Getting to the Heart of the Problem

Of all the things I have targeted as problems in America's public school system up to this point, I have left out arguably the most problematic aspect of public education to date: teacher unions. Admittedly (and shamefully), I did not know much about teacher unions or that they even were a problem up until a few days ago when I watched a documentary entitled "Waiting for Superman." This documentary looks deeper into public education in the United States to explain why exactly so many schools in our nation are failing. It follows 5 students and their families on a journey of trying to find a better education--which for them means getting out of the public sphere and into charter schools. Up until the 1970s, the United States had the best public school system in the entire world. Now out of 30 developed countries, we rank 25th in math and 21st in science. 

America? The world's super power? The country that we like to believe everyone looks up to? It's true folks. Since 1971, reading scores in the U.S have flat lined. Amazingly, with all of the advances we have been able to make in medicine, technology, and transportation, we have been unable to make much progress in education. How did this happen? If you're thinking teacher unions, you read my mind.

Unions. You either love them or hate them, and unless you're a part of one, it's probably the latter. But what is so bad about teacher unions? Let me break it down:

•  Tenure. After 2 years of teaching, it is basically guaranteed that teachers will not lose their jobs. In fact, only 1 in 2,500 teachers lose their teaching credentials. Compare that to 1 in 57 doctors and 1 in 97 lawyers who lose their jobs.
• 23. That is how many steps it takes for a teacher to get fired. It is an extremely long process that most people don't even want to bother with. So teachers, unless you have committed murder, consider your job safe.
• Distinctions are not made between teachers. No matter how well, or not so well, students perform, teachers will not get paid any more or less. Good teachers don't get paid for doing a better job, and bad teachers don't get fired for doing a terrible job. This leaves a lot of room open for mediocre teachers who don't see the point in going above and beyond when they will get no greater pay or benefits.

That's just the tip of the iceberg. There is so much emphasis put on improving our students and how they perform on state-mandated tests, but there is a lack of focus on working to improve our teachers. Sure, with the implementation of the No Child Left Behind Act came a provision entitled the "highly qualified teacher" which requires all teachers have at least a bachelor's degree, full state certification, and be knowledgeable in their content area, but does "highly qualified" equal "highly effective?" I'd argue no. 

We have lots of "qualified" teachers in America according to this standard, but we are lacking in teachers who exude effectiveness and accountability. We seem to be more concerned with acquiring good teachers and less concerned with getting rid of the bad ones.

A common belief is that failing neighborhoods are responsible for our failing schools. Reformers believe quite the opposite. Failing schools are responsible for failing neighborhoods, and teacher unions are the biggest reason schools fail. One man in the documentary went so far as to call teacher unions an impediment to reform. A statistic provided by the documentary for one of the high schools they looked at states that in the past 4 years, out of 60,000 students that had went to the school, only 20,000 graduated. Is this because of the low-income neighborhood that the school resides in? Partially. Is this because of the often shattered and tragic home lives the children come from? Possibly. Is it because these students had teachers that were not fit to teach them? Perhaps. Yet when talking about the problems in education, we tend to discount the possibility that teachers are failing our students.

Yes it is difficult to help students overcome poverty, abuse, and troubled home lives, but that doesn't mean teachers shouldn't try. We cannot reduce the inability of students to score well on tests or do well in school solely to the neighborhood in which they are in. At some point teachers have to start being accountable, administrators have to fire inferior teachers, and teacher unions have to be reformed. Unfortunately until the latter happens, I find it unlikely that progress will be made. Until we reform union contracts, our public school system will continue to fail thanks in large part to insufficient teachers.

The Heart for Teaching.

This Thursday I wrapped up my time tutoring with the 4th graders I had been working with, and I did not expect my last day with them to go quite the way it did. I let them know at the beginning of the session that this would be the last day I had with them because I play softball and my season is starting up. With this knowledge I expected them to be somewhat unaffected, and more willing to be good and get the work done. I was wrong on both accounts.

When I told them I wouldn't be back anymore, I received a lot of this:
"I'm not coming to tutoring anymore if you're not gonna be here."
"I don't even wanna be here anymore, I hate tutors. You're the only nice one."
"I can't stand subs, I'm not gonna keep coming if there's gonna be a sub. I only like you."
"Why do you have to play softball? I don't want anyone else to teach us."
"If our new tutor is gonna be a man I'm not coming because I don't like them."
...and so on.

