The High Rate Of High School Graduate Failure Who Really Failed: Students Or The System?

http://www.users.bigpond.com ^ | July 9, 2003 | Phyllis Schlafly

[ATOMIC_PUNK]

The High Rate Of High School Graduate Failure (July 9, 2003)
Who Really Failed: Students Or The System? by Phyllis Schlafly

All over the country, students, their parents and teachers are in an uproar about the tens of thousands who flunked the test designated as the requirement for high school graduation. Threats of withholding diplomas have brought out accusations, recriminations, and even angry mobs.

States have devised various ways to deal with this crisis. Award the diplomas anyway, stonewall the complainers, keep the students in school an extra year, postpone the deadline to 2004 or even 2006, lower the standards, lower the cut-off score, reduce the number of questions a student must answer correctly, substitute another test, or seek test waivers from the federal government.

The federal No Child Left Behind Act passed in 2001 doesn't mandate a test for graduation, but it does require all schools to implement standards and annual tests in reading and math for the third through eighth grades, and show "adequate yearly progress" not only for the school but for minority subgroups. The buzz word is accountability and non-compliance brings costly sanctions.

The Act was passed with bipartisan support. But the Democrats' biggest constituency, the teachers unions, opposed the tests initially and are now inciting the clamour against them, along with the usual whine that the solution is more money.

I'm going to venture the heretical opinion that I sympathize with the students who flunked. After the school failed to teach them to read, gave them good grades and promoted them year after year, it's no wonder they feel cheated when they are denied diplomas.

How did anybody expect the students to pass their 4th grade, 8th grade and 12th grade tests if they didn't learn phonics in the first grade? Don't lay the guilt on the students; lay it on the system that failed the students.

On June 19 the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) , known as the Nation's Report Card, reported that 36 percent of 4th graders cannot read at what the test defined as a "basic" level. The figure for whites is 25 percent, for Latinos 56 percent, and for blacks 60 percent.

The NAEP report also revealed the consistent and dramatic decline of all reading skills in the upper grades. One in four 12th graders cannot read at a "basic" level, down from one in five in 1992.

The explanation for this depressing report is obvious. Elementary school children can memorize a few hundred words so they are recorded as reading at grade level, but when they get to high school they can't read the bigger words because they were never taught phonics (the system of sounding out the syllables and putting them together like building blocks).

The public school establishment adamantly refuses to teach first graders to read by phonics even though study after study, including one released in June by the National Institute for Early Education Research, shows that phonics is essential to becoming a good reader. Some teachers colleges even peddle the paranoid theory that phonics is a "Far Right" conspiracy.

The public school establishment is digging in its heels against the Bush Administration program called Reading First, which offers $5 billion over six years to state and local school districts to help every child read by the end of the third grade. The schools are running to their pals in the liberal media to air opposition to the requirement that a proven, successful reading system be used.

To conceal the public school's abysmal failure to teach reading, education theorists who call themselves "social constructionists" are "departing from traditional notions of reading and writing" and trying to "redefine what it means to be literate." They are spreading the ridiculous notion that literacy does not mean reading the printed text, but is "inherently social" and flows from students developing "ways of thinking from such socially based experiences."

According to these academics quoted on the Electronic Classroom website, "meaning from text is not `out there' to be acquired but is something that is constructed by individuals through their interactions with each other and the world." So, students can "construct" their own understanding of the text by interacting with their (probably semi- literate) peers.

The role of reading teachers is supposedly "not to impart universal truths about text but to foster an environment where learners come to construct understanding through interaction." It's more important to engage in "student talk as opposed to teacher talk."

Under this new definition of literacy, you can call yourself literate if you can send a terse e-mail that has been spell-checked, or you can engage in electronic chat sessions. "Being literate ... means being able to communicate in a post-typographic world."

Teaching reading is not rocket science. Parents who care about their children's education should teach their own children to read using a good phonics system, which is what I did with my six children.

[OldFriend]

Parents failed for not demanding excellence from their schools.

[Unknown Freeper]

My daughter could read before she started kindergarten. To me, reading always was a joy. Does anyone else remember those "Wide Horizons" books? In this day and age, it is a crime that some parents are not encouraging their children to read. They are sentencing their children to a less successful and rewarding life. It's not as if a phonics lesson is rocket science.

[headsonpikes]

I believe that the Educrats are underestimated, and seen as incompetent.

Apart from their obvious financial interest in the current system, perhaps their ambitions and the social goals they strive for have nothing to do with whether kids become literate and numerate.

It seems to me, on the face of it, that the Educrats are winning.

[Tarl]

Plenty of finger pointing possible but blame is much easier than solutions...Bill Bennett had it right when he recommended there was no longer any use for a Dept Of Education. Let states attack the problem however they see fit with Federal funds kicked in to those states who show real progress. Attack the NEA, no small feat, since they are the nation's LARGEST organized lobbying organization.

The President has it right with accountability being the foundation of an educational reform program. Eliminate the union barriers that effectively keep out those who want to teach. Administrators outnumber teachers...ridiculous, restore sanity to our educational system.

[ntnychik]

Administrators outnumber teachers

I agree with your basic premise, but the above statement is not even close to true. Pick a school--any school and ask.

[abclily]

Parents need to sue the teachers' unions that ruined their schools.

