"One day, all children in this nation will have the opportunity to attain an excellent education."
Those idealistic words are Teach for America's slogan, and though I'm no longer a member of the organization, I wanted to lead this blog with them. When I was a member of the organization, I remember taking surveys that aimed to track my progress toward and understanding of their slogan. I remember rather clearly some of the more frustrating questions on those surveys. A good example was one that I'll paraphrase here, "Do you have a working theory about what needs to be done to ensure every child in this nation receives an excellent education."
While the goal is noble, perhaps the noblest, I was entirely baffled that the organization had the chutzpah to ask me such a question. In essence, they were asking me if I had a working theory (as in it was okay if I didn't have the theory, but I did need to be on track for such) on creating a utopian society. I mean, if every child in the nation had an excellent education, we'd be pretty damn close to solving many if not all of society's problems. We'd be living in a sort of utopia. (Though I do wonder what would happen to menial jobs if every child was well-educated, but I'm sure a society full of intellects would yield an answer to that hiccup.) So I was not a little insulted by the shameless audacity of Teach for America to ask me such an impossible question.
Because there I was, fresh out of the ivory tower, just trying to get through each day at my school, just trying to plan a lesson that wouldn't flop, and Teach for America's asking me if I know how to solve the problems plaguing thousands of schools across the nation–really the biggest problem in our society. (No slight to other problems, but we're talking about millions of children not just not getting an excellent education but not graduating high school, not getting even a foundational education.)
What I'm getting at is this: I'm not sure if every child can one day have an excellent education. I don't know if such a utopian society is possible.
But then I read an article like this one. High school graduation rate could hit 90 percent. The first line of the article states, "The high school graduation rate has topped 80 percent for the first time in U.S. history..." Eighty percent isn't bad, right?
Those idealistic words are Teach for America's slogan, and though I'm no longer a member of the organization, I wanted to lead this blog with them. When I was a member of the organization, I remember taking surveys that aimed to track my progress toward and understanding of their slogan. I remember rather clearly some of the more frustrating questions on those surveys. A good example was one that I'll paraphrase here, "Do you have a working theory about what needs to be done to ensure every child in this nation receives an excellent education."
While the goal is noble, perhaps the noblest, I was entirely baffled that the organization had the chutzpah to ask me such a question. In essence, they were asking me if I had a working theory (as in it was okay if I didn't have the theory, but I did need to be on track for such) on creating a utopian society. I mean, if every child in the nation had an excellent education, we'd be pretty damn close to solving many if not all of society's problems. We'd be living in a sort of utopia. (Though I do wonder what would happen to menial jobs if every child was well-educated, but I'm sure a society full of intellects would yield an answer to that hiccup.) So I was not a little insulted by the shameless audacity of Teach for America to ask me such an impossible question.
Because there I was, fresh out of the ivory tower, just trying to get through each day at my school, just trying to plan a lesson that wouldn't flop, and Teach for America's asking me if I know how to solve the problems plaguing thousands of schools across the nation–really the biggest problem in our society. (No slight to other problems, but we're talking about millions of children not just not getting an excellent education but not graduating high school, not getting even a foundational education.)
What I'm getting at is this: I'm not sure if every child can one day have an excellent education. I don't know if such a utopian society is possible.
But then I read an article like this one. High school graduation rate could hit 90 percent. The first line of the article states, "The high school graduation rate has topped 80 percent for the first time in U.S. history..." Eighty percent isn't bad, right?
As I read on, the author writes that if the "rapid pace of improvement" continues, 90 percent of students in the U.S. will graduate by 2020. But assuming a rapid growth can continue is a monumental if, like saying after a blistering first quarter of a basketball game in which one team drops 40, "Well if this pace continues, they'll score 160 points." I suppose it is possible though, right?
But then, after nearly one thousand words of praise and analysis of statistics by state, the author drops a bombshell on all the optimism. And in my mind, all the projections and improved graduation rates should be thrown out the window because of these few short, almost parenthetical paragraphs.
But then, after nearly one thousand words of praise and analysis of statistics by state, the author drops a bombshell on all the optimism. And in my mind, all the projections and improved graduation rates should be thrown out the window because of these few short, almost parenthetical paragraphs.
Authors of the new analysis point out that graduation rates have risen quickly since 2006 even though many states were ratcheting up demands on students, requiring more credits in tough academic courses and imposing exit exams.
In the past two years, however, states have begun to back away from the increased rigor. Florida students no longer need chemistry, physics or Algebra II to graduate. Texas scrapped a slew of mandatory exams and its Algebra II requirement. Other states are moving rapidly to let students substitute vocational classes for some academics.
Confronted with huge numbers of students who could not pass the math exam required for high school graduation, the Nevada Board of Education recently lowered the score needed to pass, from 300 to 242 points out of 500.
Some districts and states, eager to improve graduation rates, have also pushed students into abbreviated credit-recovery courses that let them rapidly make up missing credits but don’t necessarily ensure solid learning.
