I am very concerned about the continuing decline of the public education system in America. I see it as a serious threat to both our economic and political stabiity - as real a threat as anything else out there, including the bank collapses. Yet I don't see much coming out of our state or national government, or in the public conversation that addresses the real issues and problems. Here are three things happening in my district that illustrate the problems we face.
First, we are being pressured to pass students. While this is couched in terms of "making all students proficient," teachers who fail too many students are punished. We all know this, and teachers then have the choice of either bending to the pressure, compromising their own integrity; or resisiting and risking the consequent results.
While the district would deny the existence of this pressure or the reasons for it, it seems fairly clear that the recent improvements in tracking actual drop-out rates in California have given rise to pressure from the state to graduate more students - and since we know students who fall behind in credits are also most likely to drop out, the district's simplistic solution has been to fail fewer students, deserving or not. (Never mind that this is probably false cause and effect. Students who are failing are those who are disaffected in the first place, have attendance problems, have gang or family issues, etc., that are keeping them from doing well in the first place, and lowering the standards for passing more and more will do little to keep them in school.)
Meanwhile, we are also being pushed to ensure "proficiency" for all students through student interventions for those who are failing. The district began this by bringing in a consultant from a school near Chicago which has had good success with a very structured, school-wide intervention program. However, they also have almost twice the ADA money that our district has, so of course we couldn't implement the kind of intervention programs they have. (For instance, they have intervention teams that include social workers and psychologists, an intervention that is completely beyond our means.) In addition, instead of following the consultant's bottom-up development model, based on small professional learning communities given the autonomy and schedule compatabilty needed to experiment with new approaches to improving teaching and learning, the administration and district imposed a top-down model. Of course it is failing with much resulting distrust and a poisoning of the waters.
At the national level, Arnie Duncan, is pushing merit pay. Under these circumstances, what meaning does merit pay have? Moreover, I don't think he is considering the unintended consequences. Even without the added incentive of money, just the pressure to produce good scores that arises from the "hockey stick" of NCLB, I am getting students with very suspect scores. That is, I have at least four students out of my 125 whose work in class does not in any way match their supposed proficiency level on the state tests. I am hearing from the counselors that this is an increasing problem.
These are three huge and interconnected problems in our district. I want to know if they are problems in other districts in California or across the nation. What big issues do you see? What insights do you have as to the underlying causes and possible solutions for the ills of our educational system?
