Failed Schools

When Is enough, enough?

SYSTEMS FAILURE

For the past two decades two of three American children have failed to read or do math at grade level in elementary school. Twenty years before that reading and math scores for fourth and eighth graders began falling and have never stopped.

The failure continues.

The results of the 2019 biannual National Assessment of Education Progress national tests for 600,000 fourth and eighth grade students are in and this is how they’ve been described:

Betsy DeVos, Secretary of Education: “…devastating and a student achievement crisis…”

Peggy Carr, associate commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics who administer the tests: “…over the long term in reading, the lowest performing students – those who struggle the most in learning to read – have made no progress from the very first national test ever given almost 30 years ago.”

The results are so disappointingly consistent that today’s educators focus on those who can read at grade level but lose ground — when 37% of reading scores in 2017 fall to 35% now – and seem to ignore that fact that more than two-thirds of all students don’t read at grade level. It is clear by now that these constant failures represent the best that America’s schools can do. Nothing schools do seems to make any difference.

There are many reasons cited for our public school system’s failure. Most of them deal with a lack of money – money for teacher salaries, money for developmental programs and even school supplies. There are the socio-economic problems of children living in minority communities; the problems big city systems have because of immigration and multi-language challenges. There is validity in these problems…so let’s look at them briefly.

Back in the late 1990’s Texas Legislators began to complain loudly about the lack of elementary school teachers only to be told that many started and then quit. The Chairman of the Education Department at the University of Texas in Austin claimed that he could place members of each graduating class directly into Austin schools because so many vacancies existed every year.

That was then. Today reports indicate that America needs approximately 100,000 more teachers than it has. And a look at the Tucson, Arizona school system shows us why. Tucson teachers earn $42,000 a year. Teachers in New York for instance earn $20,000 more. So does Tucson raise salaries to gain more teachers? No. It goes to the Phillipines and hires there choosing to pay these new recruits less. A teacher’s strike has been promised. This has been the year for such strikes and teachers have been successful in each one…including the most recent in Chicago. But what has been won? Will these very same teachers be more productive now that they are earning more?

There is no such result in NYC despite the efforts of several Mayors who met union demands for salary increases. 75% of high school graduates still cannot deal with college work without significant remediation. Nor can they get career-oriented employment.

There is no such result in New York State where the Governor complains that the State spends more money per pupil than any other but whose results still keep it in 23rd place among the other States. He has no suggestions for improvement nor does any other Governor. Or Mayor. Or Chancellor or Superintendent.

It is a reasonable assumption that minorities have a more difficult time learning than more affluent children. Yet this latest ‘national report card’ indicates that white and black 4th graders lost ground in reading this year. Only Asian students maintained their reading performance in 8th grade while white, black, Hispanic, Native American and multiracial 8th graders all performed worse in 2019 than they did in 2017.

A clue may be found in past test results where a study indicates that teachers working in higher performing classes tended to ask more challenging questions of readers…seeking a deeper understanding and comprehension, while those teaching in low performing classes never did.

THE RESULTS

Almost thirty years ago decisions about schools were removed from the hands of educators and turned over to the business community and to politicians. Upset by the increasing negative results and concerned about the poor preparation of students to enter the workforce, these two groups knowing nothing about how people learn or how to meet the challenges of teaching decided that testing children would give everyone the opportunity of seeing success or failure in their starkest terms.

The failures continue but what is true today is that politicians have gone silent.

The Presidential debates rightly spend time on what to do about the $1.6 trillion in student debt affecting 44 million people. But not a single word is spoken about the failure of our public schools but for the occasional gratuitous “we need great schools and great teachers”.

Why the silence? Because today’s office holders fear criticism of what is happening in schools will translate to a negative about teachers…and teachers vote.

But here is something that might wake the country up. Test results now show that for the first time in America high school graduates are ill-prepared for college. America’s colleges are now experiencing an unheard of 40% drop-out rate and it is now clear that this is not just because of a failure to pay the outrageous tuition rates but is about the inability of college freshman to do college work.

64% of students now seek professional mental health assistance while in college…a demand difficult for many colleges to meet.

The reading scores of the young children get worse as they progress further in school…a two percent difference by the time 4th graders enter the 8th grade, These problems don’t go away they just intensify.

A SOLUTION

Over the years we have written extensively about a concern that teachers fail because they have not been taught how to teach children. New methods of teaching reading and math that came along from California in the 70’s were not properly introduced into education schools and by the time they were, many of these methods had failed.

Ed schools continued behind the curve. They issued degrees and teaching certificates to graduates that became meaningless once those young teachers entered a classroom.

We cited important studies from two leading teacher evaluation associations which carefully outlined how teacher training institutions were failing to give their teachers-to-be the tools they needed to teach successfully. One of these studies was supported by Randy Weingarten, then head of the NY Teachers Union, the largest and most influential in the country.

The studies were powerful tools of hope and encouragement despite their dismal reports of how things actually were. The studies were completely ignored – treated by the field as if they never existed.

This is a national problem which has defied a reasonable fix by all schools everywhere .It may have similar problems but it has a singular failure one that reaches to every single school in the country. It’s time to fix it and to go after the Schools of Education which make money for their universities but fail to do the job. Unless that changes fewer young people will want to be teachers. Schools will continue but Schools of Education might not.

Our public school system was originally designed with but a single purpose: to help make our people better able to govern themselves and form a better society. Public schools have been failing for more than 40 years and unless our silence about the failure to improve them ends, we will continue to weaken the inner core of our nation and we will be as broken tomorrow as we are today.

A NYC Teacher Responds

A 30 year veteran of a Brooklyn Intermediate public school responds.

Born, raised and educated in Brooklyn and living not far from the school where most of that career existed.

The voice speaks unfiltered about New York City schools with the absolute certainty of belief and experience.

Teachers never ever teach for the money. The raises are needed for cost of living and to balance their personal monies for supplies and to eliminate the need for a second job if possible.

I continue to disagree with you on the need for better teachers and education training. This is one tiny aspect of the solution.

The standards for students have been diluted and the idea that all teachers must teach the same and be on the same page at the same time dealing with a boring as hell script written by profit driven bureaucrats

Teachers are stifled beyond imagination in every way. The art of teaching is dead. Creativity is forbidden as are reading the classics and working with multiplication tables.

The homeless explosion, the absence of Fathers and the demeaning of men combined with a loss of discipline and the isolation of working alone on computers without social engagement have combined to spell doom.

Mainstreaming of students who belong in special needs classes is another negative factor.

Teaching immigrant students in their native languages rather than in English immersion is still another negative.

The overnight administrative degrees given to new Principals produces make-believe leaders who think that spending money is the only answer.

The honored tradition of seniority or senior mentorship of new teachers no longer exists. Young teachers are filled to the brim with overinflated egos believing that they know it all and need not learn from ‘dinosaurs’. Senior teachers are harassed until they are left with little option but to leave a school or retire from the field.

Students lack respect for teachers and administrations always take a student’s word over a teacher’s.

The overload of classes, professional development time and less and less time for class preparation causes hurried and harried staff longing for moments of peace and time to attend to the lessons they have planned.

The emphasis on what is on bulletin boards and on classroom walls is greater than on lesson planning. Teachers are actually graded on classroom decorations. It is an outrage and humiliating to be taken to task on what is placed on hall bulletin boards.

Finally, teaching is about being mediocre. If you shine, efforts are made to quickly snuff you out. No one can be better than anyone else. I always thought that the best teachers threatened administrators because they were lacking in skills, intelligence and experience to say nothing of personality.