English Learners (ELL): 12.8%
% Free or Reduced Lunch (FRL): 40%
Largest Ethnic Group: White
API Base Scores: 759
Made Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) (For NCLB): No
Adjusted 1-Year Dropout Rate: 3.7%
Full Time Equivalents (Teachers): 507.5
% Fully Credentialed (Teachers): 96.5%
BA+60 Salary (Teachers): $62,636
Pupils/Teacher: 17.6

Lincoln USD:
ADA: 8,572
Expenditure per ADA: $7,924
Revenue Limit per ADA: $5,799
% English Learners (ELL): 16.5%
% Free or Reduced Lunch (FRL): 41%
Largest Ethnic Group: White
API Base Scores: 764
Made Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) (For NCLB): No
Adjusted 1-Year Dropout Rate: 3.1%
Full Time Equivalents (Teachers): 420.7
% Fully Credentialed (Teachers): 93.1%
BA+60 Salary (Teachers): $58,538
Pupils/Teacher: 20.4

Snowline Joint USD:
ADA: 9,158
Expenditure per ADA: $7,516
Revenue Limit per ADA: $5,733
% English Learners (ELL): 12.1%
% Free or Reduced Lunch (FRL): 37.1%
Largest Ethnic Group: White
API Base Scores: 780
Made Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) (For NCLB): No
Adjusted 1-Year Dropout Rate: 1.1%
Full Time Equivalents (Teachers): 390.5
% Fully Credentialed (Teachers): 90.5%
BA+60 Salary (Teachers): $73,553
Pupils/Teacher: 23.5

So, can we please drop the fiction that this is because poor Berkeley Unified is socio-economically disadvantaged and underfunded?

Fuck me, if my district were funded at the level of Berkeley Unified, we'd have 500-800 more teachers, a 18:1-15:1 student to teacher ratio (which would equate to class sizes around 18-20), a fully funded arts program, science labs you wouldn't believe, more tech support and equipment than the teachers know what to do with, and an API that puts those districts IN THE GROUND. Hell, our API is already over a 100 points better, granted we have a lot better demographics, but my point stands.

[Simon_Jester]

Ah, Jason... I'm not sure anyone here actually said that Berkeley Unified was underfunded or socio-economically disadvantaged. ArmorPierce asked a general hypothetical question that had nothing to do with Berkeley Unified in particular, except for the fact that what he's talking about is more or less the same thing Berkeley High is trying to do writ large. Pretty much everyone else just complained about how Berkeley High is dumbing down the curriculum.

I can understand your being chronically pissed off about this issue, of course.

But as far as I'm concerned, the problem has nothing to do with Berkeley not having enough money, and everything to do with resource allocation within their own budget. And, possibly (probably?) competence issues in how the school is run.

[Questor]

Ah, Jason... I'm not sure anyone here actually said that Berkeley Unified was underfunded or socio-economically disadvantaged. ArmorPierce asked a general hypothetical question that had nothing to do with Berkeley Unified in particular, except for the fact that what he's talking about is more or less the same thing Berkeley High is trying to do writ large. Pretty much everyone else just complained about how Berkeley High is dumbing down the curriculum.

I can understand your being chronically pissed off about this issue, of course.

I guess I did go off the deep end. The phrases he used are the ones that are used every time someone tries to take more money away from the school districts that are working and give it to LA - and districts like Berkeley - and I guess I knee-jerked. Anyone who opposes those types of measures gets labeled as a racist, by the way, which makes the victims even more sensitive. Throw in the fact that its a bad budget year for us and the state won't even let us have money we are legally entitled to in the name of "equity," and you have a recipe for a hot-button issue.

Also, I will freely admit that they are apparently a socio-economically disadvantaged area, my issue would be with the label of "underfunded".

But as far as I'm concerned, the problem has nothing to do with Berkeley not having enough money, and everything to do with resource allocation within their own budget. And, possibly (probably?) competence issues in how the school is run.

I don't know that it's competence, I suspect the problem lies more in an EXCESS of liberal ideas. As much as the liberal in me hates to admit it, there's not a whole lot that changing the structure of a high school can do to fix the issues that Berkeley seems to be having. They need to make massive cultural changes in the school, and the only way to do that is with the staff. Students aren't there long enough. The school is due for WASC very shortly, and I would be very interested in reading their self-study report.

For example, adding the IB program to what I am going to assume was an already existing AP program, may not have been the best idea, and I suspect that this is where the whole thing came out of. The International High School may not have been the best idea, but at the time, funding wasn't an issue.

[Simon_Jester]

An excess of ideology that damages the school's ability to perform is a competence issue. Cultural changes may or may not be. If the problem is that the teachers don't try to get the bottom half of the students to succeed because they're resigned to watching them fail, that's a competence issue, for instance.

[Alyrium Denryle]

They're dropping optional AP science courses held before and after school to move the funding from the top students to the bottom students. They're not canceling 9th grade general science or anything that extreme.

In other words, fuck over the students who are worth something, reducing the ability of smart kids regardless of wealth to be competitive for higher education in order to slap a bandaid on the miserable incompetence of others.

[Simon_Jester]

So, Alyrium, in your opinion, what would the proper response for Berkeley High be? Should they just write off the bottom part of their student body, accepting their abysmal performance as evidence that they were worthless to begin with?

