Guest Post by Kate McGee
Brian Butcher, a history teacher at Ballou High School, sat in the bleachers of the school’s brand new football field last June watching 164 seniors receive diplomas. It was a clear, warm night, and he was surrounded by screaming family and friends snapping photos and cheering.
It was a triumphant moment for the students. For the first time, every Ballou graduate applied and was accepted to college. The school is located in one of D.C.’s poorest neighborhoods; it has struggled academically for years and has had a chronically low graduation rate. In 2016, the school graduated only 57 percent of its seniors according to data from D.C. Public Schools (DCPS), slightly up from 51 percent the year before. For months after June’s commencement, the school received national media attention, including from NPR, celebrating its achievement.
But all the excitement and accomplishment couldn’t shake one question from Butcher’s mind:
How did all these students graduate from high school?
“You saw kids walking across the stage, who, they’re nice young people, but they don’t deserve to be walking across the stage,” Butcher said.
Butcher’s concerns were not unwarranted.
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An investigation by WAMU and NPR has found that Ballou High School’s administration graduated dozens of students despite high rates of unexcused absences. WAMU and NPR reviewed hundreds of pages of Ballou’s attendance records, class rosters and emails after a DCPS employee shared the private documents. The documents showed that half of the graduates missed more than three months of school last year, unexcused. One in five students was absent more than present — missing more than 90 days of school.
According to DCPS policy, if a student misses a class 30 times, he should fail that course. Research shows that missing 10 percent of school, about two days per month, can negatively affect test scores, reduce academic growth and increase the chances a student will drop out.
When many of these students did attend school, they struggled academically.
“I’ve never seen kids in the 12th grade that couldn’t read and write,” said Butcher, who has more than two decades of teaching experience in low-performing schools from New York City to Florida. But he saw students like that at Ballou — and it wasn’t just one or two.
Another internal email obtained by WAMU and NPR from April shows that two months before graduation, only 57 students were on track to graduate, with dozens of students missing graduation requirements, community service requirements or failing classes needed to graduate. In June, 164 students received diplomas.
“It was smoke and mirrors. That is what it was,” Butcher said.
A pressure to pass students
WAMU and NPR talked to nearly a dozen current and recent Ballou teachers as well as four recent graduates who told the same story: teachers felt pressure from administration to pass chronically absent students, and students knew the school administration would do as much as possible to get them to graduation.
“It’s oppressive to the kids because you’re giving them a false sense of success,” said a current Ballou teacher who spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect her job.
Another current Ballou teacher, who also spoke on the condition of anonymity, said: “To not prepare them is not ethical.”
Morgan Williams, who taught health and physical education at Ballou last year, says the lack of expectations sets students up for future failure.
“If I knew I could skip the whole semester and still pass, why would I try?” Williams said. “They’re not prepared to succeed.”
Morgan Williams, who taught health and physical education at Ballou, says the lack of expectations sets students up for failure.Tyrone Turner / WAMU
Williams taught physical education and health for two years at Ballou, which is a graduation requirement. She says her students were often chronically absent, but the gym was always full. Students skipping other classes would congregate there, she says, and her requests for help from administrators and behavioral staff to manage these students were often ignored.
Williams and other teachers interviewed for this story say they often had students on their rosters they barely knew because the students almost never attended class.
Near the end of a term, Williams says students would appear, asking for make-up work like worksheets or a project. She would refuse, saying that there are policies, and if students don’t meet the attendance policy, there’s nothing she could do to help them. Then, she says, an administrator would ask how she could help students pass.
At one point, while she was out on maternity leave, Williams says she received a call from a school official asking her to change a grade for a student she had previously failed.
“[They said]’Just give him a D,’ because they were trying to get him out of there and they knew he wouldn’t do the make-up packet,” Williams said.
Williams says she tried to push back, but she often had 20 to 30 kids in one class. Repeatedly having the same conversation about dozens of students was exhausting. The school also required extensive improvement plans if teachers did fail students, which was an additional burden for a lot of already strained teachers.
