The Willow Glen Resident

Point of View

Deborah Taylor-Hollis

San Jose Unified cranks out Average Joes

Hey! We're average! Wow, with that kind of announcement we can all breath easier and feel secure in San Jose Unified schools. Some of the most expensive housing in the country, most of the highest earners, several outstanding colleges right here at our fingertips, and our local school district can say we are...average. Break out the six-pack, Earl, and let's party down! With achievements like that to boast about, you'd think they'd keep their mouths shut.

I'm not comparing total Standardized Testing and Reporting scores here--I'm not including kids for whom English is a second, third, partial or semi-inclusive language. I'm just looking at the national percentile rankings of English-only, born-and-bred, speak-it in-the-home kids. Our second-graders are at 53 percent in reading, 48 percent in math and 46 percent in spelling. The Moreland School District kids rank at 71 percent, 73 percent and 66 percent, respectively. They, at least, are in the top third. Our kids here in the SJUSD are in the second tier. Good old average. Or pretty close to almost average in math and spelling. Of course, these national totals take into account states like Mississippi, which has the poorest schools in the country. Hey, we're better than Mississippi! Makes me wanna puke.

I can well appreciate why so many parents in Willow Glen tried to push for a separation to create our own school district. We apparently need San Jose Unified as much as we need more plutonium in our drinking water. I might even agree to a couple parts per billion if we could get these scores up. If we had created a separate school district, I don't think we could have done much worse. There's a gorilla named Penny who can spell and understand more than 6,000 words just about as well as our second-graders. You must remember, though, that the gorilla has a private teacher who is not affiliated with the SJUSD. And the gorilla is learning sign language as her second language, her first being ... gorilla. Considering this, we have to look at the district again, and maybe give them some willpower to achieve.

It's hard to live in this valley with all life's burdens and try to have free time left, but we need to sacrifice some of that and get on the district's case. To achieve less than 100 percent in the STAR exams is failure, and we cannot fail our kids. It shouldn't be necessary to sit on the district like truculent children and force change, but apparently, there is no other option.

How often have any of us called down there to question methods of teaching, classroom policies (ask about head lice if you really want to be sick) or a test score? How many times have you visited the main office on Lenzen (our own Taj Majal of learning) for a meeting, only to be fed double-talk? How many dollars actually went to your elementary school last year? The biggest question: What do any of us really know about the SJUSD, anyway? I've never gotten an annual spreadsheet showing spending, never seen a breakdown sheet on costs, never been sent a map showing specific school district holdings (not just the schools they are using, but lots of other land, too). I'd like some accountability here. I'm paying for it.

For all the money they take from all of us, we should be demanding more than just average scores and no accountability. We should be able to call in and be sent the district's spending records for the past 10 years. We should get regular meetings with the board at our local schools on nights and weekends, just as city councilmembers offer their constituents. We should be asking for explanations. Just how can our school district come up in the 49th percentile in spelling and English among English-speaking kids? Are they just baby-sitting over there? And, if things are so dismal in the second grade, why don't they get better by the eighth grade? After six more years with these alleged educators, the eighth-graders ended up reading at 57 percent, doing math at 53 percent, and spelling at ... 46 percent. I guess once you hit that spelling goal, there's no reason to improve.

All kidding aside, we need to demand better. In unison. In large, easy-to-register numbers. Nothing will change if no one ever tells our district that this is unacceptable.

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