I wrote that we don’t really know how our district’s Dual Language program serves the immigrant families. Well, now we do, kind of. Recall that the district’s Dual Language web page asks (themselves), How are students currently doing in the Dual Language program? and immediately replies: “Current assessment data suggest the following: Dual language students …
The business meeting of the USD116 Board addressed many issues, but its focal point was, unmistakably, the report of the Spanish Dual Language (DL) program committee, which recommended to consolidate into one building the program, now spread over Leal and Dr. Williams schools, where it is colocated with the traditional, monolingual classes. A shrewd administrator …
This post is adopted from Ruth’s statement to the Board read during its meeting on May 3, 22. I think she is powerfully addressing the key contradiction of the current review: the Dual Language program was introduced to improve educational outcomes for recent immigrants, – English Learners, – but is evaluated by how it can …
As we expected, the administration got what it wanted: the Board approved the contract with Dr. Dubiel’s SEE LLC to conduct the coveted Equity Audit. There was, quite obviously, some behind the scene maneuvering: Anne Hall, the Board member who requested more time to analyze the issue, explained that she talked to the administration and …
This is a small personal grievance. The district, USD116, obviously wants to keep appearances of being in compliance with the Open Meetings Act. To this end they need to upload the recordings of the meetings, if they were advertised. But this is not good, – the vile disruptors might listen to and mock them. What …
The fog around early March meetings dealing with the Equity Audit lifted a bit: the district released the recording of the Board meeting on March 8. The recording is still incomplete, but it has sound (so generous)! There exists also, somewhere in the ether, a recording of the preceding Equity Task Force meeting on March …
This is a guest post: a lightly edited letter that was emailed to the Board of Education of the Urbana School District 116 on 3.8.22 by Ruth In several meetings, members of the Board and the Equity task force discussed the importance of qualitative data in the equity audits. The members talked about how information …
The whole Equity Audit saga is descending deeper into Veep territory. We last wrote about it a month ago, when a group of Urbana School District employees cast as the Equity Task Force (assisted by a parent or two) announced that they needed to carefully rethink the inscrutable problem of the Equity Audit provider. The …
Past week saw a lot of action on the equity audit front. First, the Board of Education of Urbana School District 116 met on 2.1 to examine, inter alia, two new contenders to provide this critical service to the district. That was followed by the meeting of the Equity Task Force, on 2.3, to discuss …
If you interested in a model of what is going on with all these equity audits in Urbana School District 116, here’s one. Imagine a group of social manipulators aiming to address a need: a thing that the schemers pretend they can deliver. They start with claiming that the thing, – no, the Thing, – …
