I recently posted this as a comment to an extremely well-researched and well-written diarist, teacherken whom I've come to admire in his passion for education.
Perhaps the lack of supportive links disqualifies this as a legitimate diary, as I myself have asserted to various diarists.
Nevertheless, this is my own experience. How do I 'support' my own experience with random links?
I firmly believe the very future of our country is rooted in a quality public education system, but we've saddled ourselves with distractions to that end:
1. The voucher program sacrifices the good of the community's students for that of the individual, and from a pragmatic standpoint it's riddled with implementation problems. While I empathize with every parent's desire to provide the 'best' option for their own child, vouchers offer no solution, not even a band-aid, to solving the problems with the pub. ed. system.
2. As I understand it, the premise of charter schools/Ren 2010 was, simply put, to brainstorm and develop educational practices/methodologies that, for various reasons, could not be tested in conventional schools, and the successful practices were to be rolled out to the pub. ed system. To my knowledge, this has not only failed miserably, but has created further substantive conflict--lower teacher qualification standards and yet another wedge between the union and admin--in an already conflict-riddled system.
Nearly 25 years ago, my then-husband and I made the choice to move from Chicago to a multi-cultural suburb; one with an NCA accredited school district with neighborhood elementary schools, and a successful high school. The reason, of course, was because we did not believe we'd be able to afford The Latin School et al.
Once the kids were in school, here's what I learned:
1. Due to anomalous circumstances, my kindergarten son ended up placed in an unusually small class: 15 rather than 22-25. His 30-yr veteran K teacher stated that this was the most successful class she had ever had, and by February they were already into first grade material. Because the kids were geniuses? Nope. Just class size. NO other reason.
2. In first grade, I was enlisted by my son's teacher to help with a specific child in her class: darling child who came from a neighboring school district with a struggling school system. He had only about 20% alpha recognition, and his dialect was very thick making communication and comprehension difficult. He was failing so miserably that he needed official assessment to determine whether or not he should be sent back to K. In short: after working with this child 3 days a week for one month, I reported to the teacher: regardless of his thick dialect, once communication was resolved, I found him to be an extremely quick learner. The fact that he was so far behind the curve had nothing to do with his inability to learn, it had everything to do with him not being taught. This was unquestionably a statement on the school/teacher that he came from. He not only did not get sent back to K, he ended the year in the upper middle percentile.
3. Thanks to my son's 2nd grade teacher with her MS in Reading, the reason for my son's struggle to read was identified: apparently at the time, about 15% of readers read by 'identification' rather than phonetically: learn a word, know it for the next time. This works fine for the experienced reader, but one can see the problems this creates for the young reader. This early intervention allowed me to work with my son at home on helping him to habituate himself to exercises in phonetic dissection. He's now a Jr in college, and to this day he calls himself a 'slow' reader. Interestingly, he's a music performance major and has a gift for sight-reading music. If you know anything about reading music, you'll know that some of even the most talented musicians are poor sight-readers.
3. After a couple years of volunteering in various capacities, I learned who the teachers of quality were and, likewise, the few who were clearly crappy. (not to put too fine a point on it). The first hurdle was a certain 3rd grade teacher who had a deservedly horrible reputation. My son managed not to get her, but one of his friends did. When his friend's mother called me, explaining the teacher's atrocious bullying tactics (these are 3rd graders, mind you, not Jr high kids who deserve to be locked in a closet <wink>) and how it was affecting her child emotionally, I advised her to go to the principal (this would be no surprise to him) and demand her son be placed in another class. Which he accomodated. By the time my daughter came around to 3rd grade, she unfortunately drew a short straw and was placed in this very teacher's class. I railed against it in a knee-jerk way, but I reasoned keeping her there with this: there will be children in her class, I have inside knowledge most parents do not have, and what makes me more deserved of a transfer than the other parents? As well, this teacher was notoriously worse with boys than with girls, my daughter was a model student and I did not expect her to be targeted. So I kept close watch, intervened many times with discussions with the teacher and the principal, and we made it through. BUT, the important thing to note is this: this teacher was in our school and could not be dumped because of the union. In fact, she had taught at another school in our district and to her embrarrassment--but not her dismissal--managed to have the district's Superintendent's child in her class. That same Super. had her transferred out of 'his' school and to ours. THIS IS A PROBLEM.
