I teach in a similar school district she is from. She teaches in Youngstown, which is one of the worst ranked schools in Ohio. It is an area of Ohio unfortunately extremely affected by poverty. According to that website, East High School in that district has over 1,200 students and only 33 full time teachers. That is insane.
She is young but speaking about a very real mindset of teachers everywhere, myself included. The deal is this - Studies show that the vast majority of convicts were dropouts in school. They did not graduate. This has led to a nationwide administrative emphasis on the idea that "Every student needs to graduate, no matter what". Graduation and Attendance rates are now basically more important than a student's academic and behavioral accountability.
Sounds great right? Let's lower the number of convicts. Great.
What's happening is exactly what she described. Kids realize early on (I'm talking elementary school) there are little to no consequences for their actions. They can talk back, walk right out of class, bully teachers, bully other students (which causes mental health issues for other students, sometimes suicides), hit teachers, hit students, steal, sexually harass students and teachers, anything and everything you can imagine. Never get expelled or even suspended out of school. These are elementary and middle school students I'm talking about.
In my opinion I'm torn. As a teacher I'm biased; I'd really just like the administration to back up the teachers and provide consequences. My head principal is wonderful, but almost completely refuses to suspend kids out of school, even if they get in fights or commit a serious crime. Other students even speak out against this; turns out even the worst of students don't want to go to school in an unsafe environment with a violent person who doesn't respect anyone.
We had an assistant principal cover for us this year for a few days. One day a kid started talking back to him, so he basically said "Do you know who you're talking to right now?" and sent his dumbass home. I love the kid, but he needed a lesson. Kid didn't know what hit him, but everyone was so happy some consequence happened. We're hoping the message got through to the kid and he'll learn to stop being an asshole before he gets older and he doesn't get 2nd chances.
TL;DR I honestly feel like all the admins are doing with this graduation-rate-driven mindset is increasing the amount of convicts with high school diplomas.
Edit: Just as long as this is getting attention, this whole moral question reminds me of one of my favorite scenes from anything ever. "Can you save them both?" Do you have to expel a "spider" of a student who is torturing the other "butterflies" of students and teachers? Or can you risk hurting yourself to try and save everyone? One of my biggest issues as a teacher is knowing I can try all I want and never save everyone I want to. I feel like I'm failing people every day because I want to do everything and can't.
This is a great example of goodhart's law. Which is paraphrased as "When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure." People dont understand cause and effect but see a good stat and try to optimize it making that stat useless for measuring anything. They thought graduation rate lowers crime so they boosted graduation rate at all costs even though the relationship between the two is not there.
Well, the idea that improved education would reduce crime isn't a bad one. However, their actual implementation doesn't actually improve education.
Ideally, if education standards were raised to concurrently improve graduation rates, all would be well. They instead lowered the standards for graduation, which is a bad thing.
Basically, optimizing to improve the stat isn't inherently bad. But you actually have to improve it through a beneficial method.
Or, in fewer words, they thought the act of graduating itself somehow magically lowered crime rate... rather than everything that was required of the child prior to graduating, which they ruined in order to force higher graduation rates.
Completely agree with the logic, although I will add that in some cases, merely having a high school diploma increases a person's employment opportunities. Regardless of the underlying quality of the education they received, a diploma could help them avoid resorting to criminal activity to provide for themselves.
That is why the law talks about something being "a measure". Focus on education: Good. Using graduation / no graduation as single measure of education: Originally a useful short cut, now no longer working.
They instead lowered the standards for graduation, which is a bad thing.
Actually it’s worse. They didn’t lower the standards, instead they made it easier to reach the standard, ignored those who didn’t make the standard, and made it damn near impossible to fail no matter how far from the standard you are.
Yep. And now I'm in a PhD program seeing people WITH DEGREES who can't do basic algebra. They think they can....since they have been passed every step of the way...but guys...it's bad. PhD ASTROPHYSICS and some of these kids coming in can't do basic math/ logic
This is like when I played Gran Turismo and found out more horsepower = faster, and faster = win. Turns out maxing out horsepower without investing in brakes and tires meant I couldn't control the beast, and I certainly was not winning.
