The Fix is in
STUDENTS SCREENED TO SHOW FALSE SUCCESS FOR LINDAMOOD-BELL
Students at elementary school were selected on the basis of the California Standards Test and personal interviews with students to be helped one on one or in small groups by the Lindamood-Bell Trainers. The only problem is that the students have been carefully screened so that the results of the “training” will be optimized.
Only "low/average" students were interviewed by the Lindamood-Bell selection team. The very low students were not deemed promising enough to make even the first selection cut. During the interview process, all behavior problem, ADHD children and the like were eliminated from the Lindamood-Bell "help" groups. The final selection consisted only of students in the higher end of "low average" who had the most potential to show growth.
The results next year are predictable. Lindamood-bell students will show “remarkable” growth. The NCTimes, Guffanti and Gibson will crow about how wonderful Lindamood-Bell has been. It was worth every penny they will crow. But the community will ask what about the students who need the most help? Why are they left out and forgotten?
CAREFUL SELECTION APPROPRIATE FOR SPORTS TEAM NOT FOR LINDAMOOD-BELL
Careful selection and evaluation of our children by a high school coach for an "after school" sports team might be appropriate towards the goal of a winning season, but it is not appropriate for selecting children to be helped by a VERY expensive reading program.
SORRY GUFFANTI, ITS NOT LAZY TEACHERS, WE CANNOT SCREEN OUR STUDENTS
Guffanti claims teachers are lazy and do not want to work hard as the reasons for some low scores on tests, but I bet classroom scores would soar if we could chose which children we thought would do the best on tests and only teach and test them!
JIM GIBSON, VUSD PRESIDENT, CALLS FOR FIRING 10% OF TEACHERS EACH YEAR
The scary part of all of this is that Jim Gibson (VUSD board president and Guffanti buddy) in an editorial in the NCTimes (summer 1997) said he likes the ideas of Jack Welch—firing 10% of the staff each year. Gibson said he wants to use the Jack Welch management style in VUSD.
If we are not allowed to select only the children that make our teaching look the best, then it is not fair to let the Lindamood-Bell folks do that kind of selecting. Yet Guffanti and Gibson want to penalize teachers who do not show student improvement comparable to what Lindamood Bell achieves.
DOES JIM GIBSON LIKE JACK WELCH'S MODEL OF FIRING 'OLD' WIVES
I wonder if Jim Gibson thinks Jack Welch’s firing of his old wives is equally as good an idea. Old Jack is on at least his third wife. Each time one of his wives gets towards forty he “fires” her and “hires” a new twenty something wife. Great guy that Jack Welch, a real role model. One might think that someone like Gibson who uses a claim to be Christian as a method to get elected would pick a different kind of person than Jack Welch as his shining example of good management.
Do you want Guffanti/Gibson and their supporters with their intolerant and anti-teacher views to have a majority on our board?
ELECTIONS MATTER
What happens in twenty two days could determine whether or not you are going to be able to finish your career in Vista, whether or not you will be treated as valued professional, whether or not you will continue to have job security enough to know that you can feed and shelter your family and yourself.
We cannot allow the Teacher Haters and Anti-Public Education folks to control our district. Call VTA right now (760) 758-2690 or email at vistata@aol.com.
Volunteer now or you could be very sorry later under the rule of Teacher-Haters.
We must stop "Them" for the sake of our students. All children should have the chance to learn not just the ones that make the Lindamood-Bell program look the best.
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2 comments:
I am a teacher in North Carolina. I Teach ESL. I was concerned that none of my students were chosen to participate in the LMB pilot summer program.
I am also concerned that there are no studies that show "Seeing Stars" or "Verbalize and Visualize" are effective. I welcome any information you have.
mvwaters@earthlink.net
I am a teacher in California and I currently teach middle school English. I used to work for Lindamood Bell for multiple years. Many different projects, elementary schools, juvenile detention camps, etc. I cannot express enough how effective Seeing Stars and Visualizing and Verbalizing are to students of all ages and learning disabilities, if implemented effectively. There is plenty of research available on the Lindamood Bell website, which was conducted by independent organizations. Over the years, I saw the confidence of many children soar because of the improvements they made with their reading skills and language processing.
One of the problems the programs may not be effective is due to the lack of training school teachers receive in the programs. I have witnessed this firsthand. Some districts try to implement them in their schools, but the teachers receive minimal training or none at all. Lindamood Bell offers workshops, however that training is just the tip of the iceberg. Anyone wanting to master the delivery of these programs should work at a Lindamood Bell center and go through the training and continuous mentoring.
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