I teach tenth grade English at the largest high school in North Carolina. The new school year started last week and already teachers and students are experiencing headaches and frustrations. The "challenges" this year? Messed up student schedules, a new computer attendance program that keeps crashing, and extremely overcrowded classrooms. The biggest "challenge" is, of course, the overcrowding. Several 9th and 10th grade English teachers have classes of close to 40 students. We don't have enough desks--we trade them back and forth across the hallways during class changes. Some teachers just seat the students on the floor. Other teachers have jerry-rigged desks and chairs from text-book boxes.
What do I blame for this mess? Not the rapid growth in our area. Not the community who failed to approve a bond to build new schools. Not the administration or the school board. I blame NCLB!
The pressure for schools to meet the targets for Adequate Yearly Progress has gotten more intense each year. Our district struggles to meet AYP goals at the high school level, primarily because of the great diversity of our student population. Those of you familiar with NCLB know that in order to meet AYP goals, a school must have ALL of its sub-groups test at grade level. For schools with just a few sub-groups, it isn't too difficult. But for schools with MANY sub-groups (my school has 25) it can be daunting. Last year we met our goals in 21 of 25 subgroups, which we were pretty pleased with, but we didn't make "Adequate Yearly Progress" based on the all-or-nothing standards of NCLB.
In North Carolina, there are three tests that determine if a high school is making "Adequate Yearly Progress": the Algebra I End-of-Course test, the 9th grade English End-of-Course test, and the 10th grade writing test.
Like many school districts, our district operates on a 4-by-4 block schedule. Students take four 90-minute classes each day the first semester, completing the all the course work for a "year" course in one semester. Second semester, they take 4 new classes. All in all, they take eight classes in a year.
Our district has decided that ALL standard level 9th and 10th graders (non-honors) should have double-blocked English, meaning they will have English ALL year--180 days of English at 90 minutes a pop. The hope is that this will increase scores of low-level students on the 9th grade English and 10th grade writing tests.
Now, did they hire more teachers or get more classrooms to cover all these extra English classes? Of course not. So, the result has been ridiculously over-crowded honors courses and dangerously over-crowded standard level classes.
For example, most of the standard level 10th graders are in English classes of close to 30 students! (Usually, the administration strives to keep these classes under 22) The intention of the double-blocking is to give the low-level students MORE instruction and MORE individual attention--that is NOT going to happen when they are in over-crowded classes. The solution has become the problem.
So, that's my rant for today. I've got a toddler at my ankles who wants me to read a book to him. Just wanted to let the DKos universe know what's going on in my little classroom and my school!
Happy Labor Day weekend!