kepdawg
03-26-2008, 12:53 PM
Football: The elephant in the master schedule
11:34 AM Wed, Mar 26, 2008 | Permalink
Kent Fischer E-mail News tips
I was over at a DISD high school yesterday that's under the gun to get off the AYP list of failing schools. I've been visiting the school this year to report a story about how you restructure a big urban high school.
While I was there, I happened to sit in on a meeting where staff was trying to plan out next year's "master schedule" of classes. And when I left the school about 90 minutes later, I couldn't help but wonder:
Why does Dallas hand over any portion of its academic day to coaches?
At this school, the schedules of many incoming freshman will be dominated by "double block" classes that are, in essence, remedial. (Although the principal preferred the term "accelerated.") This particular school expects, based on past history and student test scores, that about one quarter of its freshman will be reading on an elementary school level. (I will refrain, for now, on commenting on why a high school is expected to succeed with kids who cannot read their 9th grade biology textbooks. That's a topic for another post.)
Many of these same kids will also be double blocked into a pre-Algebra class.
Those double blocked classes created a scheduling problem because they each eat up, essentially, two class periods. That doesn't leave students any free periods to take an elective course. At one point in the meeting, the staff was trying to figure out how to shoehorn a foreign language class into the sked for sophomores. There just wasn't room.
But there was -- at least to this outsider.
Sitting in the middle of the schedule, at every grade, was a block of time labeled "Athletics."
Full disclosure: I am not a native Texan. I have, however, written deeply about public education in three other states, prior to coming to Dallas five years ago. I have never before encountered a system that puts sports practice smack dab in the middle of the academic day. In my 15 years of writing about public schools elsewhere, sports have always come after the school day. Hence the term "extracurricular."
Maybe it's time to rethink this practice of giving coaches time that could (should?) be used to teach, say, math?
At one point yesterday, the master sked contained a block of time labeled "Athletics/Foreign Language." Which meant kids had a choice: They could take an extra Spanish class, or they could hit the weight room with their teammates. The teachers in the room chuckled, knowing full well which the kids would choose.
So as I'm sitting there watching the master schedule unfold, this is what I'm thinking: "Get rid of the athletics block. Get rid of the athletics block. See that athletics block in the middle of the day? Get rid of it."
As the meeting wound down, I asked: Why don't you get rid of the athletic block?
Because, was the reply, this is Texas. You don't mess with football.
Here I was at a school to talk about restructuring. About how Dallas ISD's high schools are supposed to be ratcheting up their standards. About how these schools have to get all kids ready for some sort of college. About how these schools are labeled "failures" and "drop out factories" when they don't.
And yet here was untouchable athletics, floating in the middle of the soup like a big ol' Matzos ball that nobody wants to bite.
LINK (http://dallasisdblog.dallasnews.com/archives/2008/03/football-the-elephant-in-the-m.html)
11:34 AM Wed, Mar 26, 2008 | Permalink
Kent Fischer E-mail News tips
I was over at a DISD high school yesterday that's under the gun to get off the AYP list of failing schools. I've been visiting the school this year to report a story about how you restructure a big urban high school.
While I was there, I happened to sit in on a meeting where staff was trying to plan out next year's "master schedule" of classes. And when I left the school about 90 minutes later, I couldn't help but wonder:
Why does Dallas hand over any portion of its academic day to coaches?
At this school, the schedules of many incoming freshman will be dominated by "double block" classes that are, in essence, remedial. (Although the principal preferred the term "accelerated.") This particular school expects, based on past history and student test scores, that about one quarter of its freshman will be reading on an elementary school level. (I will refrain, for now, on commenting on why a high school is expected to succeed with kids who cannot read their 9th grade biology textbooks. That's a topic for another post.)
Many of these same kids will also be double blocked into a pre-Algebra class.
Those double blocked classes created a scheduling problem because they each eat up, essentially, two class periods. That doesn't leave students any free periods to take an elective course. At one point in the meeting, the staff was trying to figure out how to shoehorn a foreign language class into the sked for sophomores. There just wasn't room.
But there was -- at least to this outsider.
Sitting in the middle of the schedule, at every grade, was a block of time labeled "Athletics."
Full disclosure: I am not a native Texan. I have, however, written deeply about public education in three other states, prior to coming to Dallas five years ago. I have never before encountered a system that puts sports practice smack dab in the middle of the academic day. In my 15 years of writing about public schools elsewhere, sports have always come after the school day. Hence the term "extracurricular."
Maybe it's time to rethink this practice of giving coaches time that could (should?) be used to teach, say, math?
At one point yesterday, the master sked contained a block of time labeled "Athletics/Foreign Language." Which meant kids had a choice: They could take an extra Spanish class, or they could hit the weight room with their teammates. The teachers in the room chuckled, knowing full well which the kids would choose.
So as I'm sitting there watching the master schedule unfold, this is what I'm thinking: "Get rid of the athletics block. Get rid of the athletics block. See that athletics block in the middle of the day? Get rid of it."
As the meeting wound down, I asked: Why don't you get rid of the athletic block?
Because, was the reply, this is Texas. You don't mess with football.
Here I was at a school to talk about restructuring. About how Dallas ISD's high schools are supposed to be ratcheting up their standards. About how these schools have to get all kids ready for some sort of college. About how these schools are labeled "failures" and "drop out factories" when they don't.
And yet here was untouchable athletics, floating in the middle of the soup like a big ol' Matzos ball that nobody wants to bite.
LINK (http://dallasisdblog.dallasnews.com/archives/2008/03/football-the-elephant-in-the-m.html)