Many teachers interviewed say they also were encouraged to follow another policy: give absent or struggling students a 50 percent on assignments they missed or didn’t complete instead of a zero. The argument was, if the student tried to make up the work they missed or failed, it would likely be impossible to pass with a zero on the books. Teachers say that even if students earn less than than 50 percent on an assignment, 50 percent is still the lowest grade a student can receive.
During the last term of senior year, some seniors who weren’t on track to graduate were placed in an accelerated version of the classes they were failing. Those classes, known as credit recovery, were held for a few weeks after school. DCPS policy says students should only take credit recovery once they receive a final failing grade for a course. At Ballou, however, students who were on track to fail were placed in these classes before they should have been allowed. Teachers say this was done to graduate kids. On paper, these students were taking the same class twice — sometimes with two different teachers.
Credit recovery is increasingly used to prevent students from dropping out, but critics argue that credit recovery courses rarely have the same educational value as the original course and are often less rigorous. At Ballou, teachers said, the credit recovery content was not intensive and students rarely showed up for credit recovery classes. According to class rosters, 13 percent of Ballou graduates were enrolled in the same class twice during the last term before graduation. Often, teachers were not alerted that their students were taking credit recovery, and many said they didn’t realize what was happening until they saw students they flunked graduate.
If teachers pushed back against these practices, they say the administration retaliated against them by giving them poor teacher evaluations. Last year, DCPS put school administrators entirely in control of teacher evaluations, including classroom observations, instead of involving a third party. Many teachers said they believe this change gives too much power to administrators. A low evaluation rating two years in a row is grounds for dismissal. Just one bad rating can make it tough to find another job. Teachers said that if they questioned the administration, they were painted as “haters” who don’t care about students.
“If they don’t like you, they’ll just let you go,” said Monica Brokenborough, who taught music at Ballou last year.
Former Ballou music teacher Monica Brokenborough says the administration encouraged teachers to pass underprepared students.Tyrone Turner / WAMU
She also served as the teacher’s union building representative. The building representative is responsible for handling teacher grievances and ensuring that the school follows the DCPS teacher contract, among other duties. Last year, 26 grievances were filed by teachers at Ballou.
Said one teacher who asked for anonymity to protect her job: “Either you want your professional career on paper to look like you don’t know what you’re doing, or you just skate by, play by the game.”
Playing by the game can have financial benefits. If an evaluation score is high enough to reach the “highly effective” status, teachers and administrators can receive $15,000 to $30,000 in bonuses. D.C. Public Schools wouldn’t disclose which teachers received bonuses, but teachers interviewed said the possibility of such a large bonus increases the pressure on teachers to improve student numbers.
Butcher, Brokenborough and Williams no longer work at Ballou. They received low teacher evaluations after the 2016-17 school year ended and were let go for various reasons. They believe they were unfairly targeted and have filed complaints through the local teachers union. Butcher and Williams found new teaching jobs outside D.C.; Brokenborough is waiting to resolve her grievance with DCPS.
Brian Butcher, who now teaches outside D.C., questioned how so many Ballou students were qualified to graduate.Tyrone Turner / WAMU
Who is responsible?
Ballou Principal Yetunde Reeves refused to be interviewed for this story, but D.C. Public Schools Chancellor Antwan Wilson and Jane Spence, the DCPS Chief of Secondary Schools did.
“It is expected that our students will be here every day,” Spence said. “But we also know that students learn material in lots of different ways. So we’ve started to recognize that students can have mastered material even if they’re not sitting in a physical space.”
At the same time, DCPS is publicly pushing the importance of daily attendance with a citywide initiative called “Every Day Counts!” City leaders have made improving attendance a priority, strengthening its reporting policies to improve accuracy. To be considered in school, students have to be there 80 percent of the day. If they are absent, parents have five days to submit proof of an excused absence, such as a doctor’s note.
