Well it has been a few weeks since my last post. I resisted posting because I was so upset with the political propaganda I saw in the media about school reform. I have not seen the movie "Waiting for Superman" yet, but I am sick and tired of the skewed opinions of politicians and corporate CEO's stating that we need to get rid of bad teachers and hire new, young, innovative teachers. This got me thinking about testing. We have been ridding schools of the so called bad teachers and hiring new fresh out of college or career changers Teach For America and New Teachers Project teachers in many under performing schools, however in some schools testing results are about the same. But beyond the testing, many kids are not getting the content or a good understanding of the subject matter. What will happen to our children if we don't bother to make sure that they understand what they are learning, understand how to be critical thinkers? What will happen if students are not taught to question what they think and why they think what they think? When children are not challenged to be independent thinkers I believe that they will not be adults who understand the world around them or speak up when they witness injustice in the world they live in.
I will speak from my personal experiences and the experiences of friends and colleagues. I have been told by administration not to worry about making sure students understand the themes or content in a text, but to focus on comprehension skills; how good is their fluency, can they find the main idea? Teaching literature can be difficult with a group of students that have not been challenged to analyze the text. I want to know what my students think of the characters, to make predictions, develop a theory and defend what they think based on the content of the text. It is frustrating to have the Socratic Method taught in every Education course, but when you step in an urban school in America the focus is teach to the test. I have been interviewed and told that I could be innovative and rigorous and later realized it was all a lie. I learned that I have to juggle what administration wants and what I know my students need. Many school administrators are so afraid of being a turn around school that they focus so much on scores and not content.
Scores vs. Content debate, this is not a new debate in school reform but one that is disproving the myth that higher test scores equals smarter students. I have a former student that scored a 26 in Math on the ACT and couldn’t place out of remedial math on his/her college entrance exams. This student graduated from a high school that focused so much on the ACT test that it led this particular student really think they were a math wiz. But this was not the case at all, the student learned how to analyze the test and identify tricks and distracters. In most urban schools math is the poorest performing subject. Students are so far behind in math that textbooks are misleading, for example in most poor performing high schools students take Algebra 1 freshman year and Algebra 2 Sophmore year. Algebra 1 is remedial math, but it’s embarrassing to call it that so we trick students and parents. Taking two years of Algebra means you don’t get Geometry until junior year and maybe Trigonometry or Pre Calculus Senior year. Why don’t we just be honest with kids and say you have to catch up and place them in a summer bridge program for two months before entering high school. In addition, offer mandatory tutoring freshman and sophomore year until the student has performed at a B or better average in Math. Instead we see kids barely pass math and a D will suffice for most students, but we will teach them how to crack the test and give them false reality. I think we don’t spend the money to correct the problem for several reasons: 1. We claim not to have the funding and don’t press politicians to come up with creative ways to find the money. 2. We don’t care if urban America aka Black and Hispanic kids can’t compete globally or nationally in math. 3. We think that Teach For America will produce great teachers in Math & Science and it’s cheaper to hire them for three years before they use their math and science degrees for higher paying jobs and graduate school.
In closing, please know that we are robbing students of the preparation needed to be productive adults if we don’t mandate that students learn to be critical thinkers by analyzing material and challenging themselves to develop and defend their thoughts with evidence presented in all subject matters. I will leave you with this, a close friend whose been teaching for nine years and is an author, moved to a new state and was hired to teach 5th grade Language Arts in an urban school. On her first day she met with her team lead, who is praised for increasing the test scores 2-3 points from the previous year. My friend wanted to learn what texts and themes were the focus last year to get the gains in testing. The team lead told her that they didn’t read any texts the previous year. So these 5th graders had improved their scores without even reading one novel the entire year, which probably means they didn’t have to write any essays either. Now what do you think will happen when they get to a High School Literature class, or even better a College American Literature class? Will they be prepared to compete with their peers? Mmmmh something to think about.
