Part of the problem, at least here in California, is twofold. 1) The quality of parenting has been on a steady decline for the past 30 years. Where you had 2 parents helping their kids, reading to them, modeling learning, all that stuff, you now have spoiled brats in adult bodies having kids, not doing any of the "normal" things parents do with their kids to help them to learn, then wonder why their little monster isn't at the top of the class. Illegals, and let's face it, we're NOT getting the cream of the crop here, can't even speak the language, so how can they help their kids? For some children of farm worker families, an American school is their first. For others, it is a series of schools, as they are pulled out after five months when the family has to move to follow the harvest. Because of this, standards have grown from a 40-page booklet to a 200-page tome of all the different things the kids have to know at each grade level. And like it or not, that's what the teachers are held to, regardless of where a kid is when he or she shows up at school, what kind of support they have at home, all the stuff we used to consider "normal" in kids. It's not there anymore, but teachers are required to magically put it there and *poof* the kid is an instant Einstein. We're supposed to have 100% of ALL the kids on grade level by 2012. Ain't gonna happen. There are too many drag factors, like the ones mentioned above. Throw out all the illegals, make English Lingua Una, turn off MTV, Oprah, and all the cable crap that intereferes with learning, toss the X-Box under a bus, and MAYBE we'll have enough to bring this country back to the level of braininess we enjoyed in the past.
2) The calculations that figure who is a successful school and who is not are flawed. California, for example has two sets of standards: the state and the federal. While we might succeed in meeting performance levels for the state, we don't for the fed. When factoring in kids, one kid might count more than once in the calculations if he is in more than one demographic group. If he's Hispanic, comes from a low socio-economic background, and is in special ed, that kid's low scores dings my good kid's score three times, even though that good kid's score might be at grade level or above. It's not a straight test, either; the CST test has "release questions" you can get off the website to supposedly help you prepare, but those questions are ones that either were too easy or too hard, so they don't reflect what's really on it. I hate it.
I would love to see the school system burned to the ground so that we could rebuild it better. Give more local autonomy. Provide vouchers, so that us "reg'lar folk" can have the same choice as Queen A$$hole Hillary. Require competency in English before anything else, and make it harder for parents to not be accountable for what THEY do. Make a test that really measures how the teachers do, not this convaluted abomination that doesn't measure much of anything.
I've been a teacher for 25 years. Some years are diamonds, some years are stones. I've had kids whose parents are behind them 1000%, and they succeed mightily. I've had other kids from shattered homes for whom school is the only shred of stability they have. And the government doesn't take conditions like this into consideration. No, the kids are little robots, that if you do this and that, these results will be spat out of their mouths. There's not a politician in Washington or Sacramento who would last a week doing what I and my fellows do, and we know that any success we have is from our Lord. THAT's what keeps us going.
I've never seen, except for the military, a trade where politicians go out of their way to make it fail.
Bless you for teaching. 25 years. I’m impressed. I know from my friends in the field how it can be rewarding and frustrating at the same time.
I still feel a great debt to nearly all the teachers I was fortunate enough to have when I was a kid. I know there are still a lot of good ones out there. You’re obviously one of them.
Never doubt that you’ve made a difference in a kid’s life.
HA! You are kidding, their scores sometimes count THREE times? oh hellO.
I agree, the parenting is amazingly NOT happening. And the ones who are parenting want to be their kids’ friends!!
Your suggestions are good. Keep on fighting! It’s only one kid at a time anyway.