Magnet Schools May Not Be All They’re Cracked Up To Be

Parents rush to meet magnet application deadlines and students rejoice when they receive their acceptance letters in the mail. But would parents be so eager to send their students to these top-ranked high schools if they knew there would be 47 kids in their math class? If they knew that their student might not have a desk or a textbook? On the first day of school Superintendent Vitti visited Stanton, most likely just for a good photo op. He walked into one of the smaller classes (37) and said “wow, this is a big class.” Then why doesn’t he do something to change it? How are students supposed to learn when they can’t even see the board or hear the teacher through the other 47 students in their jammed packed classroom? Vitti has put great emphasis on enforcing the dresscode, yet it’s the 2nd week of school and I still don’t have textbooks for all my classes. There have been also been attempts to increase the size of the IB program. All this will do is lower qualifications, lower test scores, and make the program lose any credibility it had left.

Our superintendent shoots from the hip, not the head. All of the decisions he’s made can’t possibly be thought through. Having an extra hours in the school day for reading instruction (not required by the state) apply to the ESE wing of schools? If the superintendent had actually stepped into an ESE wing he may realize that many of these students have trouble even communicating. How will reading instruction benefit them? The idea that class sizes only apply to regular level courses, how will that affect testing rates? By increasing class sizes in AP and honors classes, the test scores will simply drop and these programs will also lose credibility. They’re policing the dress-code and policing social media posts, but they’re not focusing on anything that actually matters. Where are my textbooks? Where is my desk? Why am i stuck in this dictator-like system of education?