Wilson says schools can’t ignore what’s going on in the lives of students. Many students are managing effects of trauma, family responsibilities, a job and, sometimes, all of the above. That can make it extra hard to show up to school every day. Federal data released in October found that 47 percent of DCPS students have experienced some kind of traumatic event.
So how did all these kids miss so many days of school, apply to college and still graduate? When pressed on this question, Chancellor Wilson and Deputy Spence abruptly ended the interview.
After WAMU and NPR reached out to the D.C. mayor’s office for comment, the chancellor and Spence made themselves available for another interview. Ultimately, they stand behind the school’s decision to graduate these students despite missing so much school.
When it comes to DCPS’s grading policy, system leaders are quick to differentiate between a student who is absent from a particular class and a student who misses the full day.
“It is possible for a student to have 30 days when they are absent from school, but that doesn’t constitute 30 days of absences from the course,” Spence said. Still, she says high absenteeism is unacceptable and there’s room for growth.
“Our students need to get here every day and we continue to ask our community and our families to partner with us to get students to school every day,” Spence said.
Spence emphasized that many students are managing real issues that prevent them from getting to class, and that schools need to find other ways to help absent kids succeed. She and Wilson say these policies, such as the make-up work and after-school credit recovery classes, can be part of the solution — if they’re implemented with rigor.
Wilson admits this is not happening everywhere in the system.
“I think the issue we have to fix at several of our schools, just to make sure that kids don’t feel they can miss … however many weeks and come in at the end and say, ‘I’d love to get my make-up work,’ ” Wilson said.
D.C. Council member David Grosso, who chairs the city council’s education committee, said he was unaware that this many chronically absent students graduated from Ballou. The council has focused on improving attendance in city schools over the past few years. Grosso said he plans to follow up with district officials to determine how these students graduated.
Teacher Responses
Ballou teachers acknowledged that students might be facing issues that make it difficult for them to attend school, but some say the school district uses these students’ situations as a crutch to ignore larger unaddressed issues, like in-seat attendance and student behavior. In-seat attendance is the percentage of time a student is actually in class. When it comes to attendance, teachers say many students are in the building, but they just don’t go to class.
“The tardy bell is just a sound effect in that building,” said former choir teacher Monica Brokenborough. “It means nothing.”
Another current Ballou teacher said: “Kids roam the halls with impunity.”
Teachers say they are willing to help students who struggle to balance school and outside responsibilities like a job or childcare, but Brokenborough says some students just simply do not want to attend class and have come to expect make-up work. She says this puts teachers in a tough situation.
“Because if you don’t [give make-up work] and another teacher does, it makes you look like the bad guy,” she said.
Many students have figured out they don’t have to show up everyday.
“These students are smart enough to see enough what goes on,” Brokenborough said. “They go ‘Oh, I ain’t gotta do no work in your class, I can just go over here do a little Powerpoint, pass and graduate.’ Again this isn’t about the teachers. What is that doing to that child? That’s setting that kid up for failure just so you can showboat you got this graduation rate.”
DCPS leaders, including Chancellor Wilson, defend the use of make-up work, arguing they want to give students “multiple opportunities” to show they understand material. The teachers interviewed, however, said they feel the system ultimately reduces academic rigor, serving no one in the end. When these students leave Ballou and go off to college or the workplace, teachers feel they aren’t prepared to work hard.
One current teacher says that as a black teacher teaching predominantly black students, graduating these students is an injustice.
“This is [the] biggest way to keep a community down. To graduate students who aren’t qualified, send them off to college unprepared, so they return to the community to continue the cycle,” the teacher said.
“I came to school when I wanted to.”
Four recent Ballou graduates spoke about their experiences at the school on the condition of anonymity. Three are in college now, including one student who was absent about half the school year.
“I came to school when I wanted to,” said the student, who currently is attending a local four-year university. “I didn’t have to be there, I didn’t want to be there.”
