Talk:SCORE! Educational Centers

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[edit] Triathalon

Does SCORE! actually misspell triathlon, or did Wikipedia introduce that typo? 165.189.91.148 17:01, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

It was wikipedia

[edit] Positive reinforcement

I am confused and a bit miffed over the issue of my edit of the Wikipedia article, "SCORE! Educational Centers", subtopic "Positive Reinforcement" being deleted several times.

The original paragraph contained a wholly uncited opinion regarding discipline at Score! Education Centers. The precise quote was that Score! Educational Centers "lacks traditional abilities to enforce disciplinary measures."

The article then goes on to state, "Overall, SCORE! employees have limited disciplinary recourse in comparison to the public school system, where options include sending students to the principal's office and giving detentions."

No citation is given to prove the veracity of either option, "sending students to the principal's office" OR "giving detentions."

My original edit responded to this obvious error and violation of Wikipedia's own editing policy by providing the relevant citation. I gave a brief explanation of and an external link to the relevant citation, [1],the New York City Department of Education's official documentation concerning permissible disciplinary measures in the New York City public schools. Even a cursory reading of the document makes no mention of "sending students to the principal's office" as a disciplinary measure.

In point of fact, and as a former New York City public school teacher, I can attest to the fact that students are not "sent to the principal's office." Principals in large, inner-city, urban school districts are rarely, if ever, sent to the principal's office. All NYC public schools have a staff of school personnel, including school psychologists, detention room teachers, assistant principals, deans, and other personnel who are delegated the task of handling student violations of the disciplinary code. School principals spend most of their time completing paperwork, budgeting, and tending to administrative duties. It would be logistically impossible, especially in schools with large student populations running into the thousands, to have the dozens of disciplinary infractions that occur on a daily basis handled directly by the school principal.

As far as dententions are concerned, teachers DO NOT have the option of "giving detentions." All decisions regarding detention of students are made by an administrative dean, assistant principal of a department, or the school principal. A teacher may legally only report violations of the disciplinary code to an administrator, who then makes the decision, usually by committee, to "give a detention."

The author of the article makes an unwarranted assumption, as well as contradicts him/herself, when stating that "SCORE!, like most after-school education programs, lacks traditional abilities to enforce disciplinary measures.

Instead, SCORE! employs a method of positive reinforcement to maintain discipline."

In point of fact, "positive reinforcement" is a practice based on behavioral psychology and the work of John Watson and B. F. Skinner and has been in use in the public school system since the early 1970's and is still in use today, long before the founding of Score! Educational Centers in 1992. Positive reinforcement is a core principle of behavioral management in the public schools and all teacher candidates in most states are required to have completed undergraduate coursework in this area before being certified as licensed educators.

Positive reinforcement was, in fact, adopted long ago by the public schools as a behavioral management tool precisely in response to the failure of most forms of "traditional discipline" (such as corporal punishment and after-school detention), as well as legal challenges by parents, psychologists, and teachers themselves.

Even parochial schools, long a bastion of traditional disciplinary measures, no longer use them, due to their replacement by Skinnerian behavioral management practices, as well as legal challenges by parents.

I am including below both the original text of the subtopic "Positive Reinforcement" as well as my edit of that subtopic. Please note that I have not, in point of fact, changed the original text in any manner, but have simply added commentary to the original article, as well as providing the necessary and needed, relevant citations and documentation to support my position.

"SCORE!, like most after-school education programs, lacks traditional abilities to enforce disciplinary measures. [citation needed - where is evidence that Score! lacks traditional abilities to enforce disciplinary measures?]

Instead, SCORE! employs a method of positive reinforcement to maintain discipline. SCORE! cards, small magnetic squares emblazoned with the SCORE! logo, pictured at right, are used as incentives. These cards can be redeemed for prizes and can be earned for scoring over 70% on a lesson or making basketball shots. Since students spend most of their time at the computer, basketball shots are used as a method of breaking up the lessons and getting out student's active energy. Shots are awarded for doing well on lessons or completing a full hour of lessons. High fives are used to encourage students and are a strong part of the corporate culture.

While positive reinforcement usually works well in motivating students, disciplinary problems sometimes occur. [citation needed - proof that disciplinary problems sometimes occur at Score! Educational Centers]SCORE! is viewed by many students as a non-essential part of their education, and some students do not respect SCORE! employees as authority figures. [citation needed - how does author know this for a fact? What students? What employees? The comment is too general, merely an opinion of the author, and could just as easily be said of any school or educational venue.]Although many students respect academic coaches because the coaches are at an age that the students would like to be at themselves, academic coaches are generally younger than typical disciplinary figures, including parents. Overall, SCORE! employees have limited disciplinary recourse in comparison to the public school system, where options include sending students to the principal's office and giving detentions.[citation needed - please see my comments above]

The following is my original edit of 1 October, 2006:

(n actual practice, most teachers have limited recourse to disciplinary measures, especially in large, urban public school systems such as that of the New York City public schools. Although the New York City Department of Education, under the auspices of the Chancellor's Office, has published a set of disciplinary guidelines known as the Citywide Standards of Discipline and Intervention Measures (The Discipline Code)http://schools.nyc.gov/parents/PDFs/DisciplineCode.pdf which consists of a rather lengthy set of numbered behavioral infractions and graded intervention measures, in day-to-day practice, all but the most serious infractions, such as student-on-student or student-on-teacher physical violence, the possession of weapons or drugs, and long-term truancy, are rarely prosecuted. It is more likely that the disciplinary atmosphere at most Score! Educational Centers is far better than that of the average inner-city, urban public school.)

Wikipedia has not provided any documentation or citation demonstrating that my edit is uncited or irrelevant commentary. My edit is a well-thought out response, based upon citations and personal experience, to what I perceive as innacuries and inconsistencies in the original article. Until Wikipedia demonstrates conclusively that my response is innacurate or irrelevant, it should remain, and I am reposting the original edit until such time as Wikipedia demonstrates that it violates their own editing policies.

Marc Morgenstern

The fact of the matter is that SCORE! Centers do not exist as commonly in urban atmospheres. Most of the SCORE! Centers are in suburban neighborhoods where the discipline situation is wholly unlike that in downtown New York City. However, the point of adding this new information is moot since the information is irrelevant to SCORE! Educational Centers, especially in the last concluding sentence of the added paragraph. The other information in the article makes no assertion that the disciplinary problems are worse at SCORE! than any other place. The other information simply states that because of the mechanism behind SCORE! (i.e. parents pay to come there instead of kids being required to go by law) there exist fewer options for the disciplinary problems that occur. The section quite simply states that the rules are harder to enforce because of the nature of the program. Thus, the commentary concerning the fact that "things are worse other places so SCORE! can't be that bad" is quite irrelevant to the content of the section. — Scm83x ^{hook 'em} 21:59, 2 November 2006 (UTC)