[Vision2020] Response to Joshua
Donovan Arnold
donovanarnold@hotmail.com
Wed, 12 Nov 2003 01:46:44 -0800
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<P>Very well put Mr. Meyer. You have said nothing that I disagree with so far on any of your posts. This rare for me :P.</P>
<P>I think what they fail to understand is that when you can select who you want to attend your school that is going to effect the test results. They also focus on teaching students the test. Most public schools don't do this. I have attended over 15 schools in my lifetime from pre-kindergarten to the end of my senior year in college. I have been to poorly funded public schools and to elite schools. I have to say that I always learned more from the public schools. Sure, the elite private school gave me a good education but I despised going to school with people that were not reflective of general populace. 10K a year tuition doesn't attract many poor students. I think any school could do better if it stopped attending to the needs of the poor and disabled and focused on ACT scores and not essential skills of relating to different types of people.</P></DIV>
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<P>If kids at Logos have parents that care enough to get the best education they can and can afford to send them to Princeton, Harvard, and Georgia Tech, they definitely are not in the "norm" of the general population.</P>
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<P>As a Junior in High School I was pulled out of class by a councilor to be told that I ranked in the top 1% of the nation for understanding "Government". It never got me an scholarships.</P>
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<P>When I was in HS I also tutored this kid named Johnny. He was very bright. He was only in the 2nd grade and could already do addition, multiplication, and division of three digit numbers in his head. Not many people can do this. Yet, he was failing school, and was subject to be held back another year in school. When I was investigating why, it turned out that his father and mother were going through a divorce and his father was physically abusing his mother. One day, I got a phone call not to show to mentor him, and they would reassign me to another 2nd grader because Johnny was gone. While for legal reasons they could not tell me exactly why, they basically (in so direct words) told me that his mother had run with the boy and that this is something that has been going on for quiet a while. It is really sad, and I understand that this type of "at home" problems are common and something that teachers have to deal with all the time. </P>
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<P>So I don't think many people understand what problems public schools have to deal with all the time. I really wish people could see that. I wish they could see that kids like Johnny can either make really good crooks or really good productive members of society. I wish they would choose to invest in people and realize that if you do that then in the end it really does pay off. I wish they would give people like Johnny a chance to get the care and attention he needs, not trash him and his future.</P>
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<P>Donovan</P>
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<DIV></DIV>>From: "Jim Meyer" <M1E2Y3E4@MOSCOW.COM>
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<DIV></DIV>>To: "Joshua Nieuwsma" <JOSHUAHENDRIK@YAHOO.COM>, "vision" <VISION2020@MOSCOW.COM>
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<DIV></DIV>>Subject: [Vision2020] Response to Joshua
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<DIV></DIV>>Date: Wed, 12 Nov 2003 00:32:08 -0800
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<DIV></DIV>>Joshua,
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<DIV></DIV>>I appreciate your reply to me. I am glad you are proud of your accomplishments and your school. I mean this. My daughter attended Logos for several years and I agree with you that her education was fine, except for (and I am not making this up) her and my concerns about how slavery was presented and my concerns about the "us against" them mentality typified by the many "heathen" comments used when talking about those outside the school.
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<DIV></DIV>>In reading your first post directed at me, I thought, here is a good person who is standing up for his school. Great. In reading your second post, however, I would guess that you have led a sheltered and privileged life. I excuse your arrogance because you are young, but I would not excuse your mentor who taught to you the "government" school idea, along with the me, me, Christian me attitude.
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<DIV></DIV>>Unlike you, and unlike the other elite students at Logos School, there are kids in the public school system that have parents who don't love them and can't or won't care for them. There are kids who come to school partially clothed. There are kids who come to school so poorly taken care of that the staff (of the nasty government school) donate clothing to them or wash their clothes, or feed them, or even give them shoes. There are abused kids. There are kids from broken, non-functional families. There are kids with real disabilities that go way beyond "needed help walking." There are kids with severe mental disabilities, severe physical disabilities, attention deficit problems, and kids who will never meet the Logos standards, even if they tried their best every day of their lives. By the way, I have personal knowledge of a student that didn't make it at Logos, not because she didn't try but because she just wasn't quite as quick as the rest. She was asked to !
leave.
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<DIV></DIV>>You said, "I'd like mine (tax money) back...it didn't benefit me in any way..." Personally, I would double my taxes if it would keep kids from becoming throw-aways. You know what a throw away is don't you? It is the kind of person who ends up in prison, then costs everybody more in the end. And what a waste of a human being.You seem to want to live in your own little world and ignore those who are the least able to fend for themselves. Your total disregard for the less privileged among us seems frankly mean-hearted to me. Shame on you.
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<DIV></DIV>>You say Logos is a Christian school. Well, I ask you, who sounds more Christian, the public school employees who feed those who are not fed and clothe those who are not clothed or you?