At first these statements were a little bittersweet, making me happy to know that they enjoyed their time with me and considered me one of the "nice" tutors, but sad to know I would be leaving them. However, once I began to really think about what they were saying, the happiness faded. Here these kids are at 9 and 10 years old, talking about how much they can't stand other tutors. Mind you almost all of the students in the tutoring program I work for have been in tutoring programs similar to this before. These types of tutoring sessions are old hat to them. They've had different types of tutors, and from what I can tell they were not exactly fond of them. This problem right here is one I believe lies at the core of all problems in our school systems today.

There is a saying that goes "People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care." This is so true, especially in terms of children. If kids do not think you have an interest in them, or if they simply don't like you, they do not care what you have to say. It is imperative that teachers and tutors build a relationship where students can feel comfortable and learning can thus be maximized. However, I feel that most teachers are too busy trying to do the teaching aspect of their job without working on the relational aspect that comes with it. If more people took an interest in these students, I can guarantee that some of these kids would not need to be in tutoring year after year after year. Kids don't need a teacher or tutor who lectures at them all day long. That is not how kids learn. Kids need a teacher or tutor who works at getting to know their students and incorporating their interests into the work.

Teaching these days goes a lot more like this:

Instead of teachers focusing on the interests of their students and getting to know them better, they just move right along with what they decide should be taught, regardless of whether students are actually learning the material or not.

The last 10 minutes of the tutoring session, my students went up to the chalkboard to draw me pictures and to write messages about how much they will miss me. They also requested a group picture so I would remember them. If there was ever any inkling of a doubt in my mind that I shouldn't be a teacher, that day completely erased it. Right then and there I thought "I am absolutely in the right career field."

Those students may not remember a single thing that I taught them (although I really, really, hope they do), but they will remember me and the way I treated them. I had to come down hard on them sometimes, but I didn't treat them like they were 5. I took their interests into consideration, I gave them opportunities to compete and win prizes, and I even let them tell jokes. I made an impact on them, and one that I hope will resonate positively with them and the subject of English for a long time. More teachers and tutors should consider working just as hard, if not harder, on building relationships as they do on building knowledge. I guarantee they would see a difference in their students.

To Teach This Topic or Not to Teach This Topic, That Is Not the Question

It may seem like I keep complaining about the same old thing, but I am not alone in my belief that there is much to complain about in this standardized test driven era of schooling. The Ohio Achievement Test is rapidly approaching in April, and as both a tutor for the OAT's and an observer of a middle school class that is preparing for them, this is the first time I've gotten to experience standardized tests from the perspective of a teacher. Teachers hate standardized test just as much, if not more, than students. They not only dictate the curriculum, they also dictate WHEN certain standards should be taught.

This probably comes as a surprise to many people. I for one was under the assumption that it didn't matter when you taught each standard, so long as it was taught according to the grade-level indicators. Is it really necessary to regulate when standards are taught within each grade? Apparently so.

A few weeks ago when I was observing in my 7th grade classroom, my collaborating teacher mentioned a countdown to the OAT's (I think 60 days, but I could be remembering incorrectly). Initially, I thought it was just a friendly reminder or an attempt at motivating students to do the work. However, after class she told me that once the countdown begins, there are very specific standards and topics she has to focus on each day. In a way, I see this as almost demeaning to teachers. Teachers are already given strict standards to teach to all throughout the year, yet once OAT's start to close in, teachers are not even given the freedom to decide what they will teach and when. Are teachers not competent enough to assess where their students are, what they need to work on, and what should be taught first, second, or third? It sure doesn't seem like it, at least not to me.

I need to make it known that I am not opposed to standards. In and of themselves, standards are not a bad thing. Experts have done the hard work of figuring out what students need to know throughout their 13 years of schooling and when, which is certainly helpful. But what I am opposed to is the standards completely ruling the curriculum and teachers not being given the freedom to do what they do best: just teach. Teaching for the enjoyment and for the students, not for a test.

Student Learning Plans: Helpful or Frustrating?

In my last post, I talked about how standardized tests are inefficient because a student scoring badly on a standardized test is not necessarily indicative of a lack of knowledge. This has been proven to me in my own personal experiences both with taking standardized tests and with prepping students to take them.

