LOOKING AT FAILURE
By the 1990’s it had become obvious to educators and politicians that America’s public school system was ailing and failing. The failures were widespread — not just in the poorest districts around the country but in all school districts.
Politicians in Washington had become so disillusioned with educators and their endless excuses -usually about a lack of money- that they took over America’s schools with the edict that constant testing was the only way to prove accountability as well as results. The educators, knowing better, nonetheless succumbed to the demands and began testing…making test results the key element in teaching and the education of children.
In addition, politicians supported the development of model schools that would exist within the public school system, be financed by the system but would be independent of any supervision by the system. Called charter schools, they were supposed to develop new ways of teaching and learning and pass them on to the rest of the system.
Several thousand charter schools are still working around the country two decades later and there is no evidence that they have developed new methods of teaching and learning that can be used by the entire system.
In fact the largest of them in New York – the Success Academies – are known for high teacher turnover, a very careful recruitment of students, a propensity to move unsuccessful students out of the schools and a complete focus on test preparation and results.
No matter how one looks at the charter school idea, what they are doing now has nothing to do with the original concept… and there is complete silence about that reality. Politicians in cities across the country where there are significant numbers of minority students continue to support charter schools with no evidence that it makes any difference. And absolutely no independent studies to prove otherwise.
Politicians continue to be the ones driving public school advancement. They have led the call for Pre-Kindergarten classes for four year olds and now for three year olds convinced that these programs will significantly advance children’s success in school.
And yet there is not a single Pre-K system in any area of the country which has been studied for success. The idea of Pre-K seems to be enough. Whether it is doing what it can do if it is properly designed and staffed by teachers trained in early childhood education, seems of no importance to the school system, the politicians or even the parents.
Eight years ago we were assured by the Cuomo Administration that Pre-K in NYC initiated by new Mayor Bill De Blasio with the necessary approval of the State would be carefully studied to see if it as working. No such study has taken place.
THE RESULTS OF FAILURE
No one in the Schools of Education disagreed with Levine. Nor did they do anything to the teaching curriculum to recognize the difference in the preparation and quality of their students. Schools of Education had plenty of students because teaching had plenty pf jobs to offer.
But as the years have passed – with little fanfare – teachers began leaving the profession at the rate of 55% after five years of teaching. Finding that teaching without the right preparation was extremely difficult and eventually self-defeating, teachers are quitting and walking away.
And yet during the Mayoral debates one candidate promised 2,500 new teachers…and another promised two teachers in every classroom. Are they going to bring in robots?
Meanwhile Schools of Nursing despite the realities, chose a different direction.
Seeking to bring graduates to an elevated professional position upon graduation, nursing degrees became Bachelor of Science degrees and with nurses graduating after passing a Board Certification test as RNBSNs.
What is it like for a student attending a nursing school having graduated from high school without taking any special science courses, getting grades “that we pretty much decide upon ourselves”, having a high grade point average accordingly and a very positive attitude about school because they were treated well in elementary and high schools in a very upscale community?
Hell.
Where nothing exists but studying…without time for college pizza parties and beer; without time for sleep or eating well…with nothing but books where every single chapter must be read and understood because the next chapter demanded that, where there was no time for relationship building, where ‘do or die’ tests were a constant; where failure on a single test could mean you were dropped even if you gotten to your senior year. Where you always knew the school had no problem dropping students who couldn’t do the work.
Where life was suddenly traumatic; where tears of frustration and pressure amounted to all the crying in the previous years of life; where everything else in life is sacrificed to school because you know that someday a life will be in your hands and you can’t make mistakes.
The nursing school here is part of a very old and prestigious New Jersey University. The graduating class of 2022 started four years ago with 120 students. Only 15 are left.
RECOGNIZING THE REALITIES
NYC high schools have long been graduating students knowing that only 25% of them are truly qualified to enter college without remediation or getting a job. And yet during a spirited Mayoral campaign little or nothing was said about that kind of failure of our schools or more importantly perhaps, what is going to happen to the minds and esteem of the 1.1 million children who never got an education this past year because of the pandemic.
Educators know that for most in elementary and junior high years, children have lost almost two years and for some, more because they have had to close schools.
Not one word has been uttered by politicians, educators, the union—anyone about what must be done. The impression is that nothing will be done…that everyone will just move on, that teachers and students alike will struggle and suffer and fail.
There are many problems in bringing New York back to life. They are real and serious. But the children are being overlooked. Again.
What failure has brought to date is a dumbing down of college in all but the ten or so “best” colleges. Higher education is now about new dorm rooms, eating places, gyms and swimming pools to entice students and relationships with banks ready to lend students money to pay the exorbitant tuition fees that exist everywhere.
Less than 20% of all college teachers are full time Professors and that is the future…everyone will be an associate professor because what a college looks like is more important than the education it provides.
And one cannot ignore this reality: the college dropout rate has reached 62%..the majority of them young men. Another message of failure. Enroll them at all costs…and watch them leave.
We are told this nation is in a silent war with China for economic supremacy. Once we produced everything and sold it to the World. Today China produces everything and we only seriously export farm goods and armaments.
Once our education system brought us to the top of the World…more productive and powerful than any other nation in history.
Americans work hard…that is a historical truth. But if education is now more important than ever before, we are lost in failure.
We have got to see this light and re-illuminate this need to be better…much better.
This failure to educate has given us little more than the games we play on social media.
Will Facebook and Google become the last remnants of an America that used-to-be?
We’d like to acknowledge the assistance of Avery Semkow and thank her for sharing her deep insight into and understanding of the Nursing School experience.
“America’s public school system” You know there’s no such system, just hundreds of different ones throughout the nation.
“And yet there is not a single Pre-K system in any area of the country which has been studied for success. ” if this is true, that eould be a good subject for a dissertation.