Senior year wasn’t easy for her. She says she wasn’t living at home anymore, and was working at a fast food restaurant to pay rent. That need for an income made school even less appealing.
“I felt at a point around getting toward winter, I ain’t have be there no more,” she said. “I felt like I graduated at that point.”
While she says she got calls and letters from the school about her absences, she wouldn’t show up until they threatened to send her to court for truancy.
“That’s when I was like, ‘Oh, let me go to school,’” she said.
In D.C., students who miss 15 or more days of school without an excuse are supposed to be referred to court services. Last year, Ballou sent 25 seniors to court services for truancy, but according to documents obtained, all but 11 of the 163 graduates should have had court services alerted about their absenteeism.
“Even then, you learn to work the system,” the student said. When the school would threaten truancy court, she says she’d show up for a few hours, do her classwork and leave. She believes it shouldn’t matter if she showed up to class as long as she completed her work. Plus, she says she knew no matter how much school she missed, she wouldn’t fail.
A program from last year’s Ballou High School graduation.Tyrone Turner / WAMU
“The thing was, they couldn’t do that to me, and they knew that I knew that,” she said.
According to a Washington Post article in May of this year, 21 teachers, more than a quarter of Ballou’s teaching staff left during last school year, the most teacher resignations of any DCPS high school during the 2016-2017 school year. That included one of this graduate’s teachers — her math teacher left halfway through the year and a substitute took over. After that, she says, she had even less motivation to show up to class.
“What am I going to keep showing up to this for a substitute for? He ain’t gonna teach nothing,” she said.
Another Ballou graduate also says teacher turnover was the biggest problem at the school. Often, teachers would leave without a back-up teacher or substitute in place. He says many substitutes didn’t know how to teach the content, and students lost interest in learning.
“I’m not going to say I always went to class or I was always a good student because I wasn’t,” he said, but he took honors courses and wanted to be at school. He now attends a four-year university outside the Washington area. He knew college would be hard, and he even enrolled in a summer program at his college designed to help low-income, underrepresented students prepare for their first semester. But when he got to college, he said: “I had reality slapped in the face.”
Both students say they are struggling in their college math classes.
With so many teacher vacancies last year, teachers say they don’t understand how some students passed classes they needed to graduate. Additionally, many of the students who were in those classrooms were struggling academically. Last year, 9 percent of students at Ballou passed the English part of the D.C. standardized test known as PARCC. No one passed the math section. The average SAT score last year among Ballou test-takers was 782 out of 1600.
“The elephant in the room is how these kids are getting through middle school and getting through high school,” said a current Ballou teacher speaking anonymously. “That’s passing the buck and totally unacceptable, especially from a leadership standpoint.”
When it came time to apply to college, teachers and students say most Ballou seniors applied to the local community college, part of the University of the District of Columbia (UDC). Students say many classmates felt that they weren’t ready for a four-year school. Originally, Ballou administration said that students led the initiative to get the entire senior class to apply. But many teachers and some students said students were forced to apply to college. Many were pulled out of class to fill out applications, and they say the administration would tell students they couldn’t participate in after-school events or field trips if they did not apply to college. But some students, including those interviewed for this story, say many students were excited about the college application process.
DCPS won’t know how many Ballou graduates enrolled in college overall until May, a spokesperson says. We know of 183 students accepted to the UDC, but only 16 enrolled this fall.
As the first semester of freshman year winds down, both graduates quoted say they’re trying to stick with it.
“Everybody say you’re supposed to go to college for yourself, but I went to college for my family,” said the Ballou graduate who is attending college locally. “I didn’t go ’cause I wanted to. I don’t want to. I could care less. But I am going to go ahead and do what I have to do because nothing feels better than going home to your family who look up to you. I got parents who look up to me.”
She says she doesn’t feel she was prepared for college, although she places some of that blame on herself.