The 4^th graders I tutor in English for their Ohio Achievement Tests (OAT’s) each have their own Student Learning Plans that tell me what they did not score well on during practice tests and thus need to review and build skills upon.  I thought the learning plans would be extremely helpful in directing me to the needs of each student. However, what I soon found was that every single student had the same student learning plan. Each plan has the students name on it, their grade level, and their parent signature showing that they have reviewed the plan and agree to the tutoring program. But how is it possible that every single student has the same weaknesses? I tutor 5 students, all 5 coming from different elementary schools, so surely it can’t be a specific teacher or school at fault for this. If it is merely a coincidence, it is the biggest one I have ever seen. This aspect of the learning plans is less alarming to me than when I actually began to put them into action, though.

One of the first things my student learning plans told me was that my students needed to work on homonyms, homographs, and homophones. This was not surprising to me, considering I am a junior in college and know quite a few peers who could use a refresher course in these themselves.  However, when I began a lesson on them, my students had no problem identifying the correct usage of the words I gave them. They were given a list of 40 words sharing the same spelling and pronunciation, and they only incorrectly used 5 of them. Which lead me to wonder…

Did the practice OAT just happen to ask them to use the 5 sets of words they didn’t know?

Did my students not understand the question?

Did they run out of time and not make it to those questions?

Were they simply not trying on the practice OAT?

I find the first possibility to be highly unlikely, but the last 3 are each probable. If my students didn’t understand the question, how can I ensure that won’t happen again? And if they had trouble understanding that question, there are potentially quite a few more they had trouble comprehending. If they just ran out of time and weren’t able to make it to those questions, there isn’t much I can do at all to help them but remind them to answer the easier questions first and save the hard questions for last. For those students that just decided not to try their hardest on the test, it would be hard to pour on the importance of the test any thicker than I already have. What is scary to me is that these situations are out of my control. If students simply did not know the material, that I could work on. But if students are more than competent when I have them do the work then score badly on tests, what can I do to make them better at taking standardized tests?

If anyone has an answer to that, I would be forever indebted to you.

Why Standardized Tests Are NOT Working

Since the creation of the No Child Left Behind Act, teachers nation-wide have been pigeon holed into a strict curriculum dictated by the state. This leaves little room for teachers to teach things that are important but not necessarily tested. Teachers who believe standardized tests are adequate assessments for their students are few and far between, and there are numerous reasons why teachers feel this way. One of the most prominent reasons that standardized tests aren't working? It's the tale of at-risk students versus everyone else.

Standardized tests have specific standards and objectives expected to be achieved by every single student in a particular state at each grade level. Here's where the problem comes in: at-risk students are at a great disadvantage. Students attending well-funded schools from middle to high class families score well on the tests; students attending low-income, ill-equipped schools from low class or even homeless families do not score well on the tests. It's as simple and as difficult as that. Yet these students, with very different backgrounds and learning abilities, are being expected to learn the exact same things. Most of the at-risk students do not even have the basic skills needed of them at each grade level, and they certainly have not mastered them. But the state does not take this into consideration. Instead, at-risk students are expected to score just as well as other students in much better conditions...which they don't. They don't do well on their tests, their schools lose funding, their teachers get in trouble, and eventually their schools get closed down. This is happening all over the nation. Instead of schools who need state funding the most to improve their conditions, they are losing money due to their students inability to do well on state-mandated tests. Right here in Ohio, nearly 50 percent of students from families with incomes below $20,000 failed standardized tests. Compare that to 80 percent of students with family incomes of over $30,000 who passed the tests. It doesn't take a genius to notice these patterns.

Higher test scores do not mean more learning. In fact, it actually means quite the opposite. Teachers spend all of their time prepping their students for what they are told will be on the tests. Students may be experts on 2 and 4 point written responses, how to interpret a graph to answer multiple choice questions, or how to complete 60 math questions in 60 minutes, but they know almost nothing about music, art, foreign languages, or black history. And just because a student doesn't score particularly well on a standardized test doesn't mean he or she doesn't know the material. I for one can vouch for that. Give me a standardized test full of multiple choice questions and I will get a measly score, but have me write an essay on the same topic and I would score off the charts. It's all about how students learn. Different students learn differently, but there is no room for that in standardized tests.

Standardized testing has been a debate for a long time and will continue to be as long as tests such as the Ohio Achievement Test and Ohio Graduation Test dictate the curriculum and school systems. Every form of assessment has its flaws, but when standardized tests are so blatantly hurting specific students and their schools, it is time to take a step back and figure out what to do differently so every student can succeed and so truly no child is left behind.

Homework: A Controversy

Since the beginning of time (or at least since the beginning of schooling), most students have despised homework. I would be willing to bet that even those that don't necessarily mind homework wouldn't be too saddened if they were told they never had to do it again. That's basically what has happened in the school district I am working with.

