September 18, 2007 at 8:18 am · Filed under Uncategorized
This is a website about a book called Our City.
The book is about children not learning, or getting left behind. It’s about adults doing nothing to fix it. It’s about racism and gun control and principals and test scores.
It use to be that when you got left behind you repeated the grade. Now when you get left behind you are simply passed on to the next grade, still behind. In inner-city schools like Philadelphia, a whole lot of children are getting left behind and are reading waaaaaaaaay below grade level.
So they quit. Instead of going on to college–like children are suppose to do–they can’t even get a job
because they may be reading at a third grade level. Many are African American and Latino. What happens next? They get into trouble. What would you expect them to do, become the CEO of TastyKake Cakes and Pies?
Are we talking about a few kids? No, a whole lot of them. It’s not just a Philadelphia problem, either. It has school administrators all across the country scratching their heads. They can’t solve the problem, so every year it gets worse.
So relax and explore around Our City’s website and see the problems for yourself and what we can do about it. ALL children must be educated in the inner-city schools, and then and only then will murder and crime begin to decrease.
June 6, 2007 at 6:16 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
But if I ran the zoo…
said young Gerald McGrew
I’d make a few changes
that’s just what I’d do…”
The book Our City provides answers to the question…”what would you do?” Two newspaper editors meet and seek the answers through inner-city, public school children’s test scores, as a result of No Child Left Behind. In a city public school system where over 40 percent of the children are dropping out, there is a direct relationship to the dropout rate and crime in the streets. Therefore, test scores play a key role. But how to prepare children, and how to make the classroom a safe, learning environment, play an even larger role. Please go to the right side box, In This Issue, and begin exploring Our City, the book.
June 1, 2007 at 9:51 am · Filed under Uncategorized
Part Two: Excerpt from the book Our City…How Do They Get Their Guns?
“teach your children, not to hate…hope they learn for’ it’s too late…to get rid of the bad laws and keep the good…save the oceans and the woods…once it’s lost, can’t be returned, it’s another long hard lesson learned.” Country singer John Anderson
“Yea, someone did break into my home last week. Excuse me? I live in Bangor, just above Easton. They stole our computers, a little cash, some inexpensive jewelry, and, oh yea, the bums took my guns. What’s that? Oh, ah, couple of deer rifles, two shotguns, a .22 rifle, and three handguns. You want to know what kind of handguns? You’re really rubbing this in, huh?
“I have, or I guess you can say had, a 22 rimfire target pistol, a Browning high power semi auto, it was 9 mm, and a, damn, what a nice gun, a Colt Python .357 Mag.”
The thing is, all Rahdeem knows about the gun he has is if he squeezes the trigger several times, rounds go off, making noise. In a shooting contest, you think Rahdeem will win? I think not. But in the ‘hood, it don’t matter if you shoot straight, what matters is you can shoot.
“Hey, Rahdeem is packin,’ stay away from the brother, yo?”
“Don’t worry, he can’t hit anything.”
“Don’t matter, he packin.’”
What about more rounds once Rahdeem uses up those that came with the gun? Where does Rahdeem get more ammunition?
“Ah yo, need some ammunition for my duce-duce, got any?”
“Sure, you want longs or shorts?”
“Don’t want any of that stuff, want ammo, bro.”
“All right, how many boxes do you want?”
“I got twenty bucks, how many can I get with that?”
Maybe the Philadelphia legislators would have better results if they tried putting restrictions on purchasing ammunition. Doesn’t say anything in the Second Amendment about owning or buying ammunition.
Sooner or later, Rahdeem gets ‘the look.’ He’ll wait. He’ll wait. He’ll wait until the mf is at the end of the block. Then the duce-duce comes out from the belt and it’s ‘crack, crack, crack.’
Rahdeem doesn’t stay around long enough to see if he’s hit anything. And he usually doesn’t. Well, he usually doesn’t hit the intended target. Nobody taught him how to shoot, yo? Of course, the 14 year old kid crossing Lehigh Avenue doesn’t count. Rahdeem wasn’t aiming at him. He was busy shooting at the mf who gave him ‘the look.’
(The following is based on a true account)
Yusef keeps the barber shop open two nights a week. People who work all day, he says, got to have time for a cut.
There’s a street in the back, which comes off another side street. You’ve got to almost know where you are going to get to the back of Yusef’s shop. Pull right up close to the door. Hand things in when it’s dark, drive away. You done your business.
Customers come through the front door. Especially the customers on Monday and Thursday nights. Like Kareem, he comes in at 8. Taps on the door, Yusef lets him in, then locks the door. Kareem sits in the chair and Yusef wraps an apron around him, clasped at the neck.
“Got somethin’ real nice for you tonight,” Yusef tells him. “Real nice.”
“What you got?” Kareem says, “you ain’t wastin’ my time are you?”
“What you talking about brother?” Yusef says. “Nobody’s wasting your time. Got a nice double action revolver for you, six shot. It light, stick in your belt real nice.”
“Ah man come on,” Kareem says, “don’t give me that garbage can crap. You got to do better than that.”
“Got a .22 pistol,” Yusef tells him. “Nice rimfire .22 pistol. Good price.”
