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 Courtesy photo. Kenneth M. Young Friday, March 5th, 2010. Issue 09, Volume 14. Kenneth M. Young, Riverside County Superintendent of Schools, delivered the annual State of Education in Riverside County address Feb. 26, to 400 education, business and community leaders at the Riverside Convention Center. The theme of this year’s event was "Public Education: Investing in Our County’s Future." The event was produced by the Riverside County Office of Education, held by the Greater Riverside Chambers of Commerce and cosponsored by the Workforce Investment Board. After highlighting academic achievements countywide, Young acknowledged that students are doing their best despite economic and social challenges. He urged parents to remain involved in their students’ educations, citing statistics that parent involvement decreases as students enter junior high and high school. "I commend those schools that have found collaborative ways to involve parents...Just think what a difference it would make in our society if every school had and promoted an ongoing parenting program," he said. To that end, Young announced the Riverside County Office of Education was partnering with the 23rd District PTA to develop parenting programs, and a Parent Involvement Summit planned for later in the year. Young praised programs like AVID (Advancement Via Individual Determination) that helps prepare students for college. He said his focus is to help more students graduate and go off to college and then into the workforce. Young described how overburdened community colleges Advertisement Young said the county has students that are achieving. Riverside County students continue to improve on statewide tests, with API scores rising 166 points between 1999 and 2009. He highlighted the achievement of students at Centennial High School in the Corona-Norco Unified School District, where state test scores rose by 195 points between 1999 and 2009 for all students, 223 points for African American students, 217 points for Hispanic students, and economically disadvantaged students by 214 points. Young praised Romoland School District for meeting federal "No Child Left Behind" requirements, and announced that he will recommend to the state that Coachella Valley Unified School District no longer needs a state trustee to meet NCLB goals. He called attention to the California Military Institute charter school operated by the Perris Union High School District, the Nuview Union School District Early College High School program, and the "no excuses" credo at Perris Elementary School as outstanding programs. Despite budget cuts, Young said, "No matter how difficult it gets, our county schools will find the way to get through this crisis and come out as a stronger, more effective, more unified educational system."
2 comments
How much of what Mr. Young refers to is due to his leadership and decision? The reality is that the schools directly under Mr. Young's perview are in Program Improvement and have made the state identified 5% persistently underperforming schools. The classrooms have few books, little technological support, no counseling services. Efforts by the Principals to get these services by purchasing what is needed or hiring necessary personnel is stopped by members of Kenn Young's selected Assistant Superintendents. His answer seems to focus on blaming teachers, principals and the parents themselves. The reality is that the leaders he chose to run these schools, the Assistant Superintendent, in inexperienced and very ineffective. Look beyond Kenneth Young's facade to learn how he truly supports education. Come visit his schools in Riverside, Indio, Temecula and San Jacinto. Talk to his teacher and staff. Is he truly the answer to improving our children's education in Riverside County?
If I remember correctly, the Education Code directs county superintendents to visit the schools in their county and report annually on the observations of their visits. I heard Superintendent Young say at the beginning of his address this was the purpose of the State of Education report--not to talk about RCOE programs. It was my understanding that he was sharing some of the great things that are happening in public education across the county and giving the credit to those districts responsible (go to the RCOE website and listen to his talk, or read it--it's clear you have your facts incorrect.) Also, RCOE operates four major classroom programs (not schools); preschool, Special Education for the Severely Handicapped, Career Technical Education for high school students and Alternative Education classes. Check the CDE website--RCOE Special Education classes for the Severely Handicapped students out-perform any Special Education for Severely Handicapped program in the state--hands down. They have one of the most successful CTE/ROP programs in the state and their preschool programs get top evaluations from state and federal reviewers. What are your complaints about this? The "5% persistently low performing schools" designation you refer to is the Alternative Education Community School program operated by RCOE. These are classes of mostly secondary students that have been expelled from their regular schools, like North High in RUSD, and are sent to the Alternative Education Community School program operated by RCOE for brief periods of time (often just 3-6 weeks) and then they either go back to their regular school or they continue on to juvenile hall. The way the federal government looks at this, RCOE is blamed for their failure rather than the schools where they attended. There are many factors that contribute to student failure, and as I listened to Superintendent Young's message, he certainly didn't blame teachers, principals and parents. You also fail to mention anything about the initiatives he is emphasizing to improve education, such as the RCOE dropout recovery program called Come Back Kids, which will graduate over 120 students that were previously high school dropouts. From your comments it appears that your information comes from a few disgruntled employees in this 5% program. I suggest that you gather your facts before try to slander a good leader’s reputation with half truths. |
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