Poorly Funded Public Schools

Like many urban areas throughout the United States the Bay Area has many low preforming schools. These schools share many of the same problems as schools in Savage inequalities for example parents who’s children attend San Jose Unified school districts are faced with class sizes jumping up again unless they decide to pay six times more for tuition (Noguchi 1).

                  Teachers (bad or good) will be the focus of my next paper and according to Stephanie Martin from KQED news; bay area schools have a big problem with teachers placed in classes they have no experience in teaching. Around 100 a year just in the bay area. In Savage Inequalities there are many schools where teachers are not very motivated to teach. At first I though maybe they don’t care about the students or they’ve been teaching for so long that they don’t want to put any effort in to the lives of their students. But now I think that the problem with schools, especially low preforming schools, they’re placing teachers in any class they need to fill regardless of what experience they have in that subject.

While researching this topic I did find some information on solutions that have been created to help low preforming schools out and one of them was the Quality Education Investment Act. In 2006 the state of California implemented a law called the Quality Education Investment Act. The QEIA was created for schools that are in more poverty struck areas. Its goals were to reduce class down to 20-25 students, higher more qualified teachers and counselors and it created a district wide quality index of teachers (CTA).   According to a report done by the CTA it has paid off by reducing class sizes, increasing training for teachers and helped improve parent involvement with their children’s school. This doesn’t help out all of the low preforming schools in California but it is making difference in the lucky schools it can help.

Topic from Savage Inequalities

Through out my reading of Savage Inequalities I have notice the lack of motivational teachers. In one of the schools in Chicago, before taking a nap, one of the teachers tells the students, “ You can talk. Just keep it down” (Kozol 64). I don’t understand how a teacher with an attitude toward teaching like this was hired. To me it seems like the school is just putting a random person in the class and labeling them as a teacher. In my opinion this has a negative affect on the students because most kids at a young age don’t understand that staying in school will help them tremendously throughout life and with teachers with this type of enthusiasm kids feel like they aren’t respected and they don’t want to go to school.

Reeling in Reserch

I’ve been in many types of classrooms where teachers have used many different types of teaching methods to try and engage the student in the class. The way that I found  and many other fellow classmates learned best was when the teaching became more involved and pushed for students to interact with each other by having discussions and debates. This is why I chose to relate The Power of Cooperation section from Passion Project to the idea that student interaction in the classroom is essential. After reading the article Where Student, Teacher, and Content Meet: Student Engagement in the Secondary School Classroom, I was able to have a better understanding of how student interaction doesn’t only affect students, but also teachers. “When a classroom is filled with students who are paying attention…the teacher is much more likely to enjoy being there and to feel more invested” (Bundick et al.,2013, para. 5). This quote made me realize that teachers probably don’t like to be stuck in quiet boring classrooms either and they probably enjoy their job more when they see students interacting and learning from each other. Through my further reading of the article I observed the three different ways students engage in the classroom. “The emerging consensus among scholars in the field is that engagement comprises three distinct but interrelated "modes": engaged in thought, engaged in feeling, and engaged in action” (qtd. in Bundick et al.,2013, para. 6). I thought of a way to break down the process of these three ways of engaging in a group activity. First would be the group thinking of a topic individually. Second would be the group discussing their topics with each other and to see how they feel. Third would be to take action and announce to the class their topic and why they chose it.

Works Cited

Bundick, Matthew. J, Corso, Michael. J, Quaglia, Russel. J, Haywood, Dawn E. “Where Student, Teacher, and Content Meet: Student Engagement in the Secondary School Classroom.” American Secondary Education Vol. 41. Issue 3:(2013)

First Blog Post

·      Once I figure out how to fully customize my blog it will probably reflect the things I enjoy for instance football, music, and the outdoors.

·      Being happy with my decisions and succeeding in life are most important to me besides family of course.

·      I’m in school at Chabot because, I am going to become a firefighter and this is the process I need to take to achieve that goal.

·      I would like to improve my writing and comprehension skills.

·      I was taught to value respect the most, which should help me work with other students well.