Submitted by John Arbeeny.
The CPSD “equity policy” has been developed by a “stakeholders” group consisting of nearly 80% of CPSD employees and then approved by the Board. On paper it is supposed to somehow increase academic performance that is near the bottom 1/3 (35%) of Washington State school districts.
The policy says a lot of nice things about what it wants to achieve but lacks specifics on how those things are to be achieved. So let’s take a look how “equity” in action is being achieved both within CPSD and in other locales as the basis for what to expect and how accomplishment is attempted. Unfortunately the natural tendency of equity programs is to dumb down academic achievement rather than elevate it. It’s so much easier to do it that way.
“Equity” has already had a major impact in CPSD and not a good one. President Schafer crows about how graduation rates have increased from 60% to 88% during his tenure. However he fails to mention that academic achievement has plummeted to below 50% and the District mired at near the bottom 1/3 of Districts statewide. These numbers are headed paradoxically in different directions. What it means is that a diploma from CPSD has been debased to the point where superior and inferior students are indistinguishable to a future employer or college recruiter. It’s a disincentive to succeed. Why try harder when you graduate with the same worthless piece of paper? Diplomas from academically successful districts will be accepted as superior regardless of the relative merits of individual students. That’s “equity” in action.
“Equity” also extends to CPSD administrators (principals). The President of the Clover Park Association of School Principals (CPASP) is Tim Stults who is Principal of Clover Park High School; arguably the worst academically performing school in the District! Ironically his school’s motto is “Failure is not even an option”. Yet the truth is that failure is a reality with dismal grade levels in English Language Arts (ELA) 54%, math 17% and science 18%, attendance 62% yet a graduation rate of 83%! How does that happen?
Yet Stults is head of the CPASP? It reminds me of the Clover Park Education Association (CPEA) Vice President, Filma Fontinella who throws “racist” accusations around with impunity against anyone she disagrees with. How does that happen? I’d have thought a principal of an academically successful school, like Harrison Prep would be in a leadership position. Apparently principals have decided to follow the worst instead of learning from the best. Stults is also “all in” on Critical Race Theory as evidenced by his radically progressive letter of support for Superintendent Banner’s “equity policy” (8/4/21). Did all the other principals sign on to this leftist manifesto? I hope not or the District is really in trouble. That’s “equity” in action.
The CPEA has expressed concern that the natural result of “equity”, specifically involving ELA, will of necessity result in the segregation of students which just coincidently winds up by race and ethnicity (May 2021 Update). The CPEA worried that this segregation wouldn’t look good to outside eyes! So apparently “optics” are more important than truth. Otherwise CPEA does not see any other way to deal with the problem except through a massive increase in educational spending. Why am I not surprised? That’s “equity” in action.
OSPI has gotten into the act recently by permitting districts to water down the number of credits required for graduation which some districts like CPSD have jumped on to clear out their senior classes regardless of whether prepared for life after graduation. This supposedly makes it “fair” for everyone to graduate as well as make districts look good with high graduation rates…….like CPSD. That’s “equity” in action.
“Equity” is in play all over the Country in school districts side stepping academic achievement in the name of “fairness”. A new Oregon law (Senate Bill 744) which suspends a requirement for a basic-skills test in math, reading and writing to graduate high school is being praised by advocates as a way to rethink education standards (equity) and sharply criticized by others as a misguided effort that will hurt children’s learning in the long run. In California, Minnesota and other states, grades below 50% or “F” will no longer be used. That’s “equity” in action
Just imagine the boost to GPAs when missed assignments or poor test scores are discounted. Alternative pass/fail grade systems also conceal the students’ underlying educational achievement. The school districts benefit from an apparent increase in competence (high graduation rates) even as student competence declines precipitously. Motivation, achievement and self esteem are destroyed when grades don’t matter and diplomas are handed out with no value behind them. Take such students and dump them after graduation into a real world where expectations are 180 degrees out from what they’ve experienced in high school and tell me then who the child abusers are! That’s not how adult life works. But that is “equity” in action.
Make no mistake about it. “Equity” sounds great with all the politically correct “woke” words, phrases and concepts but hidden within it are inequities that can only be categorized as immoral and unfair. The proof is not in what equity supporters say or even how it is implemented but rather the actual results achieved as we’ve seen to date. “Equity” is a significant component of Critical Race Theory and part of a Marxist based systemic approach to social engineering. It will fail for the same reason Marxist ideology has failed whenever and where ever attempted. It will fail by systemic design because it fails to understand the system’s key component: human nature. That’s “equity” in action.
