Could it be possible that new facilities would produce a new attitude among both parents and faculty? I think it is possible and well worth the effort.
A lot has been written and said about what a new school building will do for the community, and it is probably true, but the value of the building must come from the classrooms where young minds respond to good teaching year after year. Just think of all the good things that can be put into the void left by not having the excuse "this old building won’t let me."
Yes, let’s build the buildings, and in doing so, we’ll increase the responsibility of the entire R-8 staff to deliver a solid educational foundation for each one of our children. My guess is they will welcome our challenge, because the building is part of their tools.
While I do not believe Combs actually meant to criticize R-8 teachers, his words can certainly be taken that way. I have never heard a faculty member use any excuse about not being able to do an adequate job because we have older facilities. In fact, the record proves that's not the case. The R-8 School District has been accredited with distinction for three consecutive years, and the middle schools have contributed to that with solid MAP test scores.
Will the district be able to offer better, safer facilities, and remove many of the problems caused by the aging buildings if this bond issue passes? Absolutely. But at the same time administrators and teachers have not spent the last few years waiting for R-8 voters to approve a building plan. The day-to-day job of providing a quality education continues and will continue, hopefully with new facilities...to help the children, not to provide incentive for the faculty.
New facilities will not change the fact that Joplin still has inadequate teachers compared with surrounding districts. It doesn't matter what the building looks like when you cannot staff it with quality teachers. You continue to talk about accredited with distinction.....that is simply because the scores a couple of years ago were so low that there was nowhere to go but up. You see, most of us know that you receive these "distinctions" based on improvement but the scores compared with other districts were not impressive.
ReplyDeleteAt one point that may have been true, but if you check the information on the DESE website, you will see Joplin's scores have been higher than many of these area schools with such glowing reputations for having high-quality faculties, and have been at the same level as the others. I don't know who your "most of us" refers to, but it sure sounds like people who are more interested in spreading fiction than checking the record and determining the facts.
ReplyDeleteAs usual you are the one who needs to check the facts. The Joplin scores have consistently been lower than all the surrounding schools for at least the last decade. The Joplin public school population continues to decrease with most new families continuing to settle in the Carl Junction and Webb City school districts. Go check your facts Turner. Joplin cannot match up with these schools. Only recently have Joplin's scores come up to the middle of the pack and they will decline once again because of the lack of overall support for the district. Also, you know as well as I that the only reason that Joplin has a title that says "accredited with distinction" is because DESE awards these titles based on improvement. The schools who sustain these scores over time have a more difficult time attaining this distinction. The bar is set lower for schools like Joplin.
ReplyDeleteIt is unbelievable that you can write the first comment you made to this post, a ridiculous rant about inadequate teachers in the school district, provide absolutely no facts to back up your comments, then accuse me of not being factual "as usual."
ReplyDeleteYes, Accredited with Distinction relies to an extent on test score improvement, and at one time, the Joplin R-8 School District was quite a bit lower on its scores than it is now, but if the scores and teachers were really as bad as you are saying (and they are not, by a long shot), we would have had the Joplin Globe all over us by now, since it has always been quick to point out any problems in the school district. I don't know what your problem with the school district is, but so far your comments have included absolutely nothing with any substance.
Once again Randy, you have been forced to agree with what I said about your school system. Nothing I have said has been untrue. If readers would like, this information is readily available on the DESE website. I don't feel that I need to list all of the scores from the last 5 - 7 years as they can be accessed there. More facts? I stated that the Joplin school district has lost student population. This FACT was listed in the Joplin Globe last year. You have lost student population while schools around you have not. Substance? There is substance in everything I have said. You may not want to hear it but simply denying that there is a problem isn't the approach the town needs to fix the problem. The numbers do not lie. Pointing out problems hardly qualifies as "ranting." Ranting is what you do on here every day when you make personal attacks on locals. You lose more and more credibility daily. Oops wait....never mind. That would mean that you would have had credibility in the first place.
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