As we continue to look at the City School District of New Rochelle Full Day Kaleidoscope, we were interested in learning its racial/ethnic composition. In “For Children Attending South End Schools, the Full Time Kaleidoscope “Windows” Still Remain Shut”, we previously reported that 50 of the 65 students invited to the District Full Day Kaleidoscope Program were from the North End Schools. Only 15 students who attend South End Schools were invited to apply. Since we reported this same disproportionate pattern of unequal representation of North End/South End in 2008, and since the City School District has done absolutely nothing to address it, we decided further examine the issue. If the numbers were not what they are, there would be no reason to shine a big bright light on the issue. We believe that the Kaleidoscope program exemplifies how students are typically tracked in the South End schools of New Rochelle.
In order to somewhat analyze this issue of racial/ethic representation in the Full Day Kaleidoscope; we were able to obtain the Daniel Webster Magnet School Yearbook for 2009-2010. In a totally unempirical manner, we guessed what each child’s background might be. We simply did this by looking at their picture and their surname. We guessed the following:
4th grade Full Day Kaleidoscope 2010 at Webster Elementary School
Possibly Black = 0
Possibly Hispanic = 4
Possibly Pacific Islander = 1
Possibly White = 23
Other = 2
It is clear that this demographic distribution is not representative of New Rochelle’s population.
In addition to the elements of race, ethnicity and socio-economic status, the issue of lack of equal access to educational opportunities for children attending South End Schools is further determined by the geographic location of the school and the quality of instruction within each building. Kaleidoscope is just an example of a pattern that perpetuates itself through the middle school, as seen, for example, in the number of students who take advanced coursework in Science and Math. This pattern is amplified up at the high school and reflected in the poor graduation rates, lack of representation in Advanced Placement Courses, admissions to four-year colleges, etc.
The measures/instruments (also called “windows”) used by the City School District of New Rochelle to determine eligibility to the Full Day Kaleidoscope are:
2. Raw Score on NYS 3 English Language Arts (ELA) Assessment
3. Raw Score on NYS 3 Mathematics Assessment
4. A perfect rubric rating on two writing samples (one written in May and another selected from the student’s portfolio)
5. Highest score in the Ranzulli Hartman Creativity Scale
Oddly enough, the order number of the instrument seems to have somewhat of a relationship with its level of objectivity. The 5th item seems to be the most subjective of all. In order to qualify for the Full Day Kaleidoscope Program in New Rochelle, a student’s undeveloped raw potential is not as important as the quality of prior instruction a student has received. Either way, regardless of your ethnic or socio-economic background, if you are a parent whose child attends a South End School, it is very easy to develop a sense of feeling cheated and trapped in a mediocre educational track. Some will argue that this is not true. Nevertheless, the New Rochelle High School graduation rates tell a different story. This issue would be easily put to rest if the Board of Education of the City School District of New Rochelle would simply release the graduation rates disaggregated by middle school of origin. Of course that will not happen in our lifetime without State or Federal intervention. As many of us feel, the State and the Federal Government are asleep behind the wheel, while the liars, cheats and thieves continue to profiteer and make a mockery of our public institutions. We, as well as others, will continue to press the issue as we approach the long overdue and proverbial “tipping point.”
There are very few kids, if
There are very few kids, if any, who meet all 5 criteria and I don’t think enrollment in the program is designed to mirror New Rochelle’s population demographics. In fact, there aren’t enough kids qualifing with 3 or more criteria to fill the program and so they fill the remaining slots with a lottery of the students meeting 2 of the criteria. For the students who don’t get into full day kaleidoscope, each elementary school has a 1/2 day (not sure if thats the correct name) kaleidoscope program.
It’s designed to bring together the best and brightest (regardless of ethnic or socio-economic background) together in the classroom and the mix is what the mix is.
And here’s another interesting fact about the full day kaleidoscope program, more than 1/3 of 4th and 5th girls played softball and 1/6 of the league players are in full day kaleidoscope program. So if want to increase your kid’s (daughters anyway) chances of getting into the program, dust off the old glove and start playing softball with your daughter.
Baloney
“It’s designed to bring together the best and brightest (regardless of ethnic or socio-economic background) together in the classroom and the mix is what the mix is.”
The program, like other elite programs in New Rochelle, is designed to keep largely white, affluent North End kids in the public school system. You can offer all the theories you want but the facts is what the facts is — if you add up all the kids right now in the PAVE program, Kaleidoscope Program and the AP/Honors track at New Rochelle High School you will find the breakdown is roughly 85% white, North End kids who go through or have attended Albert Leonard Middle School. Likewise, the Board of Ed itself which has 8 of 9 members from the “North End/ALMS”.