Kareem starts to remove the apron.
“Bro you is wastin’ my time. I thought you has somethin’ good,” Kareem says. “I got business to do, man I ain’t dealin’ with this small stuff.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, brother, sit down,” Yusef says, “sit down, now. I treat you right tonight, you ain’t goin’ nowhere. How about a Browning high power semi?”
“What number you talkin’?”
“Nine,” Yusef tells him.
“You got it here?”
Yusef takes a short step to the wall just below the mirror, where he keeps the clippers, combs and styling gel. He opens one of the little compartments and takes the 9mm semiautomatic out and drops it in the large pocket of his barber’s jacket. He turns around, lifts up the apron just enough, takes the semi and drops it on Kareem’s lap, then lets the apron fall back down. He continues clipping around Kareem’s ears.
“Feels good, yo. How much?”
“Twelve hundred,” Yusef says.
“You out of you freakin’ mind?” Kareem says. “Here, get it back.”
“Ahite, a grand,” Yusef says.
“Nine hundred. That’s all I’m goin’. Nine hundred.”
“Ahite it’s yours,” Yusef says. “It’s a beauty.”
“What about ammo? You got ammo with it?”
“Got two boxes. You can have them for another fifty.”
“Let me up then, before you screw up my hair.”
Kareem gets up with the semi tucked in his belt. He takes out a roll of bills and counts out the money. Yusef puts the money into his jacket pocket and goes back to the barber supplies cupboard and gets two small boxes, turns around and hands them to Kareem. Kareem leaves and Yusef locks the door behind him.
Yusef doesn’t buy firearms in gun shops. He gets them in other ways. From people in the ‘hood who steal them and know he’s an outlet, or from brothers who make their living using ‘contacts’ to go into the best gun shops in the state, usually in rural areas, and come out with what drug dealers want and can afford. They’re called ’straw buyers,’ and they usually don’t buy just one gun, but fifteen or twenty. It’s safer for them to deal with Yusef, rather than deal directly with drug dealers.
Yusef will get a good price for the .357 Mag he has from the Bangor burglary. Kareem is small time. Yusef will wait until a drug dealer wants the best, then he’ll get a lot more for the Mag. He has other guns in the shop he didn’t tell Kareem about, like the two .44 caliber revolvers, two .357 caliber revolvers, 4 more 9mm semiautomatics, three .41 caliber Magnum revolvers, four .38 caliber revolvers, and the honey of them all, a Tec-9, an assault weapon that was banned for ten years until Congress lifted the ban in 2004.
Then, too, there are the FFLs, people who are licensed to buy and sell firearms, but do so to thugs like Yusef. All in all, Yusef has access to hundreds of guns a month, and when felons like Kareem go shopping, they go to Yusef for a trim.
May 4, 2007 at 11:49 am · Filed under Uncategorized
Excert from the book, Our City: Tests are part of our culture.
If you didn’t graduate from high school because you had other things on your mind, fine. You don’t have to live with that forever.
But you will have to take the GED test to get your diploma.
If you did graduate from high school, and you want to go to college, okay. But to get into college you will have to take the SAT. How you do on the SAT, and how much money you have, will determine which college you attend.
Unless you can run a hundred meters in 12 seconds or less, knocking down people as you go; or hit a baseball 500 feet. If you are seven foot-two, or you can hit a jumper from top of the key, colleges might be picking you.
But the rest of us…?
If you studied and did well in college and you want to go to law school or medical school, no matter how smart you are, you will have to take the LSAT or the MCAT. To go to graduate school you have to take the GMAT or the GRE exam.
But if you don’t want to go to college and want to build homes, you’ll have to take the contractor’s test. Want to fix leaky pipes? Take the plumbers test.
Want to become an accountant? Take the CPA exam.
Insurance brokers have to take the Property and Casualty exam.
Teachers have to take the Praxis test.
Nurses have to take the NCLX, the nursing exam.
Law enforcement people have to take personality tests to make sure they aren’t crazy. And if you are looking for a date, you may have to take a different type of personality test to see if your interests match that honey blonde on the internet.
Let’s see, there’s the policemen’s exam.
The civil service exam.
The drivers test if you don’t want to walk everywhere and the dietitian’s exam if you think you want to tell people what to eat. If they eat too much, there’s the psychological exam you have to take to become a counselor. Then you can help them overcome their food problems.
In most cases, you don’t become anything without taking a test.
Then why do people think it’s wrong that school children have to take the PSSA test to see if they can read at grade level or do math, two of the most important advancements since we started walking upright?
“I’m tired of hearing all about the No Child Left Behind business and the government tests children have to take. When are teachers going to get back to teaching and get away from teaching children tricks on how to take a test?”
Teaching tricks on how to take a test?
“Okay, put your name at the top of the paper. Everybody do this step? Now answer the questions from one to fifty and when you are through, turn your paper over and place your pencil on top of your desk.”
Is this ‘ a trick teaching how to take a test’?
How do you teach children ‘how to take a test?’
“Students, if you want to do well on this test, get up from your desk and run around in circles for five minutes, then sit down and you will do better on the exam. Is everybody ready to try it?”
