In Their Own Words
As a
nation, our standing in the world as relates
to public education, has declined, sharply,
over the course of the past 30 years.
The Department of Education (DoE),
on a Federal level, was created
in 1980 and since that time, we have
watched a continuing and comparative downward trend in our nation’s educational
accomplishments. We do not lead the
world in any substantive educational category.
While there may be no causative relationship between the Department and
the Decline, this historical coincidence
demonstrates that we are, somehow,
misunderstanding the root cause of the Decline.
Today, as I write,
there are some 56 million students attending K-12 schools within the
United States. We have more than 99,000
public and charter schools located in 14,000
school districts, along with
another 34,000 private schools. The
nation’s educational conglomerate is enormous.
The DoE supports only the public
school offering. It is believed that
we, as a nation, now spend 1.3 trillion just on public
education, of which nearly 11% comes from government sources (the DoE and the
Department of Health and Human Services).1 The very size of the educational
equation, itself, seems to be problematic. Further, when we compare our 15 year old students to
the industrialized populations of the world,2 our youth now rate at or just below the
medium for math and science. 30 years
ago, we lead the world. Today,
that is grossly different.
Added to
this problematic mix, are the larger issues of increasing poverty, lack of
funding, and an exploding population count.
Much of this is “common knowledge.” All of the above has been a part of the media
narrative for years. What of the opinion
of those who actually teach our young people.
How do they view their assignment and what do they see as impelling
issues? Moving away from the over-worked
narratives of the current debate, Family
First thought to ask those who are a
part of our local educational economy, this question:
“What is the single greatest obstacle you face
as a member of the teaching community.”
Like many, I thought I understood most of the issues
related to teaching. After all, I had
taught three years in Fresno Unified (Special Ed) and coached for 20 years in Fresno, Exeter Unified, and the Sierra School District. But my understanding was media driven and far
off the mark.
I
interviewed a number of teachers for this article. They taught elementary, junior and senior high schools in
Kingsburg, Tulare, Selma,
Auberry and Monterey. I promised
them anonymity and was impressed with the number of issues discussed, all considered “obstacles” at some level.
The answers
to the Family First question ow the hour,
were surprisingly different from
what I expected. In fact, the top two
answers, those two issues that are
considered the most harmful to effective teaching, had nothing [directly] to do with poverty,
population growth or lack of funding. As
a caveat, we hasten to add that these
larger narratives effect all levels of our educational system, but each (poverty, population growth and lack
of funding) will be with us for until
the end of time, it seems.
When we asked,
“What is the single greatest obstacle,”
we thought the answers might be extensions of the over-riding
societal concerns we have named, above.
And they
were, for the most part. The following
is a listing of all the considerations expressed by those interviewed. The “two most critical” are treated as separate matters, in this report.
Issues
relating to discipline were mentioned.
Going into this research, I
thought this would be near the top of the list.
After all, it is mentioned in the
vast majority of articles we read in today’s media. It was not.
In fact, it was nowhere near the
top of the list.
Formalized
testing was an expressed issue and was a fairly popular concern. But, again,
this was not one of the two greatest concerns expressed in our
study. I personally believe that a
dynamic comparison between individual schools is a good thing. And, while two of my teacher/daughters
agree, they see more problems with this
demand than promise. We have had our
share of high-pitched discussions over this issue, I can assure you.
There was the matter of teachers having to spend
their own money to buy writing supplies for their classrooms. As alluded to, above, two of our daughters
teach school. Each spends several hundred dollars a year buying art and writing supplies and their
expenditures are typical to a huge percentage of folks teaching our young people, yet,
this was not the “obstacle” I thought it might be.
I certainly
thought that over-sized class rooms might rate as “highly” problematic.
As with other issues, this is a
favorite media conclusion, and, certainly,
this was considered a problem, but,
again, it did not begin to rise to the top our
list.
Other
“second place” finishers were mentioned,
as well
· Not enough class time
· Not enough teacher aid assistance
· Too many holidays.
· Not enough pay
· Not enough textbooks to go around
· Too much time demanded of our
teachers.
· Teaching kids to pass a standardized
test.
· Too many mandated demands from
government.
· Poorly equipped facilities.
· Lack of media aids (computers and the like).
But the
teachers interviewed for this non-scientific bit of research, those who teach in Kingsburg, Selma, Tulare, Auberry and
Monterey, did not list any of these
issues as “the most important” negatives facing them as educators.
Before
giving you the two most important considerations, I do want to make this point: as much as we might feel free to criticize
the public school system, there are none
more aware of the failings we have mentioned than those teaching our children. And,
when we stop to think about it,
how many “idiot” teachers do we really know? Me?
All those who teach and are counted as friends of mine are wonderful
people; caring and concerned for what
happens in their classrooms. On a
personal level, I don’t know any
teachers who are incompetent. I am
guessing that is the reader’s experience as well. Having said that, here are the two concerns that rose to the
top of the list:
Lack of parental involvement:
this was a “favorite” with those teachers who were older and had a
memory of times past, back when “PTA” was a going concern and an “open house”
announcement filled the classrooms on those very special nights when scheduled. But that was then and this is now: parents are often “no shows” as these events.
More than this, they allow their children to return to school
without having done their homework. Few
come to the teacher, worried about the advancement of their child. A disturbing
number of “report cards” never make it back to the classroom or are
retuned, unsigned by the parents. In
fact, many of these parents are, themselves,
school drop-outs and do not have the educational skills to help, so they don’t. And the problem grows exponentially.
It is clear
that traditional relationships are a thing of the past, at least,
to some degree. The future of
quality education depends upon how we deal with this specific problem.
The dumbing down of the system:
outside of sending the gifted student to another school, graduated alternatives are not being offered
to those who are quick learners within a given campus. While children continue to be identified as “GATE”
3 children and are moved into
‘gifted” programs, elsewhere, there are
few options available to the teacher for in-class “advanced teaching.” Charter
and GATE schools do not take up the slack.
Hundreds, if not thousands, of enthusiastic students, are left behind. We often have intra-campus solutions for the slow learner and the
handicapped, but there is nowhere to go for the gifted student outside a GATE
program. As if they did not have enough
to do, teachers or administrators or someone need to realign the scope of
current educational goals, and deal with this issue, before the gifted but left behind child
learns to play the game and follow the crowd.
Conclusion (and summary):
I am the first to be critical of
the fact that our standing in the world,
in terms of public education, has
declined sharply, over the past 20 or 30
years. The easy rhetorical solution is
to blame our teachers. As a result of
researching and writing this article, I
now have a wholly different perspective of the problem.
I was
startled to realize just how complicated the matter of educating our students
can be. Concerns of discrimination must
be weighed against the needs of the gifted child. Classroom funding is pitched against an
angry constituency tired of seeing its taxes raised. And parental involvement is facing one of the
most unlikely obstacles of all, the
poorly educated parent.
I have
shared the problem and the heart felt concerns of our teaching community. What I cannot share is an insightful repose
as to the solutions that need to be implemented.
What to
do; what to do.
End notes
(sources take from the web):
1. Ed.gov – The Federal Role in Education.
2. National Center for Educational
Statistics, table 403: Average mathematics
literacy, reading literacy, and science literacy scores of 15-year-olds, by sex
and country: 2006
3. “GATE” references
Gifted And Talented Education. There is
a move to create similar programs via charter school programs. It does appear that the “system” is aware of
the problem.
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