These elite programs and things like the Mandarin program and the Museum of Arts and Culture at NRHS are all part of a long-term effort to maintain real estate values in the North End.
You can “talk” all you want but the data supports only one conclusion — that North Enders run the district for the benefit of North Enders.
Unfortunately for those who have created his imbalance, the chickens have come home to roost. By warehousing students in low-performing educational ghettos, kids are not learning. The result? Ever declining graduation rates.
Next week the District will put on a dog and pony show to feign interest in addressing the appalling low graduation rates that were announced in March. The Board of Education actually prohibited parents from standing up to speak about the issue at the school board meetings after the news came out that New Rochelle had falled to having the third lowest graduation rates in Westchester County. The Board announced that all discussion of graduation rates would be banned until the May board meeting when Richard Organisciak was to announce his plans for addressing the issue. That never happened and the presentation was pushed back to July when few would be watching. Meanwhile, Organisciak went around the community giving speeches and telling residents that the 5 and 6 year graduation rates were much better than the 4 year graduation rates — as if that somehow makes it OK.
A top school official has made recorded, public statements that it is not reasonable to expect black and latino students to perform as well as white students. With that sort of attitude, is it any wonder that things have been getting worse.
Say what you will be when only half of latino students graduate on time and just 55% of black students that is clear evidence that next weeks event is just for show.
Academics are lacking in south end schools
There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that if the academic programs in the south end schools were more rigorous, more south end children would make it into the Kaleidescope program.
There is a mentality that these kids can’t do it, that they can’t make it, and maybe that they are not worth the effort. This is good enough. How can you say that about a six, seven, eight year old child?
Isn’t this the land of opportunity? Aren’t we spending top dollar for our school district? These kids spend a lot of time in school. Day after day, week after week. What are they learning?
More and more I like the charter school model. Look how well these inner city kids are doing in their schools. These kids have had less than our kids, much less, and are thriving and succeeding.
BTW – we play lots of organized sports down here, too. It is not about sports. It is about school.
Kaleidescope – 2nd section
If 65 kids meet the 5 windows, why not have two sections of full day Kaleidescope? Otherwise, you have the 35 remaining qualified students go back to their neighborhood schools and make for much smaller modified Kal. classes and a lesser program.
This adds the burden of larger class sizes on the rest of the student body in the neighborhood schools, because of the loss of classroom space and teachers.
If these kids qualify for full day, why not accommodate?
To address the blog writers point, of course all schools should prepare their students to compete for the very best the district has to offer. Raise the bar on our elementary students and the middle school and high school grades will reflect that.
Kaleidoscope
I apologize if I was not clear enough. At this time, we do not know how many children in the district met all 5 windows. What we do know is that in order to be even considered for the full day Kaleidoscope a child must meet a minimum of 2 windows. If demand is greater than available slots these students end up in a lottery.
Preference is given to students who meet 3 windows or more. This means that if a student met 3 or more windows, he or she is automatically accepted in the Full Day Kaleidoscope, unless the parent declines. For the 2010-2011 program, 24 students met 3 or more windows, leaving six spots open for the lottery. The day of the lottery on June 24th, 32 children applied to the lottery to fill remaining six slots for the Full Day Kaleidoscope.
What is interesting is that 4 of the 5 students from Trinity only met the minimum of 2 windows. None met 3 windows or more. We do not have information on the 5th student at this time. In addition, these four children are from the same class (which were all females, 3 are White and 1 Hispanic. None were African-American). The fact that meeting only 2 windows required these children to be part of the lottery, further decreased their chances to fill secure a seat. The end result is that none of the four children that we have knowledge of made the lottery. The eligibility process for the Full Day Kaleidoscope effectively excluded practically all students who attend two of the three South End Schools; Jefferson and Trinity.
We have no information on how the 10 Columbus children fared.
Kaleidoscope means inequity
For many years the K program and other prime language programs have attempted to select the very best and brightest, but it somehow ends up choosing the very best and brightest from schools other than the South End Schools. An then there is reverse negative action by our schools. Take for example the CILA Spanish program. For years, it forced the very best students (not only spanish speaking) from Columbus to attend the CILA program at Ward because there weren’t enough native speakers at Ward. This of course meant a brain drain from Columbus to the benefit of Ward. The same with Italian language now. We have terrific native-language speaking students at IYMS who are high performing, but are forced to take Latin or something other than Spanish. Why? The loss of high performing Native-Speaking students means you have a poor Spanish language program at the HS where we have so much student diversity that we should be at the top in literature, language honors etc, . What has Juan Mendez done at the HS to improve this situation over the last few years? Nothing except roam the halls . No creativity; no vision. Nada!