Post by dragonfly on Nov 4, 2007 9:37:07 GMT -8
www.sgvtribune.com/search/ci_7333550
Keep Azusa schools on a steady course
DESPITE the beginning of construction of a new school in the 1,250-unit Rosedale development, the Azusa Unified School District has been on a steady course.
The new K-8 school in Rosedale will be the biggest change to the school district in 30 years, but that won't happen until the fall of 2009.
In the meantime, the district has been working on standardizing curricula and education opportunities for all schools in the district. When asked about the coming new school and whether others in the district may find an inequity there versus where they live, veteran board member Ilean M. Ochoa told our editorial board: "The programs won't be any better at that new school than at any of our other schools."
I think that this is the wrong direction for the school distict to be going. The standards for the new school should be much tougher than the other schools. The current schools do not offer students a challenging enough curriculum to be competitive or challenging enough. They need to push the standards for the new school to a much higher level.
Many of the Mountain Cove residents that have tried to put their children in Azusa schools found that their standards are just not acceptable. They try to keep eveyone on an even level and that level is low and does not provide a balanced education. I have been told that they only focus on reading and math.
What can we do to make sure that this does not happen to the new school? Why should the new school be pushed down by the other ones. The new school should be for students who have English as their primary language.
We need to push the quality of the schools up by pushing up the standards. Keeping them all on an even level is a horrible idea considering the current school standards are so low and we have been told that they can't improve them considerably because there are too many students that come from famlies where English is not their primary language. I really do not accept this because the asian population seems to be able to learn English quickly and often times are the top students in the classroom. I think that it has more to do with lazy students, parents and teachers.
Other students should not be penalized for this. That will affect their entire future which is really not fair.