Fwd: SLCs -- who's minding the store about tracking?

From: Wolff-Michael Roth (mroth@uvic.ca)
Date: Sun Oct 10 2004 - 09:15:36 PDT


Begin forwarded message:

> From: Kenneth Tobin <ktobin@gc.cuny.edu>
> Date: October 10, 2004 9:14:33 AM PDT
> To: Wolff-Michael Roth <mroth@uvic.ca>
> Subject: Re: SLCs -- who's minding the store about tracking?
>
> Hi Michael. Yes, I could not agree more with this concern expressed
> by Peg. I think the problem is when any structure that is intended to
> address high priorities, such as safety, become reified over time when
> different structures should have emerged to meet the unfolding
> exigencies of social life in schools.
>
> I will get in touch with you a little later. I have just come in from
> breakfast with J&S.
>
> Best wishes,
>
>
> Ken
> On Oct 10, 2004, at 12:01 PM, Wolff-Michael Roth wrote:
>
>>
>>
>>
>> Begin forwarded message:
>>
>>
>>> Resent-From: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
>>> From: "Peg Griffin" <Peg.Griffin@worldnet.att.net>
>>> Date: October 10, 2004 9:05:34 AM PDT
>>> To: <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
>>> Subject: SLCs -- who's minding the store about tracking?
>>> Reply-To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
>>>
>>> Hi,
>>> I see a worry about small learning communities (SLCs) that I hadn't
>>> recognized before. When I read the Roth et al. article on identity, I
>>> got a reflected sense of the injustice of people in the school who
>>> held power over resources for science education. Roth's answer to
>>> some of my queries verified my suspicion that the resources were
>>> reserved for what might once have been called higher tracks of
>>> students and teachers. It is okay to know that the teacher (and
>>> co-author) from the setting studied is no longer in the basement and
>>> at the mercy of resource holders.
>>>
>>> But what about SLCs overall and the cultural keep away routines we
>>> are
>>> familiar with from tracking in schools?
>>>
>>> As it stewed and I mulled, I am more and more thinking about how easy
>>> it could be for SLCs to be the back door way for tracking to flourish
>>> with its worst intent and consequences.
>>> Massive money (e.g. Gates' funds, some fed funds) and many policy
>>> initiatives are going into SLCs for high schools and enthusiasm for
>>> them is high. It seems as if some good learning, teaching, and
>>> changing of ideas about schooling is possible in many of them. Many,
>>> too, are in and of communities that have been historically treated
>>> with inequality.
>>>
>>> Maybe the issue is well in hand, and I am just out of touch. Can
>>> anyone tell me who is minding the "attack inequality (re)production"
>>> store with respect to SLCs and any potential they have for letting
>>> the
>>> worst of tracking sneak in?
>>>
>>> Peg
>>>
>>> Peg Griffin
>>> 329A Cloverdale Rd.
>>> Montgomery, AL 36104
>>> (334) 265-4468
>>> Peg.Griffin@worldnet.att.net
>>> Research Affiliation: Laboratory of Comparative Human Cognition
>>>
>>>
>
>
> Kenneth Tobin
> Presidential Professor, Urban Education
> The Graduate Center
> City University of New York
> 365 Fifth Avenue
> New York, NY 10016-4309
>
> http://web.gc.cuny.edu/urbaneducation/tobin/
>
> 212 817 8284
> ktobin@gc.cuny.edu
>
>



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