The report’s authors say all of those issues bear close scrutiny. For now, though, they’re focused on the good news.
-Stephanie Simon
Senior Education Reporter, Politico
Is it possible that these soaring graduation rates are in some way a product of the slackening standards?
Um, duh.
But this confession, this massive dark cloud over an otherwise sunny parade, comes only at the very end of a beaming article. Yet to me at least, it should have been the article itself. Schools aren't suddenly teaching better (at least not on the widespread scale that the article claims). They aren't educating students better. They aren't supporting once struggling students to such an extent that now those very students are surpassing difficult benchmarks to graduate.
They're just changing the standards. They're just sending them through to appease overseers and to earn funding that they desperately need. How can this possibly be seen as a great accomplishment when the very states that are reporting such growth are manufacturing it themselves by altering the standards? By changing passing scores and throwing out courses needed to graduate and offering students mock classes to quickly catch up, states and districts are manipulating graduation rates until they are at an acceptably high clip.
What's craziest about this whole thing is that I think the states are justified in doing this. A year ago I might have said different. But now? I get it. These schools aren't cutthroat competitors trying to look better than the school down the block. They're doing it for their students. I liken this altering of standards to the Atlanta cheating scandal. Whole groups of teachers in Atlanta stole copies of their students' completed federal tests, erased wrong answers, and then filled in correct ones for them. Not because they were evil teachers or because they wanted to earn bonuses, but because they wanted to stop the district from firing entire staffs that had dedicated their lives to their students, and, perhaps more importantly, they wanted their students to know what success feels like.
“I’m not going to let the state slap them in the face and say they’re failures,” said Damany Lewis, a math teacher amid the scandal, in an article in The New Yorker. “I’m going to do everything I can to prevent the why-try spirit.”
The problem with standardized tests that are identical in all schools, whether in urban areas or suburban ones or rural ones, is that the bodies of students are simply on different playing fields. An important aspect of education is to teach students grit, that struggling is good and persevering through it will lead to results. But failing a test over and over doesn't instill grit, it screams at a student to give up. And that's what many students are doing, but in no way is it their fault. No student sits in a classroom and thinks, "I sure do want to be stupid. I think I'll do everything I can from now on to fail." I don't think such a student exists, but if a test tells students over and over that they are stupid, they'll start to believe it.
Anyway, back to the utopia. If you disagree with me and think one day, perhaps soon, all students in the country will have access to an excellent education, please share why you think so and the sources that led you to that optimism. Honestly, I'd love to read them because while I don't think such a future is near, I sure hope I'm wrong.
Um, duh.
But this confession, this massive dark cloud over an otherwise sunny parade, comes only at the very end of a beaming article. Yet to me at least, it should have been the article itself. Schools aren't suddenly teaching better (at least not on the widespread scale that the article claims). They aren't educating students better. They aren't supporting once struggling students to such an extent that now those very students are surpassing difficult benchmarks to graduate.
They're just changing the standards. They're just sending them through to appease overseers and to earn funding that they desperately need. How can this possibly be seen as a great accomplishment when the very states that are reporting such growth are manufacturing it themselves by altering the standards? By changing passing scores and throwing out courses needed to graduate and offering students mock classes to quickly catch up, states and districts are manipulating graduation rates until they are at an acceptably high clip.
What's craziest about this whole thing is that I think the states are justified in doing this. A year ago I might have said different. But now? I get it. These schools aren't cutthroat competitors trying to look better than the school down the block. They're doing it for their students. I liken this altering of standards to the Atlanta cheating scandal. Whole groups of teachers in Atlanta stole copies of their students' completed federal tests, erased wrong answers, and then filled in correct ones for them. Not because they were evil teachers or because they wanted to earn bonuses, but because they wanted to stop the district from firing entire staffs that had dedicated their lives to their students, and, perhaps more importantly, they wanted their students to know what success feels like.
“I’m not going to let the state slap them in the face and say they’re failures,” said Damany Lewis, a math teacher amid the scandal, in an article in The New Yorker. “I’m going to do everything I can to prevent the why-try spirit.”
The problem with standardized tests that are identical in all schools, whether in urban areas or suburban ones or rural ones, is that the bodies of students are simply on different playing fields. An important aspect of education is to teach students grit, that struggling is good and persevering through it will lead to results. But failing a test over and over doesn't instill grit, it screams at a student to give up. And that's what many students are doing, but in no way is it their fault. No student sits in a classroom and thinks, "I sure do want to be stupid. I think I'll do everything I can from now on to fail." I don't think such a student exists, but if a test tells students over and over that they are stupid, they'll start to believe it.
Anyway, back to the utopia. If you disagree with me and think one day, perhaps soon, all students in the country will have access to an excellent education, please share why you think so and the sources that led you to that optimism. Honestly, I'd love to read them because while I don't think such a future is near, I sure hope I'm wrong.