Wait! You are teaching children tricks on how to take a test! Knock it off.
“Or, start from the back of the test and work your way forward, and you will do better on tests. Research has proven this theory. Now I want everyone to try it with this test. Ready?”
Stop that. You are teaching students the tricks!
Get real, how can you teach students tricks on how to take a test? Unless…
You teach them about the material that’s on the test, and how to better look for ways to identify trick questions. You remember them, don’t you?
If a farmer has ten bushels of lemons and five bushels of apples, how many pieces of fruit does he have if there are 1,000 pieces in a bushel?
Careful, this is a trick question. If you come across this in any test, doesn’t matter which test it is, it might be that dietician test, the one Mrs. Rudy gave, you know that there can’t be exactly 1,000 pieces of fruit in every bushel.
Is that what they mean by “teaching students how to take a test?”
What’s wrong with that?
“Excuse me, I taught my students how to read better by making them read aloud in class and giving them five short little reading tests a week about the American Revolution. Therefore, when history questions appear on any test they are taking, they will: a) read better; and b) be able to answer questions about the Revolution, or about any reading question on the exam.”
Is that what they mean by ‘teaching how to take the test?’
What’s wrong with that?
I thought when I graduated from Millersville University and entered the teaching profession; for which I had to take the SAT, the GRE, and then the Praxis exams, my job was to transfer information, then test the students to see how much of the information they absorbed.
Well, isn’t that what the PSSA test does?
Okay, so what’s wrong with cramming that information down their throats-day in and day out–and giving them lots of tests to make sure that some of the information was actually absorbed into their grey matter?
Then, when it comes time to take a test, a) they have the information, and b) they feel comfortable with taking a test (because they took 600 tests).
Something wrong with that?
Let me ask you this. Have you ever heard a person say, “I can’t do tests well. I freeze up. I’m just not a good test taker. So therefore, I’m afraid of tests and do crappy (a kids’ word) when I take them.”
You say you are like that?
Well then, what’s the problem with preparing children for the PSSA exam? What’s wrong with testing them to see how much information they learned? Isn’t that the whole basis of our society, from the SAT to the Nursing exam?
“We need to push our students’ to think beyond tests. We need to have our students take risks when in discussion with other students, and have them develop critical thinking skills. If we are teaching to proficiency (the PSSA test), that’s not good, we need to refocus our priorities and teach children to communicate with each other.”
Refocus our priorities?
Put yourself in a teachers’ shoes. What would you prefer: having your students talk to each other freely and take risks with their opinions? or be able to read at grade level (if you are in fifth grade you should be able to read like a fifth grader) and be comfortable with taking a test, no matter if the test is the PSSA or the Property and Casualty exam?
Because whatever is on the PSSA test, you should be teaching it in your classroom, doesn’t matter if its math, history, reading, or science. How do you know what to teach? By knowing the anchors the PDE has designed for each grade and subject.
But if a child sits down, takes a test and does well, then you think that child hasn’t learned anything, other than how to take a test?
Is that right?
“Oh wow, I now have to take this CPA exam to become a CPA. Look at this thing, its a hundred and thirty pages long. Oh, brother, the schools I went to made me take risks in discussing things and talk about the future. They weren’t hot on reading, math, and answering test questions. They thought it was an invasion of my rights and privacy.
“Okay, how can I pass this CPA exam using ‘opinion discussion skills’ I learned in school? Maybe they will let me write an essay. No, that’s no good, because we didn’t do much writing, either. We imagined the future, though. Maybe they will let me talk about imagining the future to replace this stupid CPA exam. I think I’ll raise my hand and ask.”
It doesn’t matter that the child successfully answered 150 questions about the Civil War or the American Revolution? If a child can take a test and show what he or she learned, you think somebody taught that child how to take the test?
“Okay students, here is a reading strategy I want you to follow. When you first see the test, look at the passage you have to read and do the following:
- First, look at the title and any photographs, illustrations or captions that you see before reading the content.
- Then, write down three predictions on what you think the story is about. The predictions should be one or two sentences. Write those predictions directly on the reading document.
- Scan the multiple choice test questions at the end so you have an idea of what the questions are before you read the story content.
- Now read the story.
- During the reading underline (highlight) or asterisk anything in the reading that you think might relate to the questions (which you scanned before you read the story).
- When finished, check your predictions to see if they were correct.
- Next, answer the multiple choice questions.
- Refer back to the passage to check your answers.
“When you are finished the test, I will make each one of you read your predictions aloud. I will also check your story to see if you highlighted or underlined information which related to your predictions. So make sure you follow all of the directions before you begin reading. Any questions?”
“Miss, why do we have to do all this? Can’t we just read the story and go to sleep?”
Two questions: 1) Is this what they mean by teaching students how to take tests? and 2) Which method would you prefer for your child:
- learning the eight-step strategy, outlined above, so that whenever he takes a reading test, he’ll have the ability to approach the reading with that strategy, the rest of his life;
- have the teacher say to the students, ‘Okay read the material and answer the questions. When you are done, put your pencil down. Any questions?’