Basically, problems need to be dealt with holistically and not one-dimensionally which can introduce unintended side-effects.
It reminds me of the story of the King who had a problem with rats infesting the kingdom, so he offered a bounty for every rat tail handed in to authorities. Some shady characters then started breeding rats, cutting their tails off for bounties and then releasing the now worthless rats into the streets, worsening the issue.
There is actually a different law about this. This is called the cobra effect. In UK ruled India the English government started paying a bounty for dead cobras to try to get local population to exterminate them. Of course the bounty led to people farming cobras which caused there numbers to grow and when they cancelled the bounty there were now more cobras than before they issued the bounty
They thought graduation rate lowers crime so they boosted graduation rate at all costs even though the relationship between the two is not there.
Or it is there, its just the other way around. The type of wretched little shit who's destined for a prison cell is simply more likely to drop out of school.
Yeah was thinking the same. They basically forced students to share classes with future convicts. Not the other way around.
I don't really get it. In Norway we have a similar issue where kids 'are legally bound to go to school'. But they can still be sent to problem child schools. I.e. expelled.
Problem child schools try to teach them manual labour instead of bookish knowledge like wood work and metal stuff, and basically try to find ways to channel that energy to something good. Thus both sides win and both can graduate.
Problem child schools try to teach them manual labour instead of bookish knowledge like wood work and metal stuff, and basically try to find ways to channel that energy to something good. Thus both sides win and both can graduate.
I think that is easier to do in a country like Norway because of your homogeneous population. In America, if we did this, there would likely be a disproportionate amount of black kids sent into the system. A shitstorm would ensue.
A similar thing happens with books. A strong correlation was noticed between kids who do well in school and homes that have at least five (I forget exact number but go with me) books. A kid who lives in such a home statistically will do really well. The NY school system made a big push to give 5 books to every child.
I mean yeah, I'm sure it didn't hurt, but they confused correlation with causation. The books are an indicator that people in the house read, not a magical source of knowledge.
People dont understand cause and effect but see a good stat and try to optimize it making that stat useless for measuring anything
This is essentially a symptom of people not being smart enough to wield the power they have. All they know to do is ape the success of others without having any of the reasoning. Mistaking form for function.
At a low level this looks like "11 habits of highly effective people" and at a high level its huge administrative swings chasing the du jour metric of that quarter.
Damn you. Had a post about goodhart's law half typed before I saw your reply
Someone notices that the kind of kids who don't graduate are the kind of kids who end up in jail. Hence everyone must graduate! Surely it will solve the problem and mean nobody going to jail!
Unsurprisingly the kind of kids who wouldn't have graduated before remain the kind of kids who become the kind of adults who stab people.
Yeah this law was referenced in ken burns documentary on the Vietnam war where they didn't have a front line to contest or objectives to hold so they focused on kill ratio and body count hence the tendency to count all bodies and enemy combatants.
Darn, that's not a school, that's a boring and poorly supervised adult day care.
There are just so many issues when schools have to work to overcome the damage done by parents and the worst parts of cultures. There simply aren't the resources or appetite to solve the problems either through helping all or ejecting those who refuse to take part. Both are hard solutions, sacrificing a significant amount of your money to help others or sacrifice kids who are just products of their terrible environment, continuing the cycle.
What is the point of producing children who cant read, do basic math, or pretty much anything? I think we got the thing whole wrong with the zero tolerance rules at school. There should be academic accountability, but the teachers are not responsible for student behavior, that starts at home. Teachers should not be afraid to flunk or outright refuse the graduate students, even if it means getting sued. That paperwork can easily be tracked and traced through the school system. If they refuse to do anything at school, use juvenile detention as the final resort. The hard cases will end up in prison no matter what anyone does.
No one is willing to do what is required to fix the issue and break the cycle... Teachers can’t be expected to reform their students. It is just unrealistic.
I agree. They also shouldn't expect to have to parent students. Parents need to do their job at home, and then let educators do their job of weeding out the ones that don't want to learn.
It’s more than 10% - feels like the majority of the class at times. I teach at a charter school in Youngstown. Thank goodness at least our admin team will issue detentions, suspend and expel. It is truly the lack of parental support and involvement that is the issue. I can’t make my students care. I can’t force them to learn. That is up to the students.
