December 29, 2009
Dear Ministers A,B,C,D, and E,
The Hispanic children with whom I am associated are very intelligent and motivated, yet, I am very concerned about the appalling reading and arithmetic skills that I find during the Tuesday night tutoring sessions. One child ( about 12 years old) is completely illiterate and innumerate. Nearly all the children struggle with reading. All of the children are grossly delayed in learning their math facts.
Of the children with whom I have worked, all have a poor grasp of phonics and none ( regardless of grade) have mastered basic math facts ( addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division). To compound the problem, their homework requires mastery of these basics even though the children have not mastered them!
If it is child abuse to send a child who cannot ski up to the top of a mountain and push him off onto a double black diamond trail, then it is child abuse for a public school teacher to assign homework to a child that is utterly impossible for him to complete. The frustration, guilt, and depression on these children’s faces is plainly evident. Every day in school and every evening at home with homework must be a minor hell of despair for them. Why would we be surprised that too many drop out at the first opportunity?
On Tuesday before the Christmas school holiday, I helped a girl with the addition of mixed fractions. This was her formal homework assignment for that day. How is it possible for a child to add mixed fractions if she has absolutely NO idea what the denominator or numerator of a simple fraction represent? How can she find common denominators when for mulitiplication and division she needs help drawing lines and dots on paper for her to group? How can she convert improper fractions to proper fractions and whole numbers when she adds and subtracts with her fingers and can not carry a value from the ten’s column to the one’s column? In other words, the assignment sent home for this child was **impossible** for her to understand. She told me that she is given homework assignments like this every day! This child is literally being pushed off a double black diamond educational mountain every day when she is not even a beginner. I call this child abuse.
What I am witnessing is SYSTEMATIC EDUCATIONAL MALPRACTICE and CHILD ABUSE!
I suggest that the following begin IMMEDIATELY:
· These children need a DAILY ,SATURDAY, VACATION, and an ALL- SUMMER afterschool educational program in highly structured and systematic phonics.
· DAILY drills in math facts.
· Appropriate rewards, certificates, and ceremonies to recognize the 100% mastery of specific levels of achievement in phonics and math facts.
· The children MUST NOT MOVE ON UNTIL THEY HAVE MASTERY OF A LEVEL!!!
· The older children must have 100% mastery of the fundamentals of arithmetic before moving to fractions. Each level of mathematics needs 100% mastery if there is to be any success on the next level.
· The parents must be instructed on how to create a learning centered home with TV, DVDs, I-pods, games, and Internet completely restricted until the child fully completes his weekly assignment goals. These goals must be rational and achievable.
· These children will need volunteers to pick them up and take them home from any afterschool program. Many of their parents are working more than one or two jobs and it is likely that many would find it impossible to bring their children to an afterschool program. Some may need tutoring in their homes.
Long term solution would include a combination of the following:
· Totally restructuring the public schools.
· KIPP charter schools or something similar.
· The church opens its own private tuition-free schools.
Although the Tuesday evening tutoring program is functioning as best as can be expected under the circumstances, it is far too little to do much good. It is like aiming a water pistol at a raging forest fire. The futures of these children are literally being burned up in slow motion. These children need INTENSIVE and SYSTEMITIZED INTERVENTION!!! They need it IMMEDIATELY!
The problem is a failure of the school to teach phonics in a systematic and rational manner, and a failure to demand that children master the basic levels in math before moving forward. It is a failure of the schools to properly group these children into an appropriate levels of mastery. It is a failure of the schools to assign the appropriate skill level of homework to these children.
Please forward this letter to those in the church and community with the authority to make a serious change. Children should never be neglected and emotionally abused in this manner.
Respectfully,
Wintertime
Well said, wintertime. I hope that your church ministers will focus some efforts to deal with this important problem.
Here’s my suggestion for arousing awareness among the parents of the students being so callously betrayed by our “education” bureaucracy. It’ll cost a bit of money, though. Form a civic committee and send letters to the parents of every 9th grade student in the district, offering to pay them 100 dollars in cash for every child of theirs who can successfully solve three problems of algebra and geometry that should have been taught at that grade level. When their children fail, send an apologetic follow-up letter and inform them that, because of the complete disregard of the public school bureaucracy for the proper education of their children, this is the sort of lost opportunity that their kids should expect for the rest of their lives.
See what the reaction is.