- have the teacher say to the students, ‘instead of taking the reading test, which is too invasive, break off in little groups and talk about your future, and don’t be afraid to take risks when giving your opinion about it.’
Tell me which strategy is better. And tell me which group of students will learn more from what they read: the first group that used the seven-plus strategy, the second group that simply read the story, or the third group that took risks?
Which group of students will do better on the PSSA exam?
Moreover, let’s say the school where your child attends gives reading tests once or twice a day, and has the students go through the eight-point reading strategy so much that the students do the steps in their sleep.
“Bob, wake up, you have to come to Amiyr’s room right away.”
“What’s the matter dear?”
“He’s asleep, but he is doing something in his sleep.”
“What is it, is he sleep walking?”
“No, listen. It sounds like he’s taking a test in his sleep.”
“Listen to what he is saying…
Amiyr, sitting up in bed, “Make sure you underline the information that relates to your predictions, now read the story…”
“Oh, no. It’s that damn school again, teaching him how to take a test.”
Meanwhile, at the other school, the school that gives reading tests to its students once a week, maybe-where the test scores are below basic-the school that doesn’t use the eight-point reading strategy:
“Here, take this test and when you are finished put down your pencil. There is no cheating, no talking, no chewing gum, and no questions. Begin.
“Okay, pass them forward, I’ll mark them tonight. Now, let’s talk about our future.”
Then at night, when mom checks on her child?
“Oh, look dear, Kandace is sleeping so peacefully.
“Yea, she’s probably dreaming about her future.”
When it comes time for a student to take a test, be it PSSA or GRE or LSAT, which student do you think will do better on the reading part of the test?
Is this teaching students to take a test?
Or is this teaching students reading. Period. It just might be, with the eight-point reading strategy, schools are teaching students a valuable life lesson on how to understand what they are reading and how to best prepare them to answer test questions. Thank you PSSA test.
Unless, that is, the student leaves school, becomes a monk and lives on a mountain top somewhere and never has to take another test for the rest of his earthly existence.
But wait a minute. Guess what?
In order to become a monk, you have to answer fifteen test questions.
Sorry.
In math, there are strategies, too. Strategies like the t-chart for problem solving. Plus, you have to read properly to answer questions in solving math problems.
“Braheem drives 300 miles on the first day of his five day trip to visit his grandma. The second day he drives 300 miles, plus an additional 20 miles. The third day he drives 300 miles, plus an additional 40 miles. If he continues driving in this fashion, how many miles will he have driven by the fifth day?
In order to solve this word problem, you have to a) be able to read and understand what the problem is asking, and b) know the steps needed to solve the problem.
If you’ve practiced this strategy in class, time and time again, then see it on the PSSA exam, how do you think you’ll do?
Is that teaching students how to take a test?
No Child Left Behind and state accountability through testing children have given schools a weapon. Now school administrators can say, “Yes, Nehemie can’t do math well. We need to work with her so she can do math at her grade level.”
But how do you know she can’t do math at her grade level?
“Well, Nehemie did terribly on the PSSA test in March. All of her test results were in the basic and below basic levels. Compared to the students in her grade, she is way below grade level in math and reading.
“We can’t allow Nehemie to leave school like this.”
Then you better start teaching Nehemie how to take a test!
May 4, 2007 at 11:24 am · Filed under Uncategorized
Here is an excerpt from the book Our City:
The coffee shop?
Could be in Duncannon, nestled in close to the Susquehanna, where the tough and cagey smallmouth leap six inches out of the water to shake off a spinner; or just off route 255 in St. Marys, a small town settled by German Catholic immigrants from Philadelphia, who bought 30,000 acres of wilderness at seventy-five cents an acre; or in Smethport, 30 miles from the Kinzua Damn and the black cherry, yellow poplar, white ash, and red maple timber of the Allegheny National Forest.
Could be in Coundersport, God’s Country, they say, where the whitetail out number Homo sapiens in Potter County, 3-1, making it a hunter’s paradise; or in Troy, where Pennsylvania hardwood is made into necessary equipment for youngsters who dream of Williamsport and playing in the big one.
Could be any coffee shop where men hold court before the working day starts, and opinions are as cheap as the 75 cents coffee.
As he moves through the restaurant, milk, and ice cream store, he’s greeted by people he’s known all his life; the same folks he sees every morning. By the time he gets to the back table, the boys are waiting for him.
“Hey fellows, what’s up?
“Tommy, I got your coffee right here,” Jeannie the waitress says.
“Hey Tommy,” his buddy Mark hollers across the table, “you see that junk in the paper this morning?”
He sips his coffee, loops his John Deere hat on the back of this chair and says, “What junk is that? It’s all junk, don’t you know that Mark?”
“They got this woman who’s kid was shot randomly in Philly, which is bull right there, and now she’s speaking in Harrisburg. What a crock.”
“What’s wrong with that,” Tommy says, “hell, maybe they’ll make her a college professor.”
The boys laugh.
“Yea, let me get this right,” Bobby says, “she’s driving around with a drug dealer, while her hubby is sittin’ in the slammer cause he’s a caught drug dealer.”