Teachers at Ballou say pushing kids to see a future for themselves and to work toward that future is valuable. But encouraging them to pursue a future they’re not prepared for and sending them off without skills is irresponsible. Instead, they say the school and school system need to better prepare students for the hurdles they’ll face when they get to college, and better hold students accountable when they don’t meet the requirements.
Seven months from now, Ballou High School will celebrate another graduating class. The current senior class is also working towards a 100 percent college acceptance rate.
WAMU education coverage is supported in part by American Graduate: Let’s Make It Happen, a public media initiative made possible by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting
They went to the “Clown College of Comic Book Knowledge”.
We used to call community colleges “High School with Ashtrays”. Hell, you can’t even smoke there anymore.
Gertrude Stein once said: “A rose, is a rose, is a rose”.
Replace rose with nigger. They can get all the diplomas they want, still dumb as a bag of hammers.
“a spokesperson says. We know of 183 students accepted to the UDC, but only 16 enrolled this fall.” Liberalism is a mental disorder
I be good in maff. I got learnt reel gud in pubic scrool.
Most Blacks are to stupid to pass high school.Nothing has changed since my high school days.I wonder if those teachers were fit to teach ? Overall The whole black experience in the education system is/ has been one of failure.When will white people ever learn it’s a waste of time and money to even try to teach these ” people “.
BB,
Thanks for the laugh.
“Most Blacks are to stupid to pass high school.”
That is funny. Maybe try to not have incorrect words in your sentences when you are questioning other poeple’s intelligence.
“try to not have incorrect words in your sentences when you are questioning other poeple’s intelligence.”
It’s not poeple, it’s peeps, dumbass.
EC
I thought that was irony. Or ornery.
@TIF: It should be: “Most Blacks are TWO Stupid”
“try not to have” would be correct
Two errors in one little comment….that’s what I’m talking about. I guess I am ‘to’ stupid to type a simple comment.
‘Most Blacks are to stupid to pass high school.’
Most blacks are too stupid to pass the stone age.
Then thousands of these kids go onto college. I worked at a selective college for years, and even then they still let in kids that weren’t even high school ready IMO. Typically they were athletes or had some sort of scholarship of some sort. Some HS are just plain horrible. I had a 4.0 HS student, get 1.5 her first year of college. She was angry, angry at her HS and for believing that it actually prepared her. She lost her scholarship, and she didn’t pass enough credits to get student loans for the next year, so she had to drop out. She seemed fairly smart and perhaps could have done better in an easier major, but regardless she wasn’t a stellar student. Her SAT scores were below average so that was telling to some degree. But she ended up losing her scholarship and was on the hook for an overly pricey private college year of tuition. All because she went to an inner city school that gave you alot of bonuses for just showing up, not attacking the teachers, and putting forth a modicum of effort.
But that was the #1 ranked student from that HS. I can only imagine what a typical graduate would look like. It’s not just the schools though anymore, its the culture itself. Males do significantly worse in College and have so far a long time now. I’ve seen students fail out because they are addicted to video games, a fairly common hobby that sucks up way more time then most of them ever begin to study. Also boys/men in general don’t read much, women dominate reading and this seems even worse with the younger generations. It’s hard to be good at something that you don’t do, playing Halo or Call of Duty just isn’t going to help you much academically. Someone having a college degree means about nothing to me at this point, I meet more smart people without degrees that own their own businesses. Most students are lucky to know what continent we live on or what’s closer the sun or the moon. So beyond having lost alot of hands on skills of the past, they don’t seem to have much “book” knowledge either. I guess they can text really quick though, and have a vast knowledge of social media, hurray.
I wouldn’t worry about the students progress in college or university life. The higher education administration will see that rhe professors and instuctors get the same message these DC teachers got from the principals and District officals. The revealing data comes from results on the DC evaluation instrument or more significantly SAT results because it is more difficult to game the system.