[stevem]

To conceal the public school's abysmal failure to teach reading, education theorists who call themselves "social constructionists" are "departing from traditional notions of reading and writing" and trying to "redefine what it means to be literate." They are spreading the ridiculous notion that literacy does not mean reading the printed text, but is "inherently social" and flows from students developing "ways of thinking from such socially based experiences."

This would be laughable if not so utterly tragic in consequences.

[Amelia]

The public school establishment is digging in its heels against the Bush Administration program called Reading First, which offers $5 billion over six years to state and local school districts to help every child read by the end of the third grade.

I disagree with the administration here.

Every child should be able to read before being promoted out of first grade, barring dyslexia or other disability.

[Amelia]

On June 19 the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) , known as the Nation's Report Card, reported that 36 percent of 4th graders cannot read at what the test defined as a "basic" level. The figure for whites is 25 percent, for Latinos 56 percent, and for blacks 60 percent.

And if 25% of whites, 56% of Latinos, and 60% of blacks are retained in the lower grades, the NAACP will sue the schools, claiming that more people of color fail because the schools are racist.

[Lizavetta]

Every day I'm gladder and gladder (I know it's incorrect English but today I don't care) that we homeschool and can bypass all this garbage. The sense of freedom and peace that comes when you are completely divorced from government schools is indescribable.

[ladylib]

It's not going to get any better. Face it, it really can't be fixed. No Child Left Behind is a joke because the federal government lets states make it a joke. Schools are already seeing how they can manipulate test scores to make administrators look good using Enron accounting. Figures don't lie but liars figure.

Did you know that there are 52 persistently dangerous schools in the United States? There are probably 52 persistently dangerous schools in NYC alone if school officials were honest and didn't screw around with the public.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-0309280514sep28,1,4100847.story?coll=chi-news-hed

[ladylib]

Parents unfortunately are afraid to question the education experts because they're afraid the "educrats" will make them look stupid. And guess what? The educrats will try to make parents feel and look stupid -- "Why, you're the only one who questioned that!"

Today's parents don't know to question the schools because they received approximately the same sort of crappy education 20-30 years ago. Today it's a little less competent academically and a lot more outrageous as far as indoctrination goes -- alternative lifestyles, radical feminism, etc. It's all done incrementally, however. A little bit at a time.

Kids go to school, jumping through the hoops, getting all those A's, and wondering, along with their parents, how come they're flunking their high-stakes tests.

Some schools indoctrinate kids with all sorts of garbage, yet the kids don't go home and question their parents about whether or not a line is being crossed, because they think the school officials are the experts and since the parents send them to school, the parents are okay with it.

[OldFriend]

Everyone said New York City was ungovernable. During Dinkins, it was.

Rudy proved different.

The schools can be changed. So far no one has the courage to take on the NEA and politics be damned. Of course, they would also have to go into the witness protection program after instituting rules and regulations that benefit the kids.

[Amelia]

Today's parents don't know to question the schools because they received approximately the same sort of crappy education 20-30 years ago.

YOU went to private school, you're older than that, or you're just especially bright?

[Amelia]

The schools can be changed. So far no one has the courage to take on the NEA and politics be damned. Of course, they would also have to go into the witness protection program after instituting rules and regulations that benefit the kids.

PART of what happened to the schools was womens' lib. Before womens' lib, really bright career-minded women became nurses and teachers and secretaries. Now they become doctors and lawyers and accountants and engineers.

The people who become elementary school teachers are either the ones who really really want to teach, or the ones who want to go to college, but can't pass in any other major. The latter are PART of the problem. (Secondary education is tougher, because you also have to take subject-matter courses.)

[aShepard]

My Sunday Providence Journal had an article that indicated that out current Cabinet member Education Secty (Who??) that joined the admin sfter cleaning up the Houston school system and increased the graduation rate statistics to ,like 98%, was really creating a fraud reporting system, and that further analysis indicated that this school district really had a drop out rate of something on the order of 35%.

Tomorrow, I'll try to find the article on-line, and post for all. ??Any others with data??

[OldFriend]

When mothers entered the work force, they exited their children's daily lives.

[OldFriend]

You are referring to Rod Paige (sp?)

[TheBattman]

Actually, it really depends:

I had a student for the last several years in my band program - until he just decided that playing video games was his top priority. His Junior year he barlely kep his grade point to the minimum to participate. He mother was contacted many times and she too tried what she could (single mom- away from the home a lot of hours with two jobs to support herself and her two sons). His senior year (last school year) was even worse. He got a part-time job at the local grocery store. So - his day consisted of oversleeping (missing one to 3 periods regularly), getting to school and sitting through class, gripe about the eligibility requirments, get out of school, go to work, get off work, play video games (unless it was a day he didn't work, in which case he played video games right after school until he fell asleep).

Only passed two classes (three if you count band, but he didn't get credit for that because he missed too many days by oversleeping), thus he didn't graduate. His mother even paid for a correspondance course to help him graduate on time - he didn't even do the first assignement.

He was not going to return to try to finish his credits to graduate, but my understanding is that his mother threatened to kick him out of the house if he didn't.

The child was encouraged and pushed by nearly evey faculty member at the school, including me. His mother did what she thought she could. So who's fault was it?