Then Mark says, “Yea, and she’s got this kid, the little girl who got shot? From the dealer in prison, but she got another kid from the drug dealer she’s with now. ”
“They’re all doin’ it down there, what do ya expect?” Little Joe says.
“You got that stuff right.”
“But listen to this,” Mark says. “First she lies to the police and tells them nobody else was in the car, you know, when her kid got shot.”
“What do you expect her to say?” Tommy says. “Hell, Mark, have some sympathy, will ya?”
They all laugh again.
“Well, what I’m gettin’ at,” Mark continues, “is that they take her to Harrisburg to speak on gun control.”
The smiles disappear and the table gets quiet. The joking is over.
“They’re doin’ what?” Tommy asks.
“Yesterday,” Mark says, “she went to Harrisburg and spoke about too many freakin’ guns and how the legislators there need to make more gun laws.”
“Do you believe that stuff?”
“Yea, I read all about that,” says Coop Wagner, who owns the town’s sporting goods store and who the fellows call Wags. “You know what the amazing thing is? Everybody down there is saying no more guns, we need this law, and we need that law. “
“Oh hell yea,” Little Joe pipes in, “that’s gonna solve all their problems.”
“Not one damn person said ‘we need to get rid of the drug dealers,” Wags said. “Or we need to clean up our city and get rid of the criminals. We need to fix the schools so everybody’s not killing everybody.”
“That’s cause they’re all a bunch of dummies,” Tommy said.
“I’ll tell you one thing,” Mark said, “they ain’t gettin’ my guns cause about two million NRA voters will vote their asses right out of there. Except for that dirt hole Philly, you tell me one politician who will vote for gun control. It’s a joke.”
“I’ll tell you where the problem is,” Wags says,” we got to bring them drug dealers up here and teach them how to shoot, so they stop killin’ people who they ain’t aimin’ at.”
“Yea, well maybe when they’re up here you can have them speak in Harrisburg,” Tommy says.
They roar with laughter again.
“Look, I’ve got to get to work,” Wags says. “Bobby, you comin’ in today to take a look at that double barrel you want?”
Bobby spits his chaw-juice into a paper cup and says, “Yea Wags, I will.”
“Well you better hurry up before that woman speakin’ at Harrisburg talks them legislators into gun control,” Little Joe says.
Everybody laughs.
“That’s right, Bobby,” Tommy says, “she’ll get up there and start sittin’ on their freakin’ laps and you can kiss that double barrel goodbye.”
The roar with laughter again.
“All right, I’ll see you guys tomorrow,” Wags says. “Hey Jeannie, good coffee, tell your hubby I said hello.”
“Thanks Wags,” Jeannie says, “sounds like you guys are having fun over there this morning. See you tomorrow.”
May 4, 2007 at 10:13 am · Filed under Uncategorized
Please feel free to make a comment about Our City, email the author directly at: cos1@fastmail.fm
He would like to hear from you. (That’s cos1 (numeral one) at fastmail.fm).
May 4, 2007 at 10:11 am · Filed under Uncategorized
Ron Costello wrote Our City in South Philadelphia, but moved and now lives on Arch Street in Center City. He wrote Our City after spending a year teaching in two charter schools in Philadelphia.
Growing up in a blue collar town on the hills overlooking Philadelphia’s Schuylkill River, Ron has spent his career in education. He worked his way through college as a regional reporter for the Gannett owned Elmira Star Gazette. He’s written newspaper columns for the Wellsboro Gazette and Elmira Star Gazette.
Just after college graduation, he taught and coached for five years in a rural high school, where his students’ newspaper won the Keystone Award for the best high school newspaper in Pennsylvania. He coached girls’ basketball, girls’ volleyball, and boys’ baseball.
For the next 25 years he was an educational fund-raiser for Penn State University, the University of Illinois, and Temple University, where he was Associate Vice President for Leadership Gifts. He’s raised millions of dollars for student scholarships and faculty support endowments, i.e., Chairs and Professorships.
“When someone gives $100,000 for a student scholarship endowment,” Costello says, “they expect the university to champion that endowment to the best interests of the students who receive it. When you deal with generous people who give back like that, and young people who appreciate scholarship help, you learn the true meaning of education.”
He worked closely with professors at Penn State—both teachers and research scientists—to help raise endowment funds for ice cream research and student scholarships in food science; endowment funds to help foresters develop stronger and hardier hardwood trees; and endowment funds in plant pathology to provide research for eliminating mushroom disease, which continues to help Chester Country, Pennsylvania, mushroom farmers.
Just before he wrote Our City, Ron spent a year at two inner-city schools learning first hand about urban education. He taught history to grades four through eight and called it an “eye opening experience.”
The author is an avid runner who logs at least twenty five miles a week through the streets in ‘Rocky country.’ He currently writes a column about the Phillies on three websites. You can find it at: http://www.fightinphilsfans.com/
May 4, 2007 at 10:07 am · Filed under Uncategorized
Excert from the book, Our City: Covering our schools…
“Is everybody here now?” Mike Queary, Deputy City Editor of the Inquirer asked. Queary grew up in Roxborough and went to Temple, then 
to J-school at the University of Missouri. He lives on the Main Line, in Ardmore, just outside the city. On his way up, his two kids went through more schools than Flipper.