Being an urban, low-income district, graduation rates are not as high as other districts, so a main concern of theirs is to improve graduation rates. The thought is there, and I understand they are trying, but it is hard for me to agree with one of the ways they decided to go about improving graduation rates: by eliminating homework.

To administrators this seems logical. To teachers this seems absurd. To students this seems too good to be true. But it is true, to the dismay of many teachers in this district. The no homework decision is new, this school year being the first time it is in effect. The reasoning behind this decision is that many students who were failing were simply falling behind because they either weren't doing their homework or weren't turning it in. This didn't seem fair, administrators determined, that students who were attending class regularly and were doing the in-class assignments but not doing the work required outside of class were failing and thus not graduating. I can see where they are coming from on this. But getting rid of homework all together does not fix the problem.

Teachers can still assign work outside of class, but it cannot be counted as a grade. B.F Skinner theorized long ago that (many) people are motivated by positive reinforcement. This can be getting verbal praise, gaining a sense of satisfaction or accomplishment in one's work, or earning good grades. Of course this is just a theory, but think of any assignment you've ever had--if you weren't going to get a grade for it, would you see much point in doing it? Students aren't receiving grades, so there is no positive reinforcement for doing the work, and since teachers aren't allowed to require homework, there is no negative reinforcement for not doing it. Now teachers are still struggling with students not doing work outside of the classroom, so they are having to devote time in class to work that should be completed at home. This makes it very hard to fit in all of the things that need to be taught, especially with standardized testing rapidly approaching in March.

A simpler solution, it seems, would have been to adjust the grading percentages so homework did not count for as much of the students grade. Those who tended to not turn in their work would still get a lower grade in the homework category, but not one that would cause them to fail. Instead, administrators opted to controversially eliminate homework, a decision that has become a burden to teachers who are already limited to a strict curriculum and tight schedule. Administrators are not dumb, and they do a lot of things that help schools to run effectively and efficiently, but I have a hard time believing that getting rid of homework is helping this district to be either of those things.

A Lost Art.

Most of the problems I have with the school system these days stems from the strict curriculum teachers are forced to follow for the various standardized tests students must take throughout their years. It isn’t that I have a problem with the idea of a curriculum. It does make it easier having a specific set of standards to follow so you know what to teach your students and are aware of what they should know both by the time they come into your classroom and by the time the school year concludes. However, having to stick so closely to the standards provides little room for teachers to focus on other topics that are important, but not regarded as such because they do not fall under the core four subjects that are tested: reading, math, history, and science. A major topic that is vital to learning but being taught less and less in schools is writing.

That may come as a surprise to some people, because writing seems so closely related to reading (which is tested). But writing itself is not tested, and thus is often not taught. Writing is a subject that is imperative across all subject areas, but teachers either cannot make it fit into their lessons, or choose to not fit it in because it is not needed according to the creators of the oh so wonderful state tests.

Being an English major and future English teacher does make me a little biased, but I cannot fathom how anyone could see writing as not important. Writing builds comprehension skills in all subject areas. If a student can put what they have learned into their own words, that shows they are grasping the content. That goes for writing about the theme of a story, stating the importance of the Industrial Revolution, creating a hypothesis, or explaining how they know triangle A has an obtuse angle. Writing is also a way for students to express themselves, both academically and emotionally, when they may be too shy to speak out loud or to someone. Yet more and more students are writing less and less.

I am doing field experience in a 7^th grade classroom, and the teacher I am working with let me take home student writing from two class periods so I could read their responses to a book of their choice that they have been reading, and to get a feel for what the student are like. Some writing was good. Very good. But most writing was heartbreakingly bad. Their poor punctuation and grammar was what I was least worried about. I was just interested in their reactions to what they had been reading. Sadly, these students cannot express themselves through the written word. They mostly just summarized what they read…kind of. Granted some of the students tried really hard to express themselves, but overall the skills were just not there. I imagine it is just as frustrating for the students as it is for the teacher. But how can they build their skills if most teachers they have do not require them to work on their writing? It’s simple: they can’t.

In districts, like the one I am working in, where writing is not emphasized, I am not at all surprised that many students are not meeting state standards in reading, science, math, or history at any level.

A Problem Too Big to Tackle?

There are some major issues in our world that we have made great strides in overcoming; there are some major issues in our world that we are far from overcoming; and then there are some issues that fit somewhere in between. A perfect example of this, I feel, is the issue of racism. Sure our schools, churches, and businesses are no longer segregated, but racism is still very much alive and prevalent in today's society. It is even prevalent in our youth.

