Timberlane is on an academic slide......

ARTICLE SUBMISSION

Timberlane is going down the tubes, when will the school board stop it?

In 1975 the Timberlane Junior High School opened to much fanfare. I was in the eighth grade at the time. We had been attending double sessions at the high school for three years, while construction was going on. It, like the high school when it opened, was a model school, in layout, curriculum, and achievement. In the 70's Timberlane, believe it or not, was one of the highest academically rated school districts in NH. At a time when schools were something both much greater, and much less than they are today.

It was not a "middle school". There was no "Team Teaching". There was an English dept., a social studies dept., a science dept., a math dept., and so on. There was no "peer mediation", "grade inflation", "mandatory promotion", "SAC", "in-school suspension", or any of the other namby-pamby, wishy-washy, feel good, new age crap, that is currently choking this once fine institution.

I say it was one something more, because it was once a place where learning happened. Where Learning was EXPECTED to happen. Where Students were EXPECTED to do their work, maintain discipline, and accomplish a body of work in order to graduate on to the High School.

I say it was also much less than it is today because it was, at that time, more focused on the children learning than making the parents feel good about their child's performance, or lack thereof, as it is today. It didn't perform social work, as it does today. It didn't make excuses about children's laziness in failing to do homework as it does today. Contrary to the opinions of principal Hogan a child's natural laziness is not that child "doing their best" or "working at their pace" and the latter is never "ok"!

I am writing this because I recently had confirmation of something I had only heard about, and had not believed. I know of a child who graduated the eighth grade this year, and is going into the high school in the fall. A normal occurrence, I know, except that this child's graduated with 3 "F"'s and 1 "D-" all in core subjects. Unfortunately, the one subject that this child passed, with a "C", was language arts, and this child has not the ability to coherently write a report. No sentence structure, grammar, punctuation, spelling skills commensurate with an eighth grade education.

When the parent spoke to Mr. Hogan about this atrocity, the parent was told that their child had not graduated but had merely gotten a "promotion certificate". When the parent asked if the child had to go to summer school, Mr. Hogan replied that the child should. The parent, picking up on the "should", asked if the child's "promotion" was contingent upon successfully completing summer school? Mr. Hogan then replied that summer school was not mandatory, but should be attended by this child. The parent then asked "if the child was not sent to summer school, would the child still go into the ninth grade in the fall? Mr. Hogan said YES! He went on that "studies have shown that it would hurt(the child) developmentally more for (the child) to stay back than to go on" He said "(the child) would catch up in high school"! THIS FROM A PRINCIPAL!!!

Mr. Hogan then explained that High school is a credit based institution and some kids will get their 20 credits in 3.5 years, some will get them in 4 years, and some will have to take that extra class, or semester to graduate, and that's ok. Well, I say, NO that is not ok! This is the attitude that has created the situation where 21% of high schoolers can not read or write well enough to fill out their own job application. This is why 74% of College freshman have to take remedial math or English, their parents effectively paying college rates to teach their kids what should have been taught in high school. Education is the single greatest defining attribute of life. People are judged by how they speak and what they know. Professional doors will open or close based upon a person's education, and we are leaving it in the hands of those who are more concerned with the children's self esteem than what they actually know. It is a telling fact that on International tests where America once reigned supreme, we now finish below third world countries, while the one area in which we excel is self esteem! The failing students felt really good about their performance!

Here are some facts for the parents reading this, that they may be unaware of. Students are allowed to take re-tests. If a student wishes to bring up their grade, regardless of that grade they may take the same test again, and take the average of the two grades. When they have to write a report, they are given a list of websites from which to gather their info., in most cases they merely cut and paste from those websites to form the report. They learn nothing! I know of four eighth grade girls who had to do reports on historical figures, Vincent Van Gogh, Harriet Tubman, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, and the reports they handed in were cut and pasted from websites. No original content! I thought they would learn a lesson from this and said nothing. They did learn a valuable lesson, they got "B"'s!

There is so much more to learn than there was when we went to school, and the district, particularly the middle school is doing a horrible job of teaching it., The curriculum is weak. And even that is not taught to full effectiveness. There seems to be little if any oversight.

Now here is my question to the school board;

What are you going to do to bring this school district back to its glory days?

We, as parents pay Timberlane over $12,000/student per year! Timberlane has a $59Million budget and roughly 4700 kids district wide.

The Timberlane district currently boasts a 58% Proficiency level in grade 10 math.
The Timberlane district currently boasts a 76% Proficiency level in grade 10 reading.

This is what we consider acceptable? In 25 years this district which was 1st in the county, and 6th in the state, now places 15th in the COUNTY in reading, and 18th in the COUNTY in math!

We only have 8 more slots to fall before WE HIT ROCK BOTTOM!!! AND NO ONE IS DOING ANYTHING ABOUT IT!!!

I ask the school board these questions because they are not supposed to sit there and act as bobble-heads whenever superintendent LaSalle says something. The school board is SUPPOSED to be running the district! They are the people we elected to look into these things, and see that we are getting the most for our money. We are not!

Does the school board look into, and question curriculum and practices? Do they discuss educational philosophy with Dr. LaSalle, and inform him of the direction the district is to take in bringing up test scores and achievement?

This is the basic problem with public education, it is not responsive to the needs of its customers. It gets its money no matter what, whereas in the private sector, if a school had the deplorable standards of TRMS, it would go out of business, because its customers, the parents, would not pay $12,000/yr. for their kids to be shuffled along whether they did the work or not.

It doesn't work this way in the real world. When you have a job(in the private sector, this doesn't hold true for a government job) you have to perform to a certain level. You have to accomplish certain tasks, or you will be fired. Schools rarely make these demands anymore.

I want my school board to answer one question for me;

Why cant Timberlane have the academic achievement of Phillips Academy in Exeter, or even Boston Latin in Roxbury( a public school with significant minority enrollment), or even Central Catholic in Lawrence?

Or how about this question;

Why is it that I can pay $8,000 tuition to send my kid to Pinkerton, one of the best schools in the state, or $3,500 to St. Joes and Timberlane costs almost $13,000 to do an inferior job?