Queary has been a newspaper man all his adult life, right out of Missouri. He started as a beat reporter in Columbus, Ohio, for The Columbus Dispatch; then moved to a beat job on Long Island. From there he took an assignment with the Detroit Free Press. His first big break came with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, where he served as assistant regional editor.
After ten years in Pittsburgh, The Philadelphia Inquirer called and made him an offer. Queary accepted and became regional editor for The Inquirer. He won a Pulitzer Prize for his staff’s coverage of the protests at the 2000 Republican Convention, and shortly after that he was promoted to Deputy City Editor.
Queary is a newsman, alright, but a newsman who knows that in today’s market you have to sell the paper before it can be read. In other words, give the customer what he wants, or else he might pickup the free newspaper, The Metro, published by the city bus company. That rag–and all the blogs on the internet–are bringing good journalism down, Queary says.
“Angie isn’t here yet,” volunteered Tom Spencer, assistant editor of the family section. Spencer was sitting in for his boss, Anna Wellington, family editor.
“Well God damn it,” Queary said, “where the hell is she? I’m getting sick of her late crap.”
“I think I see her now, yea here she comes,” said Carmella Owens, assistant city editor.
The meeting of the minds at the Inquirer is held twice a day in a glass room, which is actually Queary’s office, that way he can watch over things. A deputy city editor watches the newsroom the way mama watches her kids playing with other kids in the backyard. When something goes wrong, peering out over his glasses, as he works on a big shot editorial about too many guns on the streets, the deputy city editor can take steps to head off problems, problems that are an editor’s nightmare–like late stories.
He can see if somebody is unhappy with an assignment or if the business columnist isn’t getting along with the beat reporter for the municipal courts. Or why the general assignment reporter (GAR) is hitting on the female reporter who covers styles and trends in fashion, recently hired out of St. Bonaventure, and looks like she should be in the photos, instead of designing their layout.
Then he’ll pick up his phone and ask the GAR to see him. Now, getting the call from the deputy city editor, the GAR thinks he’s in line for either a promotion, or a hot story assignment, like a triple murder or the flower show at the Convention Center, where any decent reporter worth his testosterone can do well with the ladies at the same time covering daffodils and gladiolas. What with the Marriott reachable without even going out on the street, I mean, come on.
So the GAR does the skippity-hop straight into the glass room and says, ‘Hey, what’s up boss?’ and instead of getting the flower show job, gets some advice.
“Listen Mike,” Queary says, “we didn’t hire Miss Body so you could have fantasies all day. Leave her alone and get that story done on the fire commissioner. I told you yesterday you were already a day late with it. It’s in tomorrow’s edition or you have a big problem and it’s not in your fantasies, if you get my drift.”
“Oh, sure boss. It will be done today…”
“Sorry I’m late,” Angie says, as she arrives at the meeting.
“Damn-it, Angie,” Queary says, “what are we running here, a Goddamn…ah hell never mind. Alright we’re all here, Spencer you’re covering for Wellington, alright, good. Now what do we have, tell me what we’ve got for tomorrow’s paper.”
City editor Tom Reynolds, who’s usually quieter than mouse crap on a kitchen floor, spoke up first.
“Last night there were two murders in the north near Temple, and one in Germantown. The one in Germantown was a woman sitting on her front porch. Couple of kids fighting in a nearby park. She took one in the throat but that wasn’t the one that killed her, it was the second one that hit her forehead.”
“Damn,” Spencer said, “you can’t sit on your front porch anymore? Ya get shot for sitting on your front porch?”
“Hey,” Reynolds answered, “it’s news isn’t it?”
“Depends on what you call news,” Angie said.
“Anyway,” Reynolds said, “we’ve got probably a half a page on that with two photos. Plus there was a stabbing on Locust Street in Center City so overall it was a pretty good day for news.”
Angie frowned and shook her head.
“Alright what else have we got,” Queary said.
Angie spoke up: “Listen, how about a feature on the Philly school district and how the schools are doing on AYP?”
Tom Reynolds: “AYP, what the hell is that?”
“Annual Yearly Progress,” Angie said, “It’s mandated. According to the No Child Left Behind Act, schools have to report on whether or not they make progress each year.”
“Way, wait a minute,” Queary said. “What’s the story, did too many kids flunk? Any principals get fired for touching kids? Where the hell is the story here?”
Queary is getting slightly pissed off, as he always does with Angie. He told the boys in the suits downstairs not to hire a Swathmore graduate with a liberal arts degree. Every Goddamn day she wants to save the world. Of course, the dopes didn’t listen to him and now he has to do his job and hers.
“The story is, are the schools progressing according to law?” she replied. “What we ought to do is a five day series on AYP and let our readers know what’s going on there.”
“I’ve told you before,” Queary said. “When there is a story there, a s-t-o-r-y, when a kid sneaks in a gun, or a teacher gets beaten up, or somebody falls out a third floor window, then we’ll go after the schools. Nobody gives a shit about ADP.”
“AYP,” Angie said.