I wonder how far they would fall academically if it weren’t for HP. Sadly, though. HP also bit the “equity” bullet.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/luwkv6xv58lon4j/Board%20Presentation%20Jan%202021.pdf?dl=0
Another hit piece. They just keep coming.
He cannot help himself. He wrote the gross and disgusting racist emails, the continuous attacks on ONLY the black and brown people involved with the equity policy as if no other people were involved. He touts the skewed data without accounting for the large margin of error due to circumstances not identified. The minimal credibility he had is gone. He created the CRT narrative and rallied his allies and unsuspecting community members on a lie and sat back watched it all play out. Why does he keep attacking a person who was hired in 2019 right before a pandemic? And then he blames Ron as if he was the one who created all of the problems he perceives in his narrow mind.
The answers are evident in the emails he wrote. He wanted to call the black and brown people involved in the equity policy the “taboo” names of the old days; what were those names John Arbeeny would you care to tell us? What names would you like to use to rub our noses in? Why are you so hateful? At this point, it is ridiculous that you believe the lies you told; that is sad….Would you please get the help you need? You are so consumed with your lies; it has got to be taking a toll on you. Your relationships with those who love and care for you must be strained. You wrote over 15 letters saying the same lie. Take a step back, exhale, and take care of yourself. At first, I was livid with the emails, and yes, the community must know what you did, but now I feel bad for you. The pain you must be in to be so hateful.
Amazing! Not a single word in your response (and several following) to my article dealing with the subject at hand: the current impact of “equity” which has only just scratched the surface. I will cover several more instances in this and my next response. “Gross” and “disgusting” are not rational arguments. Dropping the “R” word or “white supremacist” on someone only signifies that you don’t have an argument to support your position. Such unsubstantiated personal accusations only make you look desperate but I will address some of the points you have made.
My criticisms of the equity stakeholders group were not racially based. I have no idea what the racial composition of the equity “stakeholders” group was and I never mentioned it. However I do know that only about 8% were parents and the vast majority District administrators, teachers, staff and outside individuals with an interest commercially or politically. Why is that important? The lack of parental representation. After all, students are their parents’ children. That is the source of the push back by parents today and the Board is responsible for that happening.
Ron Banner shares some of the blame for the District’s academic failure and controversy surrounding the “equity policy” but it is the Board, the elected representative of the people that is most to blame. The Board hasn’t done its job for years with predictable results. I saw it happen as a Lakewood Council Member. When the Council didn’t do its job, the City Manager picked up the slack with sometimes unfortunate results. Ron Banner should have given the Board a swift kick in the pants to get them doing what they were elected to do rather than take over their responsibilities but I do understand that nature abhors a vacuum.
I did not create the CRT narrative. Turn on the news to see this is national. It was created by the educational establishment and backed up by the NEA, WEA and other national and state educational organizations. What they didn’t plan on was public push-back on CRT and it variants shoved down their throats. Ever since then there has been an attempt to masquerade the CRT wolf in equity’s sheep clothing. It hasn’t worked. So before you claim that equity is just about giving help to those who need it please go read the District’s equity policy and endorsement by the CPASP and tell me it isn’t race-centric.
In effect, the “equity policy” is taking us back to the “taboo” concepts of over 100 years ago and they don’t smell any better today than they did a century ago. “People of color” is just the new term for the formerly offensive “colored people” or “coloreds” but now it’s back in style. “Coloreds” was a term used in apartheid South Africa to describe people by the color of their skin. Is that OK? Is that the first thing you see and judge when you meet someone? Skin color? Define “people of color”. How does one qualify as a “person of color”? Is there a color chart? I’m Hispanic; so is my daughter in law but with darker complexion. Which one of us qualifies? What about mixed race individuals? Where does President Obama’s skin color fit in this scheme and why would it matter?
How do we determine whether we’re “colored” enough to qualify as a “person of color”? Do we go back 100+ years ago when there was the “one drop rule”? Or do we classify people as quadroons (1/4 black) and octoroons (1/8 black) so they can join the group? Proving your racial ancestry to qualify for anything was offensive then and is equally offensive now. It’s none of government or the school’s business but it has increasingly become their business. This is the same kind of racial profiling in Nazi Germany; forcing people to go back generations to prove they weren’t Jews and killing six million who couldn’t. So you want to go back to that, using a person’s skin color as their defining characteristic? So now we’ve come full circle where people are judged by the color of their skin and not the content of their character. Very progressive………..