If not, what, if anything, should they do to try to bring the performance of the lower end more into line with the median and the high end?

[Master of Cards]

They're dropping optional AP science courses held before and after school to move the funding from the top students to the bottom students. They're not canceling 9th grade general science or anything that extreme.

In other words, fuck over the students who are worth something, reducing the ability of smart kids regardless of wealth to be competitive for higher education in order to slap a bandaid on the miserable incompetence of others.

Alyrium I'm a smart kid who whizzed through school and science classes. I'm going to school to be an engineer. Why am I telling you this?

Because I was in special education for English and Speech Therapy for most of my life. You by cutting spending from my classes I never would have been able to use my good math skills because I would have failed out of a basic English class from lack of writing ability. The bottom end isn't just the people who can't do anything but also smart people who can't for whatever reeason do it well.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Because I was in special education for English and Speech Therapy for most of my life. You by cutting spending from my classes I never would have been able to use my good math skills because I would have failed out of a basic English class from lack of writing ability. The bottom end isn't just the people who can't do anything but also smart people who can't for whatever reeason do it well.

And when did I say a damn thing about special education? I am assuming non-special ed kids. Just those that dont work. Learning disabilities are another matter entirely.

I teach undergraduate students. I am the one who has to try to eek something useful out of the shitty students who somehow manage to get into university but dont have a prayer at graduating. Someone with a learning disability tries, they can be worked with. A racial divide in science achievement is not a matter of funding, or teacher skill. It is a subcultural problem (Read: urban and suburban ghetto/bling culture that denigrates education). They dont want to learn, so they dont.

So, Alyrium, in your opinion, what would the proper response for Berkeley High be? Should they just write off the bottom part of their student body, accepting their abysmal performance as evidence that they were worthless to begin with?

If not, what, if anything, should they do to try to bring the performance of the lower end more into line with the median and the high end?

It requires a systemic change in the school system. You dont fix an achievement gap by placing a ceiling on the smart kids, by defunding their classes so they are forced to never perform better than slightly above average.

Holding back kids who fail on merit instead of only failing the bottom 20% would help.

[Master of Cards]

And when did I say a damn thing about special education? I am assuming non-special ed kids. Just those that dont work. Learning disabilities are another matter entirely.

I teach undergraduate students. I am the one who has to try to eek something useful out of the shitty students who somehow manage to get into university but dont have a prayer at graduating. Someone with a learning disability tries, they can be worked with. A racial divide in science achievement is not a matter of funding. It is a subcultural problem (Read: urban and suburban ghetto/bling culture that denigrates education).

My district merged the special education and the "dumb" classes. I thought all districts did that way?

[Questor]

And when did I say a damn thing about special education? I am assuming non-special ed kids. Just those that dont work. Learning disabilities are another matter entirely.

I teach undergraduate students. I am the one who has to try to eek something useful out of the shitty students who somehow manage to get into university but dont have a prayer at graduating. Someone with a learning disability tries, they can be worked with. A racial divide in science achievement is not a matter of funding. It is a subcultural problem (Read: urban and suburban ghetto/bling culture that denigrates education).

My district merged the special education and the "dumb" classes. I thought all districts did that way?

Mainstreaming is common, but usually there are also separate special-ed classes.

That aside, I have to say that looking at Berkeley High's Program of Studies, I think I can see the problem. Look at all the departments. If they are defunding science while keeping all of those social science electives, I am flabbergasted.

Also, I will note that the science they have seems to be done right. Calculus-based physics in high school is rare because you run into scheduling issues. Most schools consider converting to be a very risky step.

[Simon_Jester]

I see what you mean about their humanities array: they have so many specialized classes in those areas that I could imagine it drawing manpower away from making sure there's a decent student:teacher ratio in the basics.

Also, I agree that it's hard to get a significant percentage of your students up to having mastered basic calculus by the end of the eleventh grade, and since calculus-based physics isn't even necessary except for the small minority of students who plan to become physicists or engineers, you get only a small fraction of a small fraction of your student body ready to take calculus-based physics by their senior year.

My high school made it work, but my high school had roughly 3000 students and was one of the county's top magnet schools in science and technology. They had enough people that they could fill at least one section of advanced physics every year, possibly more (can't remember).

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Well, if that's the case, then the problem is deeper. It looks like their a mafia of humanities/social science teachers who might be trying to retain their funding and keeping things that way at the expense of other fields. It won't be the first time this sort of thing has happened.

[Alyrium Denryle]

And when did I say a damn thing about special education? I am assuming non-special ed kids. Just those that dont work. Learning disabilities are another matter entirely.

I teach undergraduate students. I am the one who has to try to eek something useful out of the shitty students who somehow manage to get into university but dont have a prayer at graduating. Someone with a learning disability tries, they can be worked with. A racial divide in science achievement is not a matter of funding. It is a subcultural problem (Read: urban and suburban ghetto/bling culture that denigrates education).

My district merged the special education and the "dumb" classes. I thought all districts did that way?

They get mainstreamed, but still have special classes and extra support.

As for what systemic changes are required, the biggest one would be to have different schools for people of different abilities talents and interests. Magnet schools need to be made more common, or just go to a german style tiered system so that each school can use its funding to cater to a certain type of student. Rather than trying to fund advanced math and science courses alongside the remedial stuff, schools should specialize.