Although the ASD has a black superintendent and a school board of color with one exception, they hired a minority company to analyze and conclude that the district is not committed enough to equality and social justice.
To us laymen it appears that they are consumed with such issues, and the only real question is their commitment to education. While the study wasted $90K, it did once again point out the preoccupation of this school administration with racial identity.
We have to prepare the students for life and employment in an increasingly competitive world. That should be the district's obsession.
ASD and allentown as a whole is consumed with the same mental illness that infects everyone's daily life.
ReplyDeleteThe problem starts with the cancer at the top in both the municipal government as well as school district.
Delete“Equality and social justice”?
ReplyDeleteI think it’s time to stop being polite and call it what it is - it’s pure racism by a racist school board.
Like racists throughout the ages, they’ve found something (in this case a catch phrase) that makes them feel justified for being racists, but they’re no better than the racists that came before them.
It’s ironic that they’re on the school board, since apparently they could use a history lesson.
I do not see their behavior as racist, but a preoccupation with race, at the expense of their appropriate mission of education.
DeleteYou are too kind. The entire DEI/social justice industry is built around achieving pre-determined racial outcomes instead of using merit as the basis for decisions. It is a socialist-based program that is funded through shakedown schemes against private businesses and governmental units, where only the stated goals (which are not even meant to be achieved) matter and never the actual results.
DeletePromise Neighborhoods is a prime example of the scheme in action. They have managed to procure ever-increasing funding from city taxpayers without being burdened by measurable benchmarks. To accomplish this, they have inserted themselves between the police and community they supposedly serve. This has actually had the effect of making their community second-class citizens, since the rich white liberals in the west end avoid middle-men and call the police directly.
I wish the ASD school board were as obsessed with test scores of all students - regardless of color - as it is with implementing their racist agendas.
The city of Allentown does not fund Promise Neighborhoods one cent
DeleteI suppose academic achievement takes a back seat to discrimination by race
ReplyDeleteYou're confusing race with human physical characteristics. There is only one race, the human race. The differences among humans are characteristics of the multiple varieties of humans. Today, a racist is one who thinks, speaks or acts based on the various human characteristics. Dangerous, but actually another misnomer.
ReplyDeleteI suspect if most unban school districts conducted such a study, the conclusion would be similar. It doesn't offer much, nor as others have commented, focus on what is needed to advance academic outcomes.
ReplyDeleteWhy isn't the school district committed to education ?
ReplyDeleteIt doesn’t have be! Regardless of results, no matter how dismal they might be, big government will always bail out public education. Public education is more than willing to promote whatever garbage government needs to support the vision of the present federal administration.
DeleteSigned, a fully relieved to be retired ASD teacher!
Perusing the reporting on this I found myself depressed about the direction, priorities, and state of our public schools. While the ASD leadership can be faulted for many things, the bigger problem here is the outside audit done to insure our compliance with DEI strictures. Is anyone alarmed these audits are being performed on school districts? We should be. These audits point out two problems. The government's intrution into our district to impose a radical ideology on school districts and the displacement of academic excellence to a secondary concern. Nowhere in this audit are academic outcomes even a mentioned. Clearly there is far more pressure on the district to address the trendy goals of DEI rather than academics. It appears teachers, staff, and administrators are forced to make this form of social engineering a priority over the nuts and bolts of classroom learning. All this begs the question, how does this pressure to commit and focus on DEI, help students improve academicly? Clearly that's not a concern. In the meantime outcomes continue to decline. Who believes any of this is good?
ReplyDeleteIt is my understanding that the district commissioned the audit....which is why I find it all the more disturbing. The district apparently wanted to be patted on the back for their DEI efforts.
DeleteIf you are correct then it's the ASD itself that failed to do it's homework. If an entity asks to be tested/audited, it should do everything possible to insure it will pass before hand. Their failure only demonstrates once again the incompetence of the ASD leadership. Even more troubling is the time and effort they have put into this was time and effort that could have been used to improve academic performance.
DeleteI just hope that the lone white person on the ASD board doesn’t get an award named after a black person. Imagine the horror if something like that happened!
ReplyDeleteIn 1979 when the Department of Education was launched by Carter, the US ranked in the top five in public education systems. After 45 years, we now rank 24th. If you're able to perform basic math, you understand that's a significant decline. Emphasis on this DEI nonsense versus the three Rs is the reason.
ReplyDeletePerhaps the formation of a federal Department of Education is actually the root cause of the educational decline we now witness. Just another bloated bureaucracy that now does more harm than good.
ReplyDeleteHow many of you actually know, as part of his 2024 Campaign, one of Trump’s stated goals is to break-up the Department of Education and send the management of our children’s education BACK TO EACH STATE!
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