This is why they developed the “Critical Race Theory” all the other philosophical b/s classes in college to enable them the pass with a diploma and work for the Federal Civil Service. Back in the day I was once asked to explain synthetic aperture radar systems to a Pentagon staffer. This individual had a Phd from Brown. It was in gender related studies of some sort. Needless to say the discussion was one sided at best.
This is the logical outcome of liberal thought. “We are all equal!” No, “we” are not equal at all. Race matters. Intelligence matters, and most intelligence is in the genes. I hope these liberal nitwits have a brain surgeon from famous Ballou High!
As they used to say, “A mind is a terrible thing to waste.” That’s why God didn’t give any to niggers.
Ballou is actually a French word meaning — “you’re still a dumbfuk even if you get accepted to college”.
Wasn’t that the big galoompy bear in Jungle Book?
What a shit show.
Figures vary, but spending in D.C. is anywhere from $22,000 to $26,000+ per pupil per year. In a classroom of 30 students that is over $780,000 per year per classroom. You KNOW that isn’t going to the teacher.
There is ONLY one root cause of this problem – the Government Monopoly on education.
98% of the kids I graduated with from a wonderful Catholic High School went to college. 2 kids in my class did not receive diplomas because they had failed and had to go to summer school. All who were accepted actually attended college, and most importantly, virtually all of their parents ACTUALLY CARED about their kid’s education.
Is it any different in college. Let’s say it is. Well, just go to school online. Who polices the test when it’s taken at home. It is a racket. Now the professor does not even have to show up. Put some stuff on the internet and collect a check. Paying big money for a degree. Money is the only thing education is about any more. Yes I know teachers that care are out there but the corruption grows in the USA.
It.Starts.With.Parents.
Smokes, do you have Asperger’s?
EC
Do you think Aspergers’ is a real thing? Wasn’t that probably what was wrong with the really gung-ho g.i. joe types in uniform?
There’s always Ronald McDonald University.
School Motto: “You Want Fries With That?”
I told my kids when we went to mcd’s not to imitate their ebonic middle east phrase “Fahir O. Tagó?” and to please enunciate clearly when dealing with others.
These are the same people, as a microcosm, of the blue voters who deride ‘fly-over’ country…..where people can read, write, etc., and conduct themselves like civilized people. Fuuuuuuuuuuck you big city liberals.
“Williams says she tried to push back, but she often had 20 to 30 kids in one class. Repeatedly having the same conversation about dozens of students was exhausting.”
Yeah, its really frickin exhausting to say you’re not going to change the grade of a student that failed out. It is really exhausting to say “If you dont like it, then fire me for not changing grades”. Sounds like a golden lawsuit opportunity.
This has very little to do with the students being black, and is just an especially glaring example of what is going on all over the Western world as we descend into Marxist hell. Yes, I am aware that blacks have a lower average IQ, but with proper teaching and discipline you don’t need a 100 IQ (or even 85) to become functionally literate and numerate.
In my home province, which is about 90% white (and dropping), the community college system recently removed all preferential entrance criteria based on high school grades, so now anyone with a diploma (worthless) or GED (less than worthless) gets in on a first-come, first-served basis. Couple that with our Liberal government’s decision two years ago to pay for the post-secondary education (PSE) of any student from a household making less than $60,000, and the viability of actually trying to maintain any semblance of sanity in the classroom has gone from challenging to futile.
One of the direct results of this is that now some students (i.e. their parents) are applying to enroll while still in Grade 11. Since their graduating is a foregone conclusion, their applications are accepted and they are put on the list. The Licensed Practical Nurse (a Canadian pro. designation – basically nurses with the authority to prescribe medication) program now has a nine-year waiting list. Of course it would be discriminatory to declare that maybe the best students on that list should be given enrollment priority, so invariably they will choose to take their skills elsewhere and my province will suffer.
These changes are just two among many that make it very difficult to rationalize that our government is not deliberately trying to collapse our society and economy.