I tutor six 4th graders in English, and of those six students, five are black. So maybe it shouldn't have come as a surprise to me that two of my black students, in an urban school district, expressed their hatred for white people. The conversation went like this:
4th grade girl: "A girl in my class moved today, I was so happy cuz everyone hates her."
Me: "Why does everyone in the class hate her?"
4th grade girl: "Cuz she white and dresses like a hillbilly."
*At this point, a fellow student interjects*
4th grade boy: "I'm racist, I hate white people. I'll slap a white person."
Me: "I'm white."
4th grade boy: "Yeah, but you're my teacher."

I have to admit I found this conversation a little amusing, because I don't believe any ten year old truly knows what it means to be racist. And hey, at least my teaching status prevents me from getting slapped. But I would be lying if I said that I didn't find this conversation absolutely appalling as well. Here these students are, telling me (who is as white as white can be), how much they hate white people. I don't think they had any intention of hurting my feelings. I don't think they even realized what they were saying, who they were saying it to, and how it could be wrong. Obviously they are hearing this information from somewhere, and if it is from a mother, father, brother, or sister, it wouldn't do much good for me to tell these students what they are saying is wrong. After all, they hardly even know me. I don't have the connection with these students that an actual teacher has. I don't see them every day for 7 hours a day. I see them twice a week (if they decide to come), 4 hours a week. But teachers can help to show students that racism is wrong. But are they?

It is highly unlikely that the teachers of these students have never heard them make a racist remark if they are so willingly spouting their opinions to a perfect stranger. Are these teachers making any effort to put a stop to these conversations? My guess is no. Maybe this is too big of a problem for any one teacher to tackle on their own, but if every teacher every year made an effort to inform students of the problems of racism and the struggles black people have made to be accepted as equals, I am certain that the message would get across to most students eventually. Martin Luther King Jr. day has just come and gone, and what a perfect example of a black man who fought for freedom to make sure everyone was considered equal. He did not believe whites were better than blacks or blacks were better than whites. But how many of the kids that I tutor truly know that? Not very many. It's a problem, one that teachers can help to solve. But teachers have a problem of their own.

The problem with teachers today, those stuck in the public school sphere, is their struggle to meet strict content standards, to teach to the state-mandated standardized tests that are supposed to give a strong sense of how much students are learning, though it is more often used as a reflection of how well teachers are teaching, so they can't go into topics too far outside of the standards, for fear of their students failing the tests, or being deemed unfit teachers, thus they refrain from teaching their students values and morals, and drill their students with 2 and 4 point writing prompts.

Beginnings

I'm an aspiring teacher, and this year I have the opportunity to tutor, observe, and student teach various different grade levels. Currently I am tutoring 4th graders in English and observing a classroom of 7th graders. In March I will begin student teaching in a high school classroom. Many of the students I am dealing with are "at risk," meaning they are not passing their state mandated tests, are failing core subjects, are likely to drop out, and come from a vicious cycle of poverty.

The word "risqué" means "slightly indecent and liable to shock." Its origin is French, meaning "risky" or "to risk." So far I have learned that my students are slighty indecent in the things they say and the way that they act, and they are definitely liable to shock. But despite all of this, they are still good kids that can make me laugh endlessly...once I can get past the racist remarks and constant arguing.

At first it was difficult for me to understand why these kids were being the way they were--constantly speaking of violence and jail, yelling at each other, claiming to hate white people. I am a white, middle class female and most of the students I work with are black and come from lower class families. The differences we have are immense, but that doesn't mean I am unable to make positive mark on their lives. I realized this after talking with one of my education professors. She gave me some advice that made it much easier to realize what was going on with my students: "People are not the way they are for no reason."

It's a very simple quote, but it helped me understand my students a little better. People do not do things, say things, or act on things for no reason. These kids do not talk about jail, violence, racism, and not wanting to go home for no reason. They have family in jail, have seen violence, hear racist remarks on a daily basis, and hate their home life. And many times, teachers are so preoccupied with adhering to the curriculum and state tests that they are missing these things, or simply ignoring them.

Not everything my students say is heavy and heartbreaking; there are some very funny days and moments with them. However, there are problems I see (specifically in my 4th graders) that can be, and should be, fixed at home or in the classroom, but are not being handled. This blog is my way of working through thoughts about the students and school systems I work with.