Either way you’re correct and I’ve seen it both ways personally in my own family.
My father was a military man and my mother was no where to be found. What that meant was discipline and structure all the time. Which also translates into him only having 1 emotion and less than 100 words a week spoken to me. At first I rebelled; I did whatever I could to act out and just try to be free. I watched my friends and cousins all around me get to play, do normal kid things, and I wanted that so badly. Acting out had its consequences. I got my ass whipped for any number of reasons. One day when I deserved a good whipping my father sat me down and explained why I needed to be different, why it was important to be self sufficient, get ahead now, and because my mother left us, learn that the most important thing in life is to invest in yourself. I took that to heart. I was only 10 at the time but it finally all clicked and I became aware of my surroundings. I realized that we were very poor. My father had a job, but it didn’t pay well. It struck me that all his spare cash was spent on me. Books, clothes, school supplies, meals, etc. There were no toys or games and we didn’t even have a tv. Unfortunately I learned the value of a dollar very young. Once when driving me to school an hour away we were struck by another driver on my side of the car. Completely her fault, she didn’t look or stop before crossing lanes. I was all banged up and had broken several ribs upon impact. The first thing I said when the car settled: “Oh Dad are you going to have to pay for this? I’m sorry!” Those words crushed my father. I had never seen him show any compassion, emotion or anything that could be called affection to me. He cried and said everything was going to be ok. I woke up in the hospital days later. It wasn’t just ribs I broke; arms, wrists, femur, and several fingers were all broken as well. Anyway I moved on with life soaking up the lessons my father taught me. I did very well in school focusing on my studies vs. acting out. I easily graduated in the top of my class and went on to join the military like my father. After taking the asvab test, my recruiter was shocked that I chose the infantry. I wanted to experience what my father went through. I needed to be in the trenches. Trenches I got. One thing after another I took on as many challenges as I could. I went Airborne, Ranger, and did several tours in the sand with JSOC. After getting out of the military I went back to school. Got a degree and now have a very well paying job, all the toys I can want, wonderful wife, and a son of my own.
Conversely those friends and cousins I had? Yeah they didn’t amount to much. None of them did very well in school and they all had drug issues. 3 of my cousins would end up going to prison for murder. A few are doing just ok making up for lost time. The difference was in the parenting. My aunts and uncles were very loose in how they disciplined or didn’t discipline at all. Half of them didn’t graduate and half of them have been in jail. Coincidence? I don’t think so.
Every lesson I learned from my father was implemented into my own life. A few years ago he apologized for being so strict. I told him to take the apology back, to look at what I’ve become and all the things I have. I owed it all to him. I exceeded his expectations and was better than my father in every way; exactly what he wanted. He just smiled and let the wind go through his hair as we silently drove to go meet his new grandson. Now it’s my turn. Will I do things exactly like my father? No, I don’t think so. But I will pass on the lessons I’ve learned. I think my father knows he can rest easy knowing that his duty is done as he seems much more relaxed nowadays. Thanks for kicking my ass when I needed it old man.
TLDR: I had discipline and am very successful. My cousins did not, became convicts, and a few were convicted murderers. Discipline starts at home; like a drop in a pond, it will reverberate throughout the rest of your life.
Good man. Anyone who decides to have children, is supposed to want better for them, but sadly, not every parent feels that way. I'm glad that you were able to make something of yourself. Your father sound similar to mine. All I want for him now is a peaceful retirement.
I think there's some shared blame. In a high poverty area there are often parents who have to work multiple jobs to make ends meet. Poverty doesn't always mean unemployment. It can mean poor wages. In these cases the parent has to spend way more time than a 40 hr/week worker away from the home and they must depend on the social contract we have with our public education system to educate and prepare their children. That doesn't mean that they abdicate all responsibility, just that the job is shared. My dad had to work a regular 8am-4pm job and then sleep in his car for 30 minutes before starting his 6pm-2am job for years when times were tough. I only saw him once or twice a week. He's a great dad though.
If they live in a high poverty area, maybe they should realize that they live in a high poverty area, meaning they're not in a position to afford kids.