And to pre-emptively answer some of the people who may be stupefied over the free tuition policy, no there is no sliding scale for income, and no provisions to account for households with multiple children (i.e. a household with a gross declared income of $60,000 or more gets no support, even if they have five kids in PSE, and a household with $59,999 gets free tuition for every child). As we’ve learned, liberals have a really tough time with the concept of “per capita”.
Combine that “free” junior college tuition with the fact the students are eligible for need-based assistance in the form of grants and subsidized federal loans. It is simply a way to expand the “Tax Dollar Redistribution System” at Education.
LPN’s may distribute meds–not prescribe. Huge difference.
At t-giving dinner the wife (who also happens to be an ex-public school teacher) of one of my cousins was busting our balls for deciding to home school our kids. She was bragging about how awesome their public school is by proudly exclaiming that this year there were 42 valedictorians. I just didn’t know what to say after that.
No shit. I was actually Valedictorian of my high school class in 1980. There was ONE. Me. There were 32 in my graduating class, so BIG WHOOP, but at least there was one Valedictorian and one Salutatorian.
In my son’s graduating class, there were 37 Valedictorians and 23 Salutatorians. I remember that because I was wondering how come there were Fewer In Second Place than in First Place.
For what it is worth… my son might have been able to get into that crowd of honored students (about 1100 total in his class, I think) if it weren’t for the fact he freaking got a C in high school freshman history, which was “pre Civil War” Propaganda he couldn’t stand.) Oh, well… at least he appears to be graduating with an actual Science and Technology degree that might be marketable: Computer Engineering/Programming.
Hey, Maggita, I was one of the seniors in my graduating class of 1000+. My then-GF was one of the top 10% so she wore white and sat up in the front. She went on to greatness and I’m here writing about it on a piddling blog thread. Does this make me look bad in front of white folks, too Chicano?
Nah… I’m here commenting with you looking for a Cuban whose father died smuggling drugs.
It was money well spent. The niggers were in the gym and not terrorizing the streets at least part of the time. Other than that, I don’t care. I don’t care if they starve,I don’t care if they sell drugs and I don’t care if they kill one another. I’ll care if they come to my neighborhood to steal, sell drugs,run hoes and kill white people.
See. Over the cliff is sporting his personal opinion. Not racist nor inciting violence. But bet your ass he will be banned from twitter for the tbp post after 12/18…..
Teacher’s unions and blacks.
What could go wrong?
This is all Black Lives Matter horse shit . Black teachers passing black students because of pressure from black Adminastrators who only count numbers in and out for more funding . All the while knowing their skulls of mush prancing across the stage are headed for absolute failure . Must be racism !
T J F , I not sure if you are right about my grammar skills .I guess I’m to stupid to know the difference.
I probably shouldn’t be hard on Blacks.By the grace of God I have had a pretty good life.I should be just thankful for my life and leave the rest to God.
782/1600 on the SAT..Little better than vegetation…
I believe you get 400 points just for signing your name..the lowest possible score on the SAT – 200 on reading and writing and 200 on maff…
‘For the first time, every Ballou graduate applied and was accepted to college.’
Slap as much lipstick as you like on the pig, it’s still a pig.
Having been a teacher, I believe the media seriously glossed over the problems at Ballou HS in this report.
Glossed over , the media the government the school administration hide or flat out lie about black educational achievement . This is a deliberate attempt to push and prove racial equality but the results prove a severe intellect deficit among blacks over all . Equality is a joke that regardless of how much you spend and lie about the results . The majority o blacks cannot get past that IQ issue
On the one hand, competing for a job with those who are unqualified should be a BREEZE. On the other hand, surviving their mistakes if they ever get the bid may be TOUGH. “Set-asides”, anyone?
We were bidding against another engineering firm and the client called us both in to give presentations on our proposals. The other firm was competent, but put in a “standard” proposal; they didn’t appear to have expertise in this area, had not spent an enormous amount of time on it and their process had a 66% yield on reactants.
