Posted by Ed, a resident of the Stierlin Estates neighborhood, on Jul 31, 2011 at 7:43 pm

There's a lot wrong with this story.

"Teaching the Teachers"

What an insult to those professional and highly qualified teachers working in our schools (even if you think, say, 50% are worthless, the remaining already know how to teach. It's the students that are ill-prepared do to poor parenting.)

"MV Whisman hires consultants to improve math and science scores"

Science is not tested and does not effect API scores. (Does anyone do any research before they write these articles?!?!?) Secondly, it would appear then the district is only interested in raising test scores, and thus, mostly for poor performing students who are no doubt more affected by ethno-socio-economic factors and parent apathy as so far as education is concerned. How do average and above and excelling students gain from this $350,000 be blown through? Or that's right, they get to put up with listening to kids not prepared are capable of answering the question in the first place, again due to low parental involvement among varying socio-economic and ethnic groups.

Indeed the old popsicle stick trick is already in use in many classrooms, as well as individual white boards, so nothing new there. Besides, having a white board in front of students who aren't anywhere near to an answer is hardly going to make a difference. What's he or she going to do next, ask for a lifeline, or a call home or to a friend or a complete stranger a la 'Who wants to be a millionaire'?

"A lot of kids are tactile learners--they have to use their hands to learn." Where to begin with that one? What a load of baloney. They need to condition their brains to learn!

"The program cost the school district about $350,000 according to Mary Lairon, assistant superintendent of Mountain View Whisman. Although Lairon was hesitant to make any definitive statement about the program until more data is available."

How many opportunities does this Lairon woman need to get her foot fully into her mouth? Just go shell out another $350,000 on a blind investment and hope it works! Throw more good money after bad.

Posted by JONI GINGRICH, a resident of another community, on Aug 2, 2011 at 3:02 pm

I BELEIVE IN EDI AND I BELEIVE IN TEACHING TEACHERS.

I AM SADDENED BY MR. ED'S PREVIOUS COMMENT, AS IT SHOWS ONLY THE MASTERY OF SARCASM. NOT ONE CONSTRUCTIVE SUGGESTION. TEACHERS ARE CONSTANTLY SPENDING THEIR SCHOOL DISTRICTS TIME WITH 'INSERVICES' AIMED AT IMPROVING TEACHING TECHNIQUES AND BRINGING UP THEIR SCHOOLS TEST SCORES. MANY SCHOOLS MUST DO SO, OR LOSE FUNDING. WHEN SCHOOL DISTRICTS HAD MORE FUNDING IN THE PREVIOUS YEARS, THERE WERE ALSO SUMMER CAMPS FOR TEACHERS THAT TAUGHT NEW WAYS TO GET STUDENTS INVOLVED. THE STUDENTS INVOLVMENT AND INTEREST ARE OF UTMOST IMPORTANCE BECAUSE MANY CHILDREN DO NOT HAVE THE BLESSING OF PARENTS WHO SUPPORT THE AFTER HOURS WORK NECESSARY TO BE SUCCESSFUL AT SCHOOL.

IT IS NOT INSULTING TO LEARN SOMETHING NEW. IT IS INSULTING TO NOT WANT TO LEARN. DATAWORKS IS TRYING TO PUT THE EMPHASIS ON THE CORRECT SYLLABLE. THE FACT THAT IT TOOK A CORPORATE GRANT TO BE ABLE TO PARTICIPATE IS WORRYSOME, BUT HOW LUCKY WILL THE KIDS BE IN THIS SCHOOL DISTRICT IF RESULTS CAN BE DOCUMENTED?

Posted by Nicole, a resident of the Castro City neighborhood, on Jan 31, 2012 at 9:01 pm

I am a resident and, except for the tactile learning sentense and blaming the teachers, he had mostly valid points. We're spending 350K to teach well-qualified teachers, buy whiteboards and raise test scores on kids who most likely have low test scores due to the socio-economic issues (food, healthcare) not lack of new-fangled instruction. I am fortunate my kids are in advanced math and don't have to sit through these boring instructions, but I wish Google had given my school cool science kits or organic food instead.