Public Education 101

There are six fundamental problems with public education which underlie everything else.  Teachers and students do not buy in to the mission of the Board of Education.  Far too many resources are spent on the latest fad in teacher techniques, then discarded just a few years later.  Students do not have any real consequences and nearly unlimited "second" chances.  Schools are disconnected from their communities and have no autonomy to make decisions.  There is too much emphasis on testing.  Our American society has less and less respect for and belief that education will get you ahead in life.

A key difficulty, at least here in NYC, is the fact that the teachers and students are well aware that education is not a top priority for the Board of Education.  Passing percentages are.  Testing is.  Student statistics are.  Honors programs are not.  Highly functional labs, shop programs, music and art programs are not.  These programs exist and prosper because of motivated students and exceptional teachers despite having to scrape for funding.  If teachers and students do not have buy in with the mission of the school (who are beholden to the superintendents), it doesn't matter how much you pay them (or in the case of the students, pretend with them) they are not going to put the extracurricular time without getting compensated monetarily.  There is this whole "Race to the Top" jargon which attaches a huge amount of money to on-time graduating percentages and testing, so where does this money get allocated?  Summer school, pm school, laboratory makeup times, and trying to track down the truents takes the majority of it.  Essentially the money is going to the bottom.  Again, extracurricular activities, shop programs, bands, honors programs, and sometimes even sports get whittled away.  Students know, they may not be able to articulate it, but they know they are a letter corresponding to number: a P or an F, an H, an ELL or an IEP.  Many play the game just to get out, while some, the highly motivated ones, utilize the best of their teachers and their own resourcefulness to move beyond the system.  Teachers are masters at venting about how ridiculous the education system is in the safety of the offices and lunchrooms, but are increasingly to timid to make a united stand.  They want to protect their jobs, their pensions, and their health care, yet this timidity makes it easier to chip away at all three.

In my 8 years working in New York City, there were regions, districts, and now networks.  There has been the workshop model, cooperative grouping, scaffolding, impact math, inventive spelling, student-centered learning, least restrictive environment.  Can we use that new lady's name for our lesson planning framework, or not?  For a time it was taboo to teach grammar or drill kid's times tables.  Sometimes you need an Aim, but that may change to an Objective.  Hold on, I.O. is better.  Should a lesson start with a question or a statement?  Always start with a Do Now, except when it should be an Entry Routine.  For a  little while you could not write on student work, so you needed to add Post-it.  It is alright to write on them now but you should attach a rubric that is on a 10 point scale.  No, wait, it is better to use the 4 point scale the students are used to, because that is their scoring for the middle school literacy and math exams.  We do not track students, but they are a 1, 2, 3 or 4 depending on the scores.  You can add a 5 to that if you feel it is exemplary work.  Exit slips.  Smart boards are out, Promethean boards are in.  Put up students' work in the class, but it doesn't have to be over 8 feet high.  Align the curriculum to the test, but don't teach to the test.  The only thing consistent is the constant reinvention of the proverbial wheel.

There are no consequences.  There really aren't any consequences!  The best way to learn that is to watch a new immigrant's two month progression in a middle school classroom.  At first they are wide-eyed, nervous, polite, respectful, and studious.  They drop all of those qualities after their honeymoon.  They realize anything goes.  Forget skipping a homework assignment.  They can curse a teacher out, fight in the hallway.  It is hard to be suspended and the "save room" is a free pass to hang out and get ideas from their more seasoned mischievous peers.  If things get really bad, just make something up about the teacher.  Teachers are considered guilty and need to prove their innocence.  No adult will bother them on the way home.  Too many parents are working multiple jobs and often live too far from the school to be able to really figure out what is going on.  Their neighbors often do not know each other and the children go to different schools all over the city.  Some students travel almost two hours on buses and trains to attend my high school!  Can a parent really take that many hours off of work to come check on their child?  If a student fails a class in high school, they can take it again in summer school.  If that doesn't work, pm school and evening school may do the trick.  Each gets less rigorous (Rigor is a big buzz word for teacher's lesson plans.) where just a student's mere presence is enough to pass in the evening.  All this said, most principals know the pulse of their school but their hands are tied in making real decisions.  

There are standardized exams for nearly every year.  In New York, students do have to pass a set of state exams in math, science, English, and history, and they can be very difficult in the wording of the questions and, in the case of science, the immense scope of material stuffed into the curriculum.  There is, thankfully, a nice little curve on the exams.  A student needs a sixty-five to pass but the score really translates to somewhere around a forty percentile depending on the year.  Sadly, this is still difficult for many students because they may have been passed along each year and do not have the basic scaffold of skills and vocabulary to be successful.  Yes, I have been asked by administrators in my previous school to move a child along.

America does not hold a high regard for education.  In the media, teachers are often considered second rate even though most have achieved a Master's degree.  Though some of those degree programs should definitely be questioned!  Our most famous and revered people are reality television stars often with very little talent, sports stars, and cable news blowhards.  Teachers are are often blamed for the multitude of influences on educational success of their students.  They are integral during the few hours a day they have charge of their students, but the students spend the vast majority of their time in and around their homes.  Socioeconomic factors play an enormous role.  Each student comes to school with "the things they carry" from their private lives--the beautiful moments and the horrific events.

Schools should be integrated into their community.  They should not only provide children the math and verbal skills, but the well-rounded multidimensional guidance that includes academics, music, art, sports, clubs for children and their parents.  Principals should be in charge of their schools and teachers should be in charge of their classes, with checks and balances.  Nurture students but be honest with them.  Use standardized testing as a periodic metric.  Value education.