I might add that the natural progression of hiring teachers by race to teach students by race, because of the mistaken assumption that everyone of the same race has the same culture, will result in another artifact of this Country before 1955: segregation and “separate but equal” educations. The CPEA has already raised that specter with ELA classes. I don’t think we want to go back to that past yet that’s where we’re headed with equity. You’re already seeing this in places with racially segregated college dorms and meeting rooms. Take out the racial component of the current “equity policy” and treat students as individuals instead of merely members of some racial group and perhaps you’d have a program I could support; but that’s not what the “equity policy” is about. When you try to do “right” things for “wrong” reasons the outcome is often unfortunate.
You know little to nothing about me or my family. Don’t make assumptions about people you don’t know. I just happen to have a multi-racial, multi-ethnic, multi-lingual, multi-generational family and we get along just fine. I have a wide variety of friends and associates across the spectrum economically, socially, intellectually, politically, religiously and yes racially. My wife of 42 years and I came from low income, single parent families but that didn’t stop us: instead it challenged us both. Through our family values, education investment, hard work and financial planning we are all successful. If we could do it anyone can. It’s something you do for yourself; not something that someone else does for you. Schools cannot make you succeed; they can only motivate you as an individual, not as a racial group member, to do so.
Problem is your seeming lack of understanding or intentional cherry-picking feeds your misperceptions and misinformation to voters. For example during the recent Lakewood United meeting anti-equity, anti-equality for all (see Anderson’s “Monkey Mentality” letter to the SubTimes) …he stood and said that our districts demographics didn’t and don’t matter, and he added in the same cherry-picking and misinformation you attempt here. Reality is our schools are not failing our kids, and demographics do relate and matter to the outcomes.
As an analogy here would be like making wine or apple cider… the demographic are related to the raw materials that we get to start with (like grapes or apples) and then comparing that with the results of the final finished product which is graduated, (or bottled, capped) and send out into the world.
Demographics do matter. Demographically CPSD has one of the most diverse student bodies in the state and CPSD has the #1 highest transient student rate of any district in the State of WA …and on top of that …initial assessments related to first-year kindergarteners and new incoming students rates our incoming demographics of new students at coming in below average in ‘ready-to-learn’ scoring. In the analogy here this aligns with the scoring or the demographics of the base product that we get started with…
There are basically three measuring points that matter, picking only one part as you and as this letter does is cherry-picking for political effect.
The measuring points of the process (in education, or in making wine or apple cider are:
A) What is the grade or assessment of the base product you have to begin with (this is the demographics of the incoming student body, or the grading of your grapes or apples)
B) What is the scoring along the way related to taking the base product quality up from where it started to making the finished product. (this would be the standardized state testing or OSPI sample, or it would be like the sampling of the raw wine or raw cider while it’s still in the process and before it’s finished)
C) What is the outcome …based on the demographics, the scoring of the raw ingredients or the rating of the base products, then what is the comparative and ultimate end-result or outcome?
Here the analogy holds …be it education as the product or wine or apple cider. the true rational assessment is multi-phased, i.e. what did you start with, how did scores and grading change during the progress and what was the final outcome…
In the CPSD we begin with a base product scored by the state as starting below the average, then in the process, we test it, and we sample and find the sample still needs improvement and has some below average scores (THIS is the part where you get STUCK and myopically focused upon Mr. Arbeeny et al) …but also notable is the coming up to average areas and improving in some of the scoring metrics.
Then finally “what is the scoring of the final and finished product”, and for CPSD we have a 88% graduation rate based on statewide standardized requirements that every single district in WA must ALL meet to graduate it’s students, plus having an 88% graduation rate and that is above-average for school districts in WA
In the CPSD we get and take-in a below average scoring in ‘ready-to-learn’ base, (note: public school’s can’t reject students like private schools, and they must serve all student presented, no matter what… i.e like english-as-a-second language, transient student moving around often, or refugees coming from other places and the list of diversity and unique demographic challenges goes on) …not surprisingly there is some scoring lower on average in the process of teaching them and while addressing their many diverse unique and special needs …and yet in the end we turn out an above-average statewide scoring of students successfully graduating.
And that is the big picture and why it is short-sighted and even dishonest to dismiss the diversity or our districts demographics as Mr. Anderson did at the Lakewood United event, and short-sighted to only look at in-process scores on standardized testing, (as you and Mr. Anderson like to do) while at the same time dismissing CPDS as WA “School Board of the Year” honors, plus “School Board of Distinction” in WA recognition 4 years in a row, and our higher than average outcomes in graduation rates based on standardized statewide requirements.