“Fine, whatever. Right now Miss smarty pants, the guy who makes the cheese steaks is hot, what’s his name, Venti or something.”
“Vento,” Reynolds piped in. “Joey Vento.”
“You know another thing boss,” Spencer says, “we could do a follow up on the towns up around New Hope that got flooded out. I could work with the new fashion editor and do a combined thing.”
“Yea,” Queary says, “I bet you could do a combined thing with her, huh?” Then he laughs, and so does Reynolds and Spencer. Angie doesn’t.
“So, your idea of news is flood photos, huh Spence?” Angie piped in. “Hell, my basement got flooded yesterday, why don’t you cover that?”
“Why don’t you cover this,” Spencer says back.
“Okay,” Queary said, “let’s knock off the crap and get professional, shall we? Now what about Vento?”
“Fine,” Angie says, “I suppose you are not interested in the test score results in Camden, test scores that went from 92.5 proficiency in math one year, to 12.3 percent the following year and nobody can explain why.
“Or in another Camden school math scores went from 75.4 proficiency to 15.4 the following year and nobody can explain why.
“That would be like Hamels throwing five no hitters in his rookie season, then the following year he can’t get past the second inning, in any game he starts. Somebody might come to the conclusion that he was juicing up on something in his rookie season and start a major investigation. I’m sure this paper couldn’t get out of its own way in leading that inquiry.”
“But that’s okay, it’s only school kids we’re talking about, not major league pitchers, so let’s talk about those cheese steaks, shall we?”
Silence engulfed the room.
It hung there, like early morning smog lying low over center city. The smog, a combination of pollution from the cars, trucks, and buses on the expressway and I-95–mixed together with the semi-sweet smelling toxic fuels from the refineries. They come together and create that brownish glow, like a light brown ribbon nicely placed over and around the city between the tallest buildings and the upper atmosphere. It just sits silently on top of the city, until the next big rain storm washes it away.
“Wait a minute,” Queary says, “what the hell are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about somebody playing games with test scores and we better look into it,” Angie says.
Queary sits back in this chair, his eyes fixed on Angie like a poker player contemplating his next move. He bites down on his lower lip and rubs his chin.
“How do you know this?” he asks her.
“Because I’ve looked at the test scores,” she said. “An idiot can see that something’s up. And nobody is doing anything about it, not the school board, not the parents and not the state. Nobody.”
Sure, Queary wants to sell papers; after all he wants to keep his job and that nice home on the Main Line. But he can smell a story, too. All those years working his way up through the papers honed his instincts, instincts that can determine what’s news and what’s bullshit. He can smell a story like Georges Perrier can smell an over-cooked braised rabbit.
He leaned back in his chair and without taking his eyes off Angie, picked up the phone.
“Rose,” he says to the education editor, Rose Cantwood, “Come into my office now, will ya? Alright, thanks.”
He makes another call. This one is to Tom Harmony, assistant managing editor.
“Tom, you got a minute? I want you to hear something. Okay good, thanks.” Then he hangs up.
“Okay,” he says to the staff assembled in his office, “this meeting is over, let’s get to work.
“Angie, stay put.”
It’s amazing how news develops. If Angie hadn’t done her homework, the pressure on the Camden schools might never have occurred. Inner-city newspapers are good at reacting to problems. Big problems that develop and are “news worthy,” like ordering cheese steaks in English. Once was, newspapers dug deeper and found situations before they developed into problems, like in the schools. They called this “in-depth reporting”; examining the conditions that create problems, before they become problems. And schools do affect all of us don’t they? Sooner or later?
Maybe sooner rather than later.
Stop the average person on the street and ask him or her Donovan McNabb’s uniform number, and they will most likely know. Then ask that same person what AYP stands for and guess what, they don’t know. Does this have anything at all to do with the newspapers? Are newspapers partly responsible for how bad schools are for kids?
Perhaps the newspapers could put pressure on the schools and force some positive changes, so none of our kids are left behind. But before they can do that, newspaper people have to spend time in the schools.
By the way, it’s number five.
May 4, 2007 at 10:02 am · Filed under Uncategorized
Alleged Police Shooter Nabbed
John Lewis could be the poster boy for what’s wrong with the Philadelphia public schools. Lewis is accused of shooting police officer Chuck Cassidy while holding up the Dunkin Donuts on North Broad Street last Wednesday. Officer Cassidy died the next day, and Lewis, 21, was captured this morning at a shelter in Miami.
Lewis dropped out of Olney High School. He’s a member of the Forty-Percent Club, that large contingent of kids, many black and poor, who don’t make it through school and quit way behind in reading and math. Many are disruptive when they do attend school, which is not often.
Out on the street and possibly reading on an elementary school level, he can’t find work. So he gets involved in drugs because he has no where else to turn. Drugs and small street crime eventually turn to bigger crimes and alledgedly murder. John Lewis isn’t alone on this path to incarceration. There are many John Lewises along the way.
In the book Our City, it says that test scores are the only salvation for inner-city youth like John Lewis. Now, because of PSSA test scores–as a result of the federal law, No Child Left Behind–kids like Lewis can be identified in the third grade, where testing begins. Testing continues each year up to eighth grade and then in the eleventh grade. That’s a significant amount of time to save a child like Lewis.
