Every day in the newspaper, there is some mention of how terrible the education system has become. People are currently angry that 100% of high school students aren’t proficient in math and reading. People SHOULD be angry, but they shouldn’t be surprised. No Child Left Behind changed absolutely nothing in terms of what students learn – it just made society pay attention in a different (arguably worse) way. America has not IMPROVED education at all. Students used to be held accountable for their grades in school; now, teachers are held accountable for students’ grades. That makes NO sense. Yes, teachers are paid to teach students, and they should do everything in their power to impart knowledge and encourage students to learn and think and be engaged. But no, teachers should not be expected to care enough for both parties.
When students are at school, the school acts in loco parentis – but that doesn’t mean that parents get to just hand over the responsibility of education entirely to the school district. Kids achieve or fail because of a variety of circumstances, so placing blame only on the schools for being ineffective is reactionary and stupid. Instead of progressively LOWERING the bar so that every student slides over it, educational systems need to be RAISING the bar so American schools are churning out intelligent, critically-thinking, productive citizens rather than unprepared, coddled, entitled drifters.
If all seven of the high schools in Omaha are on “the list” as having failed to make adequate yearly progress, then we have a problem much bigger than what the tests look like. Schools have consistently made their own district exams and then taught to those exams so students “achieve” at a higher level. How are people surprised by this manipulation? All that gets changed by making national tests is that teachers will teach to a different test. And god forbid teacher “success” gets tied to student achievement, because even more teachers will cheat, because they want the bonus at the end of year. Keep going down the slippery slope, and the profession of teaching will become even more sketchy, because what society wants is high test scores, not smart people. Well, they want BOTH, but if they have to choose …
So the “best” teachers will be those who record the highest test scores from their students, but those teachers will just be like middle-management, handing out forms to bubble in with a #2 pencil, not teachers. Socrates would puke if he could see what teaching has become, just like Jesus would puke if he could see what mankind has done with religion.
The whole debauched system just invites mediocrity and corner-cutting rather than offering excellence and thoughtful instruction. Students WILL rise to the challenge, if we just give them the chance; I am absolutely certain of that. Unfortunately, school is boring to 95% of the student population because teachers don’t engage them. Teachers are so concerned with following curriculum guides and hitting yearly markers that true education only happens occasionally in schools. Some teachers sink to the bottom and simply hand out the test, give students the answers as a “study guide,” and then hand out the same test the next day so that student scores are high. School boards and administrations worry less about what students are learning than they do about raising graduation rates and hitting proficiency rates and changing grading structures to look good on paper. A perfect example is what Westside Schools are currently trying to do. Westside is supposed to be the pinnacle of education in Nebraska, but they’re trying to change their grading scale from A, B, C, D, F to 3, 2, 1 (proficient, developing, little success). Sounds remarkably like a scheme, doesn’t it? One more way to hide reality … or at least repackage it.
Schools are sliding down the shitter. We need a huge momentum shift, because no matter how schools try to BS society and work the system, it’s the students who are getting screwed in the long run, because they won’t be actually LEARNING anything. I think they deserve more than a compromise and some fudged numbers, but I must be in the minority. What else is new?
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