As if this is a good idea. As far as I am concerned, this principal should be shitcanned. Instead, he is hailed by the WP as a hero:
So I was surprised when Charlie Thomas, principal of Crossland High School in Prince George's County, began sending me emails. His school has been one of the worst in a low-performing district for a long time. But Thomas, who arrived in 2004, was trying to improve his school and was willing even to deal with a fault-finding columnist if it would help. Nearly 66 percent of his students were low-income, but he was not going to let that slow him down.
I confess he has gotten my attention with some unusual moves. For instance, he quickly discovered that close to 800 of his 1,800 students were still in the ninth grade. "I asked for a list of every ninth grade student that was 16 years old or older with a grade point average of less than 1.0
," he told me. The list had 330 names. Some had been there four or five years.
"As soon as the school year began we met with each of these students and informed them that they were being placed on academic probation," he said. "They were informed that they had one quarter to raise their grade point average to at least 1.0. If they failed to do so they would be withdrawn from the school due to lack of interest or transferred to the evening school program. . . . At the end of the first quarter, only fifty students remained on the list."
Susan Ohanian:
This edict of withdrawing students from school "for lack of interest" sounds an alarm to anyone familiar with the World of Opportunity in Birmingham, Alabama. When the late Steve Orel noticed lots of 16-year-olds showing up at the WOO, he asked why they weren't in high school. They all showed him the same termination papers. Reason for withdrawal: lack of interest.
Steve wondered how much "lack of interest" there could be when kids immediately tried to get into another school. As he talked to them, he heard stories of family troubles, students taking care of fatally ill relatives, working to put food on the table, students ill themselves, and so on. They said nobody at their high schools had ever asked them why their attendance was so poor, why they never did the homework, and so on.
Steve believed in second chances. And third. And fourth. . . . Steve knew that poor students lack many things; he didn't believe in "lack of interest."
The World of Opportunity continues to show another way. Steve's widow struggles to keep it going, and reports that those 16-year-olds are still being terminated by the local district.
Looking good at any cost is some districts' motto. The easiest way to do that is get rid of the really low kids.
linkIt's all about cooking the books to make those test scores look good, not about high standards. The principal is an asshole and has no business running a school.