Bad Trend is Bad

On Monday OSPI released their list of the 57 lowest performing schools in Washington State. Here's some of them, with a little demographic information from the state report card website thrown in:

Inchelium Elementary School: 77% Native American
Inchelium Middle School: 65.9% Native American
Wellpinit Elementary School: 93.8% Native American
Wellpinit Middle Schools: 93.1% Native American
Harrah Elementary School (Mount Adams SD): 57.8% Native American
Mount Adams Middle School: 58.5% Native American
White Swan High School (Mount Adams SD): 48.9% Native American
Nespelem Elementary: 98.7% Native American (as of 09-10; no demographic data for 10-11)
Oakville High School: 49.6% Native American
Tulalip Elementary (Marysville): 59% Native American
Taholah Elementary/Middle School: 69.1% Native American

That's 11 out of the 57 schools where either the majority of the students are Native American, or Native Americans are the largest demographic group in the school. If I wandered through the list again looking at schools that were majority Hispanic, I could probably pull that many schools or better.

I'd submit to you that shortening the school year and firing the teachers probably isn't going to eliminate generational poverty.