Here are some of the comments posted on www.crossroadsnews.com:
“I was appalled that some of the board members were unaware of these numbers and it’s now July. Are they active in the districts that they represent? They are a joke!!
However, we have to start holding these children accountable for not being able to pass these tests. How many of you have been in one of our south-end high schools? Embarrassing.
There are a lot of our children who simply don’t care and when they don’t care, what exactly can you do with that?
Don’t blame the teachers because they are doing the best they can with what shows up each day. Please remember, teachers can’t make these kids come to school.
Teachers can’t make the kids devote at least 20 minutes reviewing their notes.
Teachers can’t make them attend tutoring so please stop making it seem as if they are not being given the opportunity to learn.
Why pass them if they didn’t meet expectations? DeKalb will never attain success if the bar is set at a different level. We are not preparing a society of achievers if we accept half performance as the norm.
If they are not performing by 10th grade (walking around with only 3 credits), get the viruses out so they don’t infect more of the population, and make them earn the trip back to the school.”
– Sharlin C More active parents needed
“My request is simple. … Compare the number of ninth-grade students who are allowed into high school after failing the CRCT to the number of non-graduates … there will not be a significant difference.
In addition, until parents learn to play a more active role in every aspect of their children’s lives, we will continue to be faced with this plague. There is a decline in the supply of social skills among our students … they lack basic kindness, politeness, responsibility, and respect … parents need to wake up; your children need your direction as teenagers just as much as they did in the early years of their lives.
Teenagers are not little adults … they don’t have the knowledge nor the sophistication to navigate this world … it is your job to give them the direction, and if you don’t know the way … open your minds and listen to those who do.
It is time to stop finding fault in those things that are outside of yourselves … only when you start to take responsibility … will you change.
Those students failed because they were waiting for something or someone to do whatever for them, instead of doing it for themselves.”
– Wari
The numbers are much higher
“The numbers are really much worse. Please consider that many of our kids drop out in the 9th, 10th and 11th grades. The number is way higher than 20 percent. DeKalb’s board is mediocre at best, but yet we vote for them. Parents give up their kids to this system only to have them barely eke out an education on the back end.
How many of those who graduate are even college ready? I would bet less than 20 percent. In this tough economy, what happens to those kids who dropped out early, the 20 percent who dropped out late and the 60 percent [of the graduates] who aren’t college ready?
What we have is a horror show called DeKalb County … we the citizens need to raise our own standards and expectations. Shame!”
– Southdekalbschoolwat Don’t blame Towers
“OK Towers is not the only school with low graduation rates. Look at Elizabeth Andrews School’s graduation rate. I mean it’s really the whole DeKalb County’s fault why we have low graduation rate. You guys need to have better teachers, supply us with supplies, and instead of trying to put the students on lockdown all the time, try teaching them. You guys need to also look at the parents. We should also not even have seniors not graduating! So DeKalb don’t just blame Towers, blame yourselves and the parents.”
– Cydneyj It’s not the graduation test
“We must do something now. Look at Jay’s quote: “The biggest thing holding back our seniors is the graduation test,” he said.
The graduation test is not holding them back. Their inability to pass a test that is written on a 9th grade level at best by the time they are high school seniors has nothing to do with the graduation test, you idiot! These young people are not learning. Many of them are still reading on an elementary level, I’ve seen it personally.
These young people deserve so much more. They deserve to be educated. All will not go to college nor should they be expected to. However, they should leave high school with a basic knowledge and set of skills to enable them to enroll in a program to learn a skilled trade or be work-ready.
Walker, Copelin-Wood and Cunningham need to go. They have done nothing to advance education for these children during their tenure on this board. It is time for a change. We owe this to our children.”
– Berny
New taxes won’t help
“That’s the DeKalb School Board just Dumber than Dumb. All the new taxes in the world will not educate our children in DeKalb with these idiots on the DeKalb School Board and I mean replace them all. The children of DeKalb deserve better. Recall the entire board.”
– Dumber than Dumb Voters need to wake up
“What will it take for the voters in DeKalb to wake up and take action? These are our elected officials and some of them don’t have a clue about the graduation rates in their district. I agree – the children and the taxpayers of DeKalb deserve better.”
– James Jordan Board members are clueless
“Yes, the School Board reps need to go, with the exception of a couple they know little or nothing about education … if you ever attend a School Board meeting you will see they look like idiots when presented facts about their district, about what’s happening in the various schools.
How did they not know the financial situation the district was in?? In addition, we as parents need to take some responsibility for the children we send to school … at some point we need to be held accountable for the behavior, misbehavior and blatant disrespect our children (k-12) have for the educational process, for adults. Our children are “Going to Hell in a Hand Basket” and we’re sitting around blaming everyone except ourselves. … Parents, ‘let’s start raising our children.’ Raising them is not the schools’ responsibility. The school’s goal is to educate them (reading, writing and arithmetic) and we are responsible for the rest! We can still change things around.”
– Concerned Parent
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