Fixing Education?

I know most of my posts are silly or just fabulous nuggets of knowledge, but I need to get real. I'm in the last week of my third grad class for my second master's and we've been studying some controversial issues in education. This is a great platform to investigate and engage in a professional discussion of such ideas, as we are all of a different mind. For this week's reading, I just need to vent.

A year and a half ago, a group of superintendents got together and created an "education manifesto," which pledges a commitment to improving education and educational standards for students. Sounds awesome, right? Think again. In this manifesto, the superintendents make an egregious error: identifying that students are not influenced by their zip code and that it is only the quality of the teacher that is the reason that students are so far behind academically. (insert hair pulling scream) What? So, what they're stating is that a student from a wealthy zip code and a student from a poverty stricken zip code can perform exactly the same in the classroom, provided they have a quality educator. While I believe ALL students have the innate ability to learn, no student based on race or gender has more or less of a chance to do well in school, but I will say that environment plays a key factor in that success.

A student who comes from a home where their parents are mostly home each night, where they can discuss school or ask for homework help, where their neighborhood is safe, and where parents provide a sense of security for that student has a much better chance to do well in school than the student who lives in an area riddled with gang violence, where parents work two and three jobs to make ends meet, where kids eat ramen for dinner regularly because that's all there is, where they're a week from living on the streets, or play parent to their younger siblings. Zip code completely matters. Yet, this manifesto blames teachers for students' lack of success. I spend about 50 minutes a day with each of my kids. While I know that I make an impact, in some way on my students, that 50 minutes pales in comparison to the at least 10 hours the student spends in their home environment. When students are in an area where there aren't any educated adult role models, students don't always see the point to doing well in school. What I have to teach them doesn't keep them safe from gangs. They struggle to see that there's a light at the end of that dangerous tunnel and that a solid education is the key to head to the light.

I'm frustrated that so many parents aren't taking accountability for their children's educational progress. Truly, their teachers can only do so much with what they are given. If kids live in a place where their parents don't think that education is very important, belittle what their child's teachers say or do in front of them, or are uneducated themselves, some students will share that belief and progress at school will be a complete challenge. Children reflect what they are taught by their parents. If parents are positive and supportive of their child's teachers and develop a good relationship with them, students will be much more successful at school. I've had too many instances where my students have made up terrible stories to get out of trouble for their grades and instead of that parent coming to me and asking what's going on, I get accusatory e-mails and phone calls telling me to fix their child's grade because they said I made a mistake. Rarely, will a student fess up to not doing the assignment. I understand that parents want to see the best in their kids, but the student's teacher is not the enemy; they're on the same side as parents and belittling their profession by ordering them to change a child's grade instead of just inquiring about what's happening with the assignment is no way to communicate that responsibility with teachers and it doesn't help the students at all. Instead, it makes students think that they can just get their teachers in trouble whenever something happens that they don't like.

The most intriguing aspect of who is involved in this manifesto is none other than the superintendent of the school district from which I am a product. This was a school that was geographically segregated until I was nearly finished with elementary school, where the district is over 200 million in debt due to the lawsuit that ended that segregation, where the teachers have to strike every time there's a contract negotiation because they want their teachers to work for poverty wages. I keep reading about how districts want to use merit pay as a way to attract the best teachers. Guess what? The best teachers don't want your merit pay. Their bonus is watching their students be successful. Teachers driven by financial gain are not always the best teachers. We merely want to be paid fairly and respected in our profession. Are there teachers who go against all the positive things I've mentioned and that need to be removed from classrooms? Of course. I think we need to see more of the "decision makers" in education visiting classrooms to see for themselves what good teachers are doing. It's much more valid than using test scores.

Here's the link for the article in which this response is to: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/07/AR2010100705078.html