Today my students began watching the propaganda documentary "Waiting for 'Superman'". If you haven't seen it, the primary focus is on the broken public education system in America. When the highest percentage of reading proficiency in the country is 36% of students in ONE state are proficient in reading by the 8th grade, the system IS broken.
The documentarian is coming down hard on it being the fault of poor teachers. It is making me feel very pressured to be a better teacher, make sure I am addressing a minimum of 100% of the recommended curriculum. Apparently, one poor teacher can pull a student down an entire grade level in that subject. A poor elementary school teacher can hold a student back a grade level in every subject, which is a deficit from which few recover. If a child gets unlucky enough to have two poor teachers, his/her future can be permanently affected. We all know that one bad teacher affects an entire year of learning, which then affects the next year and the subsequently the next, but how many of us realize that this is leading 44-88% of high school students to enter 1-3 or more grade levels behind in reading and math.
Even though I understand the situation is much more complex than the film truly depicts, with a plethora of so many variables that even the best intentioned cannot find a workable solution, I have to be honest and admit that when my daughter is school age, I will be considering private school if it is a financial option for us.
In a perfect world, every student would have equal opportunity to learn according to his/her ability, but since teachers are people and people are imperfect, that does not seem to be realistic view. Some teachers work better with the upper echelon of students, some with the lower and some with the middle group. Some teachers are more patient and others more strict. What works in one room with one group of students might not work with a similar group down the hall. The system cannot be perfect with so many people being involved in it from students, parents, teachers, administrators, to local, state and federal politicians. However, I think the system could be better.
Is money the answer? In some ways, yes it is. Give me fewer students and more time to prepare and critique and grade. But giving each teacher fewer students and more time, costs money. Pay teachers what they are really worth. While higher pay will attract more people in general to the profession, more skilled and quality people who would love to teach might be willing to enter the profession if they could feasibly support a family on the income. Give teachers and schools the tools to make learning accessible and fun.
The next issue regarding teachers that the video addresses is TENURE. Tenure keeps many ignorant, lazy and generally ineffective teachers employed as do many teaching contracts in non-union states. However, no protections for teachers would lead to a lot of great teachers being lost to the profession as well. Teachers are in such a difficult position that they need some job security. It should be hard to get fired because parents and students can misinterpret or misrepresent situations. Assessing teacher success is also hard because the measurement of success is not an objective measure. How well students do on a test only would work if we could guarantee each student made an effort on the test and would not purposely fail to place a teacher's job in jeopardy. Passing versus failing percentages of students wouldn't work because everyone could just arbitrarily decide to pass students in order to be seen as more successful. In my school, teachers give students passing grades if they get close. I choose not to do so without extenuating circumstances. A student who earns a 69, just under the 70% passing rate, but did not attend tutoring or do all of his/her assignments, who made little effort to do even the minimum doesn't get a passing grade. At the same time a student with a 67-68 who came in for extra help, did every homework assignment, did extra credit work when offered, behaved and was on task in class daily might earn the passing grade. Grades are so subjective that looking at them from outside isn't really a fair assessment of a teacher's skill or necessarily of a student's learning.
The system is so huge and so convoluted that even brilliant, motivated, wonderful people haven't been able to fix it in its current manifestation. Don't even get me started on NCLB . . . NCLB Flaws is an article I found that addresses some of my concerns over the current educational system. A discussion for another day, perhaps.
We can't fix a broken system without being willing to shake things up, being willing to stop doing things the way they've always been done and start from the bottom correcting and changing things. I have answers, but no power and many better informed, educated and skilled than I have found themselves in the same place. All ideas and answers with no tools or ability or allowances to implement them. Perhaps the biggest hurdle to fixing it, isn't that we are waiting for Superman to come save us, but we should be waiting for the trash man to scrap the whole thing and start over.
The documentarian is coming down hard on it being the fault of poor teachers. It is making me feel very pressured to be a better teacher, make sure I am addressing a minimum of 100% of the recommended curriculum. Apparently, one poor teacher can pull a student down an entire grade level in that subject. A poor elementary school teacher can hold a student back a grade level in every subject, which is a deficit from which few recover. If a child gets unlucky enough to have two poor teachers, his/her future can be permanently affected. We all know that one bad teacher affects an entire year of learning, which then affects the next year and the subsequently the next, but how many of us realize that this is leading 44-88% of high school students to enter 1-3 or more grade levels behind in reading and math.
Even though I understand the situation is much more complex than the film truly depicts, with a plethora of so many variables that even the best intentioned cannot find a workable solution, I have to be honest and admit that when my daughter is school age, I will be considering private school if it is a financial option for us.
In a perfect world, every student would have equal opportunity to learn according to his/her ability, but since teachers are people and people are imperfect, that does not seem to be realistic view. Some teachers work better with the upper echelon of students, some with the lower and some with the middle group. Some teachers are more patient and others more strict. What works in one room with one group of students might not work with a similar group down the hall. The system cannot be perfect with so many people being involved in it from students, parents, teachers, administrators, to local, state and federal politicians. However, I think the system could be better.
Is money the answer? In some ways, yes it is. Give me fewer students and more time to prepare and critique and grade. But giving each teacher fewer students and more time, costs money. Pay teachers what they are really worth. While higher pay will attract more people in general to the profession, more skilled and quality people who would love to teach might be willing to enter the profession if they could feasibly support a family on the income. Give teachers and schools the tools to make learning accessible and fun.
The next issue regarding teachers that the video addresses is TENURE. Tenure keeps many ignorant, lazy and generally ineffective teachers employed as do many teaching contracts in non-union states. However, no protections for teachers would lead to a lot of great teachers being lost to the profession as well. Teachers are in such a difficult position that they need some job security. It should be hard to get fired because parents and students can misinterpret or misrepresent situations. Assessing teacher success is also hard because the measurement of success is not an objective measure. How well students do on a test only would work if we could guarantee each student made an effort on the test and would not purposely fail to place a teacher's job in jeopardy. Passing versus failing percentages of students wouldn't work because everyone could just arbitrarily decide to pass students in order to be seen as more successful. In my school, teachers give students passing grades if they get close. I choose not to do so without extenuating circumstances. A student who earns a 69, just under the 70% passing rate, but did not attend tutoring or do all of his/her assignments, who made little effort to do even the minimum doesn't get a passing grade. At the same time a student with a 67-68 who came in for extra help, did every homework assignment, did extra credit work when offered, behaved and was on task in class daily might earn the passing grade. Grades are so subjective that looking at them from outside isn't really a fair assessment of a teacher's skill or necessarily of a student's learning.
The system is so huge and so convoluted that even brilliant, motivated, wonderful people haven't been able to fix it in its current manifestation. Don't even get me started on NCLB . . . NCLB Flaws is an article I found that addresses some of my concerns over the current educational system. A discussion for another day, perhaps.
We can't fix a broken system without being willing to shake things up, being willing to stop doing things the way they've always been done and start from the bottom correcting and changing things. I have answers, but no power and many better informed, educated and skilled than I have found themselves in the same place. All ideas and answers with no tools or ability or allowances to implement them. Perhaps the biggest hurdle to fixing it, isn't that we are waiting for Superman to come save us, but we should be waiting for the trash man to scrap the whole thing and start over.
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