Regent Review-- December 2016

Page 8
Continued stories
Pathways
cont. from page
7
as “they’ve been keeping
this under the radar for a
long time when it was under
development but now
it’s progressed so far that
there’s not much leeway
for us to make a measurable
impact,” leading to her
concern over the speed at
which the proposals have
been progressing, which she
describes as “disturbing.”
She believes that the Pathways
system has not been
well thought out by the district
and the West administration
saying “their answer
to a lot of our questions
has been ‘we’re figuring it
out’... I don’t think that’s
an acceptable answer.”
Jiang concurs, saying
“Pathways doesn’t
have as much research on
it as we need.” Support for
Pathways has mostly come
from the Long Beach Unified
School District Study,
where all students are in a
system like Pathways and
have generally benefited.
However, as Jiange points
Administration
is a different way of expressing
your education.”
“It’s a broad field
and it’s a marketable area
of study,” Thompson continues.
“The theme this
year is Health Equity for
social justice. Our school
is always been very social
justice oriented.”
The Pathways student
experience will center
around new SLCs for each
pathway, which will provide
a “thematically integrated”
program of study.“A group
of teachers at each grade
level is sharing this group
of kids and integrating their
curriculum with quarterly
assignments,” Thompson
out, the Long Beach District
is made up of mostly wealthy
families, and so “that doesn’t
line up with what Madison’s
situation is… with the
amount of support that people
of their income get, it’s
not proven to be beneficial
for lower income families”
Nicholas has mostly
been doing her Pathways
related advocacy through
her leadership in Current
Events Club, which is comprised
of about thirty students.
During the last two
meetings, the club has discussed
what Pathways was,
the problems that they see,
and their plan of action. According
to Nicholas, they are
“trying to get more community
members aware and involved”
because “that’s the
only way we’ll have enough
pressure to make change”
Nicholas has formed
a task force that plans to
advocate for changes to the
Pathways proposal through
forums and letters to local
newspapers. Their main goal
is getting the district to wait
on voting on “wall to wall”
pathways, placing all students
in every school in a
pathway in 9th grade, until
the first two pathway cohorts
have graduated, after the
2021-22 school year. Nicholas
says this “just makes
statistical sense,” as the
Pathways program would
measure success by increased
graduation rates and
decreased classroom segregation,
the effects of which
would “not be truly visible”
until after the cohorts graduated.
Jiang agrees, saying that it
would be “smart” to wait,
so “we can see the effects of
Pathways on students before
making it mandatory.”
The Current Events
Club task force plans on attending
the West pacific forum
on November 28 with
a philosophical statement,
stories, and personal experiences.
Nicholas plans on
having these stories share
“personal experiences with
broad range of electives
available, both honors and
non-honors throughout the
grades, to show that it’s
explains. “You’ll still be
learning the same content
but you’ll also have this integrated
project that’s connected
with the pathway.”
The ‘strategic framework’
set in place by Dr.
Cheatham’s advisory committee
is twofold, Personalized
Pathways being one
part. Most criticism of the
coming changes stems
from the second part: the
“alignment” of school curriculums
across the district.
Principal Thompson
stresses “a comparable experience
between schools,”
saying, “a lot of our departments
are taking a step
back, for instance, English-
we’re trying to create
an experience where
everyone gets an aligned
[sic] experience. The idea
is not to remove electives
in English or social studies,
that richness in the range
of the electives offered that
creates student engagement,
not a narrow focus.”
Students interested
in becoming involved can
come to Current Events
Club, which meets Thursdays
in room 2034, or join
the Current Events Club
Facebook Group, which has
links to proposal documents
to help students better understand
the Pathways proposal.
Nicholas encouraged
interested students to
attend the Board of Education
meeting on Pathways
to share concerns with the
West specific representative.
As final advice to
concerned students, Jiang
says “try and get informed…
form your opinions but remember
that others are valid...The
thing that we are
learning from our humanities
electives is to look at
things from multiple perspectives.
And if you are
defending these things, you
should take the lessons that
you’re learning and apply
them to what’s happening.”
but it is forcing us to analyze:
Are they still aligned to
the standards? Are they still
popular enough for kids?
Are they effective enough?”
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