NBC has devoted this whole week to education in America. It was featured on the Today show, and other venues of NBC all week long. It was very good and thought provoking. Some of the information was shocking and some was encourageing. I have known for quite a long time that we did not rank up very high in the world in math. I used to tell my people about tests that were showing that we were very far behind China and other countries. At least ten years ago and maybe more than that, tests were conducted in most of the major countries around the world that showed first graders competentcies in math. We fared very poorly. We were fifth, and now how shocking it is to learn that the U.S. ranks 24th in math among the developed nations of the world today!
Math is not the only area where we are failing. Reading, writing, language skills, science, social studies and all of the rest are falling behind. The focus is more on teaching the tests than about teaching the materials and skills necessary for success in life.
We've listened to educators, parents, teachers, professors, legislators, successful journalists, and many others this week giving their testimony on what can be done to bring us up out of the hole. Some of the theories are valid and some are 'more of the same' or 'who can we blame' type comments.
There are many,many reasons why the schools are performing way below standard. and we waste time trying to come up with some simple statement that will cover it all. Statements about the inability to remove the many inadequate teachers from the class rooms, and the way to resolve that would be to reward the teachers that have students that perform well on the tests! How absurd!
What about the classroom that has students that are suffering from sleep-deprivation,(watching late night TV shows or playing video games well into the night) children that are not well nourished, and children that are concerned about personal problems at home. Children that are living with parents or a parent that is not focused on the child's education, but rather more concerned about getting their own lives straight or on existing until the next paycheck. Children whose parents are alcohol or drugs addicts and could care less about what their child is doing in school. A teacher should lose her job because she can't teach these children
how to do long division?
Schools should be considered 'safe places' and most of them are, in that, they lock all of the doors, have video cameras located at the accessable entrances so as to be able to see any potential intruders,and have safety drills on a routine basis: fire drills, tornado drills and intruder drills. The students and teachers are given a code word that will be announced over the PA system in the event that an unwanted person should slip past the security measures.
All of this is well and good, however; there is one area that is not covered and that is the protection from bullies. One of the worst deterrents for learning, for individual students, is the fear of being the target of a bully, sometimes not just one but many. Children are notoriously cruel when it comes to taunting and degrading a classmate. It only takes one bully to affect the entire population. Some children think they must join in on the bullying or become one of the bully's targets. For the most part they are terrified of becoming a target so they must avoid being a friend of the 'target' lest they become one. This has been a problem in schools for many years and so far there have been no solutions. The administrative staffs seem reluctant to take action, only under the threat of legal action on the part of the 'target''s parent, is it effectively dealt with. Most frequent tactic is to tell the target to 'just ignore it', have you tried to ignore being taunted and made fun of? I have! Most frequent defence is, "I was just having fun!" If it is not fun for both the taunter and the victim, then it is definitely not fun!
Some of the schools in New York have decided if the teachers' salaries are elevated then the level of instruction will be enhanced. They instituted a bonus of $30,000. for master teachers. One of the teachers that received the bonus said it surely motivated her to go above and beyond what is expected of her. Was it successful ? She said she actually saw very little improvement in her classes. Another New England state tried the bonus system for three years and did continuous testing and evaluation and there was no noticeable change after three years.
One of the Charter schools in a large city that has almost all African American students,(almost 40% of of whom drop out of school) hired a black male teacher that came into the school with a plan. First of all he made parent attendance at a meeting before school even started ,mandatory. He informed the parents that if the student did not show up at school there would be a knock at their door and the student would be expected to get to school, the students were required to sign contracts as to what was acceptable and what was not acceptable. If the contract was broken, the student and parent were called in to discuss it. No exceptions, homework was given and expected to be handed in. If that rule was violated the student made up the time on Saturday morning or after school hours. The dress code was inforced. The first lesson was to learn to spell and define RESPECT. So far that teacher has met with success, videos of his classes showed a class of attentive, participating, neat, happy students. Not a single drop -out or dicipline problem since he took control. Absences are no longer a problem. It can be done!
Throwing money at a school is not the answer. Well trained teachers, and trust me they are plentiful, parents that are supportive and students that are motivated by success could raise the scores in all schools.
I have much more to write about so I'm going to continue this tomorrow. (I'm hungry) Ciao
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