I also learned that there was absolutely no way that teachers at the elementary level could be expected to 'teach' everything that needed to be taught. For example: the fundamental foundations of math--learning +/-/x// tables--aren't really addressed in the class room. 'New math' or whatever, I've no idea, but unless children solidly learn these tables, they will struggle in math later on. My children's teachers completely agreed with me, and they communicated this fact at every school Open House, at every P/T conference. So every day, we did the flash cards at home. The entirety of their school career, my children were placed in advanced math classes--they surpassed my ability to 'help' them with their math homework around 8th grade. Many parents (my ex is a good example of this) think 'teaching' is for the teacher, and all they should have to do is, at best, make sure they do their homework.
Particularly in the elementary grades, parental involvement is every bit as necessary as the teacher's role. How do we, really and truly, address this deficiency?
4. When my daughter reached 7th grade (in our district this is the first year of Jr high, so adjustments galore), she crashed: this A student started blowing off homework and exhibiting, of course, all the hormonally-driven girl drama that takes precedent over everything else in their lives. My supervision of her doubled. Her geometry math teacher called me one day to inform me she had 10 (ten!) missing math assignments. I had no idea, despite my best supervising efforts. I met with the teacher immediately, we decided that even though my daughter would receive absolutely no credit for the assignments, I was going to make her do them anyway: she needed to be held accountable (just because you blow it off doesn't mean you get out of it), and she needed to do the work to keep up. I made it clear to the the teacher that, while I understood she had 28 (!) students to keep track of, I expected her to advise me if Alli fell behind at all in her assignments. 10 was way too many for me to be just learning of this. She apologized, and agreed. One month later? I got another call. 8 missing assignments. WTF? She, just like every single one of my children's teachers, met with me at the beginning of the school year to set the landscape: I'm here to support them, I want to know what's going on. In every scenario, my children will be held accountable, but we need to partner in their growth and education. I called a meeting with the principal and the math teacher to address my 'WTF' concern (not those words, naturally). Apologies and a commitment to better communicate was what I got, but the damage to their effectiveness and investment, in my mind, had already been done.
Let me add here that my reverence for effective Jr high teachers is akin to that of holy peeps. Jr highers are horrible- at home, at school. They're only marginally human. God bless the teachers who are actually able to teach them. My son's band teacher was one of those, and as a board member of the band's booster club, we had regular conversations about this. My genuflection is sincere.
If you've made it this far through my diatribe, you truly are a saint. aka excellent teacher.
My point: even in an arguably well-funded suburban school district, getting my kids through was a huge investment in time and energy. Despite the length of the above, these are but a smattering of the full measure of my investment in their K-12 years.
And I was uniquely blessed: until my son turned 9, I was able to be a full-time mom and volunteer at their school. After my marriage failed, my volunteerism was cut down considerably, but I was so very fortunate to find a professional position with flexible hours so I could be at the bus stop when they got home.
What about the parents who are dealing with the educational short-comings of an inner-city school district? Who aren't fortunate enough to witness their child's education up close and intervene accordingly when necessary? What about the kids who go from school to day care to home with parent(s) who simply do not have the energy or the wherwithall left to deal with anything other than biz as usual?
Despite the fact that my kids are now grown--my daughter, my youngest, enters college this Fall--my concern for the educational system as a whole has not remotely dimmed. It's success, like it or not, is inextricably intertwined with our cultural, societal and parental influence.
Administratively, we view music/arts education as somehow dispensable in the face of a tight budget, when the opposite is truth: they are as essential as any academic coursework. This is the kind of thing that worries me about having someone like Duncan at the helm: he's never been a teacher, he's a number-cruncher, a manager. It's been my experience that he views teachers, within the light of their combative and controversial union, as an adversary, rather than as a necessary partner. Union protectionism, at any and all costs, is not helpful. And I am NOT a union basher. I appreciate the necessity because teachers are often absurdly and disrespectfully viewed as nothing more than babysitters. Nevertheless, I have a very close friend who is on the elected board of the CTU and consequently, I've had a unique view into their workings.
The challenges remains, to my mind, daunting.