Do not expect you to change or to stop and start to look bigger picture, but I hope the voting public will… and will vote to retain our experienced, and award-winning CPSD school board leadership.
Demographics and racial groups don’t enroll in schools; individuals do and should be treated as such. School districts have to work with what they’ve got and to essentially blame the racial, ethnic and socioeconomic status of students for the District’s failure academically is a “cop out”. “It is a poor workman that blames his tools” as it is a poor school district that blames its students.
Awards to the Board for other than the District’s academic performance is something of a participation trophy to a losing team. It it self congratulatory. We don’t elect Boards so they can achieve awards; we elect them to ensure our children are educated. If that doesn’t happen any award for something else is moot.
What you’re implying should be alarming to any thinking person. It’s not what you start out with but what you finish up with that determines and measures success. To correlate preparedness of a student before they enter school with where they end up is a shackle that ties them to under achievement. What you’re saying is essentially “you can’t make a silk purse out of a pigs ear”. Really? Some kids just can’t make it all that far because they started behind? Since when is education a zero-sum game? That’s a limitation the Board and administration puts on them to justify their own incompetence. It should be a challenge to bring that student as far as possible regardless of where they started out.
Denying reality is and has been your weakness Mr. Arbeeny. Of course! (no matter what you or Mr. Anderson try to sell…) student diversity and unique demographics and the base of what you start with as a district matters in relation to in-between testing and the ultimate outcomes, as does the recognition of successful and award winning above-the-state-average graduation rate.
Course I’m not trying to change fixed and hyper-political entrenched minds like yours. But instead reveal a light and other info and perspective on the cherry-picking, and misinformation and dishonestly emblematic of your position, your candidate and this letter of yours.
Well said Mr. Arbeeny, as always. Good, cogent argument/reply why the community refuses CRT taught in our schools.
I believe this is the same John Arbeeny that is involved in the racist emails with Paul Wagemann and his friends who are running for school board.
Being able to make up problems is a true sign of first world privilege. Yet here we are.
Complaining about racism where it doesn’t exist.
What did he do? Quote a black man who would be tried for “wrong think” in 2021? Mis arrange otherwise innocuous words? Or maybe it was say an idiom that YOU say is racist when it’s not? I don’t know. Maybe you felt attacked by the Booker T. Washington quote. Maybe it hit a little too close to home.
I am so thoroughly and completely sad that the problems in this school district have brought out the worst in you people. Nothing gets resolved with vitriol like this. It just incites both sides to further attack the other side. You people seem to think that whoever yells the loudest will win!!! Enough!!! Set an example for the children you’re trying to educate and discuss this like level-headed adults! Please! Take a deep breath…and a Valium if necessary and discuss these issues like responsible, mature adults. Thank you,
John, why do your letters always place academic achievement opposite your views on race? I believe our schools can have a successful equity policy and continue to improve academic performance. You continuously write letters expressing your opinion that the two goals are mutually exclusive. Are you the real candidate? The man behind the curtain or simply the spokesperson for the two campaigns?
I urge everyone to cast their ballot carefully. Our children will live with the results.
You mistake my point. There is no causality between an individual’s race and academic achievement potential. We have far too many successful individuals of a variety of minority races, ethnicity and socioeconomic backgrounds to assume that only one sector of our population “has it made” just because of skin color and other sectors can’t do it by themselves just because of skin color. I wrote about these two juxtapositions in a previous Suburban Times article (Racism as a career option, 7/13/21) which contrasted the approach to black liberation espoused by Booker T. Washington versus W.E.B. DuBois. That conflict exists to this day: the difference between self determination and advancement and dependence externally upon the “intellectual elite” (W.E.B Dubois term) for liberation.
You mistake my point. There is no causality between an individual’s race and academic achievement potential. We have far too many successful individuals of a variety of minority races, ethnicity and socioeconomic backgrounds to assume that only one sector of our population “has it made” just because of skin color and other sectors can’t do it by themselves just because of skin color. I wrote about these two juxtapositions in a previous Suburban Times article (7/13/21, Racism as a career choice) which contrasted the approach to black liberation espoused by Booker T. Washington versus W.E.B. DuBois. That conflict exists to this day: the difference between internal self determination and advancement versus dependence externally upon the “intellectual elite” and political action (W.E.B Dubois term) for liberation.
What’s your real reason John A.? What’s in this for you besides your own personal vendetta against who or what? Has anyone ever heard of demonic possession? This is so far beyond reasonable human behavior! Enough already!
LOL! Demon possessed? First time I’ve been called that. Just shows how unhinged some people can get when they’ve nothing else to say.