Mr. John Reese, in his letter of Thursday, Sept. 18, accuses
Mark Zappa, James Brescoll, Mayor Tom Springer, and Councilman
Craig Gartman of characterizing liberals, Democrats, and unionists
by such terms as uncaring, non-civic, uncivic, and traitors.
Mr. John Reese, in his letter of Thursday, Sept. 18, accuses Mark Zappa, James Brescoll, Mayor Tom Springer, and Councilman Craig Gartman of characterizing liberals, Democrats, and unionists by such terms as uncaring, non-civic, uncivic, and traitors.
I couldn’t recall any of the men in question ever calling anyone such names. So I used the search engine in the archives of www.gilroydispatch.com.
Mr. Reese, the first person to use those terms in the pages of The Dispatch was you, except that Tom Elias (no conservative) once characterized energy commissioners as uncaring, and once said that Davis would look upon a winning Bustamante as a traitor.
The only person I can recall making similar slurs is your acquaintance and fellow Democrat, incumbent city councilman Dr. Peter Arellano, who called some of Gilroy First!’s critics “un-American.”
Furthermore, Mr. Reese, no conservative has ever disputed your right to fly the American flag or sing the national anthem. Feel free to do so. The only risk involved is that someone may dub you a right-wing extremist.
Please, Mr. Reese, try to limit yourself to attacking people for things they actually do and say. You will lose credibility otherwise.
* * *
I may be able to shed some light on columnist Denise Baer Apuzzo’s questions of Sept. 18. Specifically, Ms. Apuzzo noticed that El Portal’s math scores showed no improvement, and their English scores got worse. So, why, Mrs. Apuzzo asks, do El Portal officials say that students are continuing to show progress?
The principal, Ms. Noemi Garcia Reyes, explains the phenomenon thus: “To have a more accurate assessment we measure our progress student by student. With only 77 students taking the test, and some students leaving the school as new ones came in, the difference does not necessarily reflect how the school as a whole is progressing.”
Mrs. Apuzzo’s response to this marvel of bureaucratic gobbledygook was an honest: “Huh?”
A mathematical digression, courtesy of John Saxon: A freight company ships nine animals: eight cats and a cow. Their respective weights are 2, 2, 2, 2, 3, 3, 3, 4, and 800 pounds. What is the mean (average) weight?
To find the mean weight, we add the weights and divide by the number of animals. (2+2+2+2+3+3+3+4+800) / 9 = 821/9 = 91.22 pounds.
If you take the cow off the train, the average weight changes considerably: 21/8= 2.625.
What does this have to do with El Portal? Recollect that El Portal was originally billed as a school for high achievers. Several high achievers believed the hype and enrolled. After the first year, many of these high achievers left, for various reasons. After the next semester, more of the remaining high achievers left. Some of these ex-El Portal students are now homeschooling, some are attending private school, and some are at Gilroy High.
But basically, the cow is off the train. The average weight is way down, even though the cats, individually, may be gaining weight. If you’ll re-read Ms. Reyes’s remark, you’ll see that she is coming close to saying this, although no bureaucrat would want to stand up before a Dispatch reporter and the school board and say in plain English, “Our best students left, but the ones who are still with us are improving; really, they are.”
For one thing, it is far too easy to prove or disprove the assertion that the current students are making progress. You have only to get the scores of the 77 current students, and compare them to the last-year scores of those same 77 students.
Mrs. Apuzzo proposes that GUSD shut down El Portal. I don’t expect her to succeed in this. Tax financed institutions tend to perpetuate themselves, regardless of how badly they are doing.
If the school board ever does look at closing El Portal, I suggest they look carefully at scores. And ask whether GUSD needs two high schools for at-risk students, when Mount Madonna is doing a much better job.
But take note that El Portal’s English teacher is spending his own time tracking down free and low cost books for his students, even asking strangers in coffee shops for ideas on how to get them. That kind of dedication is worth several points on a standardized test.
