Excellent article! The problems facing public education are indeed systemic. Until actions and decisions regarding education are made by people who actually have hands on experience in public education, rather than politicians, business professionals, researchers, college professors, and people with all manner of job experience, EXCEPT education, nothing is likely to change!
You can’t run a school like a business, hospital, university,or scientific experiment! And you can’t pretend that all kids come equally prepared and able to learn. As you said, there are too many other factors that directly affect educating our kids.
After 26 years in education, I retired earlier than I’d planned because the state and district where I worked implemented new policies regarding reading instruction that were bound to cause more problems than the ones we were already dealing with. After talking to the person in charge at the state level and realizing she had no background in reading education and after speaking to the #2 person in the district and laying out exactly what would happen if we followed through with their plans and how much harm it would cause, nothing changed. I refused to be part of it, because, as a reading specialist, I DO KNOW WHAT IM DOING, and I could not continue in good conscience. And you know what? I don’t miss it one bit! Every retired teacher I know would tell you they loved working with the kids and other teachers, but they hated all the BS.
Lastly, I think Andy Cohen said it best: High stakes testing has changed kids from possibilities into liabilities. I’ll bet every teacher has heard about “bubble kids” or the equivalent. These are the kids who are borderline passing or failing the state test. Teachers are told to focus on these kids and plan instruction around them, because they can lead to the pot of gold: a higher state rating for the campus/district. Forget about challenging your higher level kids, since they’re likely to pass the test no matter what. Forget about your kids with the lowest state scores, because, they’re so far behind, they’ll never pass the test. The goal is no longer to teach and prepare our kids, it’s to get a high rating based on test scores. And by the way, multiple choice tests do not facilitate creativity or problem solving!
It’s disgusting! Well…I don’t know about you, but that felt good to get off my chest! Best wishes for a rewarding, productive, and enjoyable school year, if that’s even possible.