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<DIV></DIV>>About those programs you want to cut, you may not need or want those programs at Logos (though I suspect some jealousy) but they are very important for the well being of some students. For some, these programs are the only thing keeping them in school. And off the streets. And out of jail.
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<DIV></DIV>>I do not blame you for your behavior. I blame your mentor. I bet I can guess who that is.That is why I suggested that Logos question its affiliation with anyone who preaches such divisive, selfish, and unchristian attitudes. Thank you for helping prove my point.
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<DIV></DIV>>Sincerely,
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<DIV></DIV>>Jim Meyer
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<DIV></DIV>> ----- Original Message -----
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<DIV></DIV>> From: Joshua Nieuwsma
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<DIV></DIV>> To: Jim Meyer ; vision
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<DIV></DIV>> Sent: Tuesday, November 11, 2003 9:37 PM
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<DIV></DIV>> Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Devisiveness Must Stop
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<DIV></DIV>> Dear Mr. Meyer,
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<DIV></DIV>> Please be so kind as to get facts right before making charges. I refer specifically to these sentence: To be blunt, until Logos accepts all students, including those with serious mental, physical, and behavioral handicaps, then those vocal group members have absolutely nothing to say worth hearing about the cost of public education. Mr. Meyers, while I attended Logos I recall there being a "disadvantaged" child that attended school there for at least a year. He was definitely handicapped (needed help walking for one thing). If you doubt the veracity of this eye-witness account in the same spirit that you accuse others of having all the appearance of evil whether they are truly good or not, I encourage you to contact the school superintendent, Mr. Tom Garfield. But as to the idea that group members aren't allowed to comment on the cost of public education if they don't provide complete services, that is ridiculous anyhow. I! s someone that doesn't drive a car !
unable to comment on road safety? You might as well go live in the time of Krushchev or something if you want to place that sort of censureship upon a person's right to comment critically about an institution that he pays for.
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<DIV></DIV>> As a Logos graduate, I am naturally defensive of attacks upon that most excellent institution, which regularly performs far above the quality of the local government school and at a cost much lower. example: Average ACT scores. The 2003 graduating class of MHS was 191 students. 82% of these took the ACT. Their collective score was 23.2 . >From any reasonable perspective (I.E. assuming that the class wasn't a bunch of nit-wits, easy to assume given the number of students) this class is not at all prepared for college. My graduating class of 2002 graduating class had 21 students. Almost everyone took the ACT (I don't know the exact number). Our collective score was 28.9. Lest it be thought that the class was a bunch of brains, the class before mine was about 28 ACT. The average ACT score of graduates of MHS is 23.2, with 82% of the class taking it. With that sort of appalli! ng record, I think Logos associates and alumni have alot to say about district schoo!
ls. If anything, the taxpayer-supported school ought to be asking for advice to improve their education.
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<DIV></DIV>> How about the National Merit Finalist statistics? I don't believe a logos class (always averaging around 20 students) has ever failed to produce at least 1 NMF. That's an average of about 5% per year. In 2003 MHS, out of 191 students, produced 1 national merit finalist. Hmmm... although more data is needed, one would think that such an excellent educational system (which needs more money to be more excellent) would have produced at least 9 national merit finalists, if their classes are comparable to Logos'. But alas, they only produced 1 as well.
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<DIV></DIV>> My sources: http://www.homefair.com/homefair/usr/nsrs/sorder.html?NETSCAPE_LIVEWIRE.src=yahoo&state=ID&countyid=29 to enter in your information and get a free report of the public school district. http://www.homefair.com/homefair/servlet/ActionServlet?pid=187&cid=yahoo&art=schoolFAQ tells you their method of receiving and reporting information.
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<DIV></DIV>> Logos School has approximately a 20:1 student teacher ratio. MHS has a 13:1 student teacher ratio. Logos produces high quality students that rarely fail to enter the university of their choice (i.e. Princeton, Washington&Lee, Georgia Tech, etc.) and average around 28 on the ACT (about 80% of total possible score). MHS produces students that score a 64% of total score on the ACT or a measly 23.2.
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<DIV></DIV>> Mr. Meyer, you said: They whine about taxes but offer no productive solutions. Logos is clearly a productive solution to the problem of good education in the Moscow community. And it is run despite the taxes that each parent pays for another school which is trashing its students while begging (literally). Logos is a Christian school, but that does not keep students out by definition. It merely means that Logos has standards, it means that Logos is a business and the students are there to work. Students with a clear pattern of disobedience and rebellion against teachers and people in authority are kept out of Logos because if their parents can't train them, it is not worth Logos' effort to try, and unfair to those students who are working hard and do not want to be distracted. I know, I have experienced Logos as well as a publically funded school in Washington. The main requirement for entering Logos is the willingness to abide by Logos standards of excellence!
, ! quality, and honesty. Which are things MHS would do well to imitate.
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<DIV></DIV>> sincerely,
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<DIV></DIV>> Joshua Nieuwsma
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