But testing has opposition: First from teachers’ unions that don’t want teachers accountable for student progress, and from the anti-testers who say that we no longer teach kids, we now prepare them for tests. But if you teach kids that George Washington had slaves, and it’s a test question, how is that teaching the test? (Click on testing, but be careful, it’s heavy stuff)
School testing and student progress also have opposition in the media, but a different kind of opposition. It’s called ignorance opposition. Take for example, a column in Tuesday morning’s Inquirer by columnist by Annette John-Hall, regarding a new spirit at West Philadelphia High School.
John-Hall writes about how new paint and a program called ‘Keepin’ It Real,’ has afforded West High “a complete turnaround.” The program is headed by West High alumni. But no where in this ‘feel-good’ column do I see any mention of student progress through test scores or, for that matter, how disruptive students in the classroom are now handled. West Philly High was recently designated as one of Pennsylvania’s ”persistently dangerous schools.”
John-Hall has done her damage. She’ll go on and write another ‘cutesy’ story about something else and student test scores–which should be the real focus at West Philly High–will continue to bottom out.
If you can’t take my word for it, you can go online and check West Philadelphia High’s 2007 11th grade test scores at PDE’s website, (click on, then scroll down until you find West Philadelphia High School, it’s number 10329 looking at the numbers on the left side, then go across and you will see that 79 percent of the children are below basic in math and 78 percent are below basic in reading) . This is where it’s real. Children should not have test scores like this.
Also in the John-Hall column, an alumnus of West Philly High says, “Their whole day can’t be reading and math. We’re not going to operate like a prison.”
Excuse me?
Perhaps John-Hall should visit the Laboratory Charter School in West Philadelphia and see if the entire day is spent on reading and math. She should see if there is a ‘Keepin’ It Real’ program at Laboratory, where assessment test scores are through the roof and most of the eighth graders receive scholarships to some of the best private schools in the city.
An editorial in the New York Times dated September 7, 2007, says this: “If all of the nation’s children are to get the education they deserve, Congress needs to strengthen the No Child Left Behind law,” and “much of the good will be underminded if states, schools, and teachers are not held accountable for the quality of education they provide.”
Ignorance opposition to learning can be just as damaging as an eleventh grade child reading at a third grade level. I mean, we’re ‘keepin’ it real’ here.
May 4, 2007 at 10:00 am · Filed under Uncategorized
It’s called philanthrophy and don’t laugh. When you raise money, you have to have an idea to what to raise money for. How about this for an idea: Revolutionizing the inner-city public schools.
Educating ALL the children. Think anyone will support that?
In inner-city schools there is a special club students join called The Forty Percent Club. It’s easy to become a member, you simply quit school. Know why it’s called “Forty Percent?” I guess you can figure that out. So every year we are making graduates of the Forty Percent Club–also called ‘throw away kids,’ go out into the world as proud nongraduates.
We simply throw them away, kick them out of our society. Because a throw away kid can’t get a job reading on a third grade level. Can’t get a job hardly being able to add or subtract. John Lewis, the 21 year old young man who is accused of shooting police officer Chuch Cassidy, is a throw away kid. A certified member of the Forty Percent Club. But we can do something about this Club, only it takes money, lots of it, and inner-city school districts are as poor as the students who attend them. So how can anything be done if there is no money?
Just recently a woman gave the George School in Bucks County $125 million. She’ll get one heck of a federal income tax deduction, I’ll tell you that. But it isn’t why she did it. “I want to help the George School,” she simply said.
If public school education is to change, there has to be funds to fuel that change, and it can’t come from the tax base. It can come from private philanthrophy. Fund raising. There are foundations, corporations and individuals who will give to revolutionizing the public schools and educating ALL the children.
Take, for example, the Pew Charitable Trusts in Philadelphia. On the Pew website it says: “The Pew Charitable Trusts is driven by the power of knowledge to solve today’s most challenging problems.”
The book Our City says that public education can change but with that change must come fund-raising. Big time fund-raising. Endowment fund-raising. Then maybe, ALL of the children will receive an education. The problem with this is that inner-city school leaders aren’t thinking philanthrophy, they are just trying to keep kids from killing one another. They figure no one would give to inner-city school kids, anyway.
But they are wrong. Dead wrong. First, the disruptive kids must be separated out from the other kids and taught differently. And the unions must stop protecting bad teachers. For the first time, in New York City, unions have compromised to include improved assessment test scores (No Child Left Behind) to determine teacher’s raises. Wow, now there is an idea. You mean if student’s test scores go up, the teachers who taught those students get a raise? But isn’t that teaching for the test?
No, that’s teaching so they can pass a test. In the Forty Percent Club, nobody can pass notin.’ The throw away kids couldn’t pass a test if their life depended on it. But that club can be eliminated, and the money can come not from taxes, but from generous Americans like the woman who gave to the George School.
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because they may be reading at a third grade level. Many are African American and Latino. What happens next? They get into trouble. What would you expect them to do, become the CEO of TastyKake Cakes and Pies?