We had done our homework; digging through the databases, we found an obscure process that claimed 99% yield on reactants. Not satisfied, we put the process through a software program that simulates chemical processes with thermodynamics, kinetics and heat and energy balances. The software said the obscure process was for real; the simulator came out within 1 – 2% of the claimed yields. We knew what the products, the wastes and the utilities required would be. And we could tell the client what the necessary capital investment (+ / – 25%) and operating capital ( + / – 15%) would be for the size of plant they wanted to build.
Towards the end of our presentation (the competitor went first) their (competitor’s) representatives started agreeing with US: “Their process will work better and give better results than ours does” the competitor’s staff were saying. There’s no disgrace in admitting defeat when you are so clearly out-classed in a proposal, and at least it shows you’re honest. We didn’t hold any grudge for them, they knew less than we did and it showed, and I think the client appreciated their honesty. We got the business.
Now imagine one of these H.S. graduates showing up for the first day at Harvard, Auburn or Texas and getting so blown out of the water that NOT ONE of their classes makes any sense, because their high school passed them in a state of ignorance. How did ANYONE (the kids, the colleges or the high school that passed them) gain anything worthwhile out of such a non-performance? How can they compete, excel or even just survive when they have no tools, no skills and NO EDUCATION THAT THEY PAID FOR to do so?
Who will save these poor lost lambs?
Now just remember AFFIRMATIVE ACTIOn ( which is completely racist) allows these kids based on the color of their skins to receive scholarships and acceptance to colleges BeFORE considering you B average white student. And after graduating these same low IQ sheep will get to step in the front of the line for job interviews and get hire using racial quotas by the Federal Govt. and you fucking wonder why govt doesn’t work. 80% of the fed govt employees are all the same color and it’s not white…..
My son is a college freshmen and can count on both hands the maybe 8 or 9 times he had anything other A’s on his report card his entire life. No financial aid, no scholarships etc. he has been there a few months came home for thanksgiving and said dad, I met a lot of minorities that cannot do basic math and barely read and they are getting free tuition, housing and have the campus food card for the best most expensive organic eatery on campus (he cannot afford to eat there). He asks me “how are they still in my class. I am struggling to keep an 88 avg and can’t seem to get to an A. I don’t want to settle for a “B” but I study 35 hours a week and it’s never enough.” He says when “I asked these people questions because I need help about the subject they don’t even understand the question. How are they still here?” I looked at him and said investigate son….ask them how they did on their test. Maybe ask them to see their test and ask about a specific question on the test and have them show it….see if answered were erased etc. or take a phone pic of the test or their report card, ask them to share their homework, offer to pay them just to see if they are even doing it……etc etc. He did. No homework, test were somehow all A or B grades but they cannot answer a fucking simple question on the subject matter……it is racism against whites clearly and people like my poor son will walk out with knowledge to build a great strong bridge but the ghetto sheep will get the job and we will watch in horror one day in the future when thousands die because a squirrel sneezed and took down an overpass or or expansion bridge because the engineer that graduated with honors can’t fuckin add 2+2…..my son sees what is really happening and is becoming highly discouraged with the whole idea of college. He feels he is wasting time and 150k when he could go start a business and with his acumen turn it into a profitable company and then sell it one of these ghetto sheep in the future for millions because surely the banks will grantbthem a loan under some other community reinvestment act……he has a point.
You do not become an engineer because of the opinion of OTHERS. You might have just one reason or several –
because your brain WORKS and you can see ways to use it to make you better, happier, richer –
because your father was an engineer and demonstrated daily the ethics, work skills and knowledge that left you in awe of what an intelligent person can do –
because your co-workers are some of the brightest, most capable and inspired people you’ll ever meet –
because you want to be a builder, not a parasite or destroyer, and make things that last –
because the numbers and facts sing to you, about semiconductors or bridges or vats full of bubbling chemicals –
because you want to know WHY things do or don’t work, and how you can use them –
There are lots of reasons to become an engineer, but many of the rewards are internal. And they last a lifetime.