Posted by Anna, a resident of the South of Midtown neighborhood, on Nov 17, 2006 at 1:15 pm

Exactly. What still amazes me is the lack of on-the-ground teaching and site administrative staff input on MI, or any other special program. What we have is individual groups starting initiatives, and essentially politicizing education. It's a shame, and it's one of the larger reasons that educational inefficiencies in the classroom occur.

MI is a great idea; so is SI, and so are many of PAUSD's other special programs. That said, PAUSD actually loses the benefit of not making these programs MORE productive and satisfactory to the ENTIRE community, because they often come out of the oven half-baked, and not thougght through in terms of how they actually work at the sites. It's a shame, really, because teachers - who have so much insight to offer on how this stuff works, and doesn't work - are the last ones listened to.

Posted by Pauline, a member of the Juana Briones School community, on Nov 18, 2006 at 3:32 pm

Well, I wasn't going to bring it up, being one of the ones this particularly smug speaker was addressing, but thanks to Andrea, whoever you are. Appreciate the support.

All I could do was laugh at the shameless attempt to frame us as inppropriate, especially given the coverage the PA Weekly has NOT given the opposition, as well as all the advantages the opposition has NOT had within the PAUSD system as stated by Andrea.

Well, my turn to be shameless. Please see page 31 of Wednesday, November 15th, PA Weekly for the Ad we had to pay for in order to get the word out about some of the opposition points. Please mail it in to the Board to let them know how you believe. Also, for more details, go to www.paee.us .

Granted, most of the Board has made it clear they don't vote by poll, and rightfully so given the nature of "polls" in general and these kind in particular. ON the other hand I believe I know the Board members well enough by now to believe that even the strongest proponent on the Board is open minded and willing to reexamine how s/he is thinking about this issue if faced with enough requests to examine concepts that s/he may not have considered when initially favoring going down this path.

But they need to hear from you, asking them to re-examine the whole issue of placing more alternative lottery programs in our District. Ask them if they want to vote for a "lottery" program, which means to limit access of qualified students to a program, and an "alternative" program, which means to deny many kids their choice of a neighborhood school.

I am hoping this opposition will lead us back to approaching the whole concept of foreign language acquisition in a way that matches our community better; one which matches not only the priorities of this intelligent and educated community but the values of this community to provide equal educational opportunities to all qualified students. In other words, the "all for one and one for all" attitude we have been moving toward as exemplified by the increasing commitment to PiE.

Maybe we in opposition have read our town incorrectly, and a lack of input to our Board will reveal that these are not our values, but at this point only you all can determine that.

Thanks for putting up with me...again.