11-1-95 Apparently the decision has been made by the current board, supported by the new high school principle Jim Gwyn, to discontinue having primarily accelerated classes for the more creative, advanced students to achieve their greatest potential.
Instead they are putting in more lower level classes using rote learning, as opposed to understanding, for the less competent who will probably just be able to get a drone job. They will bore most of the students and lower the overall quality of our schools, rather than teaching kids how to do work at their best potential.
It plays right into the hands of the pro OBE people who believe that everyone should pass a course regardless of their ability and whether the student knows how to read or write isn't overly important. At the same time the SUN School Board is revising the mission statement, in private, that will support this dumbing down of all the classes to allow everyone to graduate regardless of knowledge.
Nearly half of the students in our High School had a D or an F in their grades last year.
This seems to be completely inconsistent with Fate and Duzsick's campaign claims of educational excellence. Could it be SUN lied again just to get your vote?
Does the community want an excellent school or just a school where students just get by. Do you want a graduation certificate that means nothing or do you want to educate the students to their highest possible potential to help them make their way in the world.
Fred Fate again talked about what a wonderful job the Antelope Valley Schools system is doing because they're passing a lot of kids. But the AV Schools don't care what they pass, they'll pass anything. He talks about how we should follow their procedures and use their policies. He forgets that 80% of the community voted to get the hell out of the Antelope Valley District.
Fate and his fellow Board members Barofsky and Duzsick are from a clique in the community who don't realize that times have changed and that people move into Acton and Agua Dulce for quality schools with high educational standards.
There is nothing wrong if a student who won't work hard enough to make it in a good district transfers to the Antelope Valley where he can be passed automatically. I can see no reason why we have to pass them if they can't or won't do the work.
Let's not, under any conditions, dumb down our schools and lower the quality of our classes just because the Union is too lazy to teach properly.
There needs to be some changes at the Middle School and High School if half of the students can't pass a class. This is a reflection more on the administrators and the Union than on the students. Particularly if these students are supposed to have done such a “Wonderful job” according to the principals of the elementary schools.
Now, suddenly in high school, half of them fail. Someone is apparently not telling the truth and it is this SUN controlled School Board which is allowing these people to dumb down the classes without the public knowing it. The Country Journal is also silent about the poor performance of the High School. Since the CJ runs “Paid News”, stories paid for by SUN, you can assume that the entire paper is controlled by SUN.