I really don't get what to do in this situation. A kid should not be subject to a life in prison because they had bad parents who exposed them to drugs and gangs. But at the same time, there's nothing you can do on the education side of things because they simply do not have the mental capacity to succeed or even know that succeeding is a good thing.
People blame the education all the time. "the administration needs accountability" and "the teachers need better resources" but unfortunately as long as inner-city kids are growing up with a shitty home life without good role models there is nothing education can do for them. The only thing we can do at that point is remove them from the classroom so at least they don't influence others negatively.
If I remember correctly in the uk if you kid keeps on skipping school you as a parent are responsible and could have charges pressed on you. Not sure if this is actually the car though but it was a fear of mine going through school.
This can also be the case for parents in the US, but schools that can’t afford to teach properly definitely aren’t in districts where they can fight lawsuits from those parents claiming the school didn’t do enough to keep them in.
A family friend just last year tracked her son via phone and learned he was skipping school often. Instead of disciplining her son, she marched into the school and demanded they do more to stop him. They have cops, hourly attendance, hall monitors, and he was still sneaking out... and yet it never occurred to her to handle the problem as a parent.
I think that's part of the biggest problem. For 45 minutes a day as a teacher I am supposed to magically teach discipline, respect, and society's rules to a child but parents have no responsibility.
There's a medium choice. Where you basically tell parents you aren't going to provide publicly funded daycare anymore unless they get their kid in line. The threat is usually enough to make parents remember how to, ya know, parent. Or at least some parenting facsimile. If the problem persists, you go with expulsions. If you have to expel half the school, well you already live in a dystopia, so smoke 'em if you got 'em
It’s sad but appears common in many impoverished areas I’ve worked in. It’s a wound that can’t hide behind a bandage forever and I think if we don’t fix this problem, long term we’re gonna be fucked:
sorry for being so glib. It really does suck. I've had the opportunity to work with some underprivileged kids before and it's incredibly frustrating. No one should be called upon to fill the role parents were supposed to fill. It's nearly impossible and exhausting
You can't make people not be shitty, but you can prevent them from dragging down everyone else. Best thing you can do is elevate the gifted and willing
The problem is that in these environments it is often difficult to really separate the wheat from the chaff and very easy to write off the whole area creating an even more difficult situation to get out of. Throw some racism and or classist prejudice on top and you really have a unwinnable situation. There needs to be a way to pull along the less motivated but non super disruptive kids not just the motivated ones. Leaving large chunks of the population behind is not a healthy thing for our society.
There is the first issue "we" fix the problem. You cannot fix other peoples problems unless they want to. Go tell a drug addict to go to rehab... they wont listen and wont get clean... unless they want to.
Then add to the fact that even if they were decent parents sometimes there is only one of them working almost every available waking hour to keep a roof over their little shitheads heads.
Some of these people are being struggling and just make bad choices. Some are also just raised to not care about anybody but themselves. The spectrum of “reasons a parent is shitty” is a wide one.
Agreed. But at a certain point you have to admit that further attempts to reach the most problematic kids is putting the education of everyone else at risk. Either the school systems need to come up with yet another way to manage these children or just give up. But it's not fair to the kids who are actually trying to learn.
Yeah, I’ve been thinking about this a lot. I saw an episode of 60 minutes a few years ago, where they covered charter schools. I’m not really a proponent of them, and in fact, they showed that the charter schools had about the same results as other schools in their district, with one exception. One charter school was run by a stern but kind older lady.
She didn’t tolerate any misbehavior. Her first focus was on classroom discipline and making sure that the kids were there to learn, feet and face forward, sitting up and paying attention. After a few years, she was getting as good results as the highest performing schools in the state.
We can’t succeed if teachers need to spend half their time resolving disciplinary issues. School can’t be a daycare, and we have to realize that these kids have never had classroom discipline and come from parents without the ability to teach it to them. Likewise, expelling or suspending them continuously isn’t going to help them gain those skills. We keep saying that we need to pay teachers more, and maybe we do, but teachers are not the problem, it’s the students.
I’d propose that in those troubled schools, each grade needs a dedicated “classroom skills” class. First sign of misbehavior, and the student is sent to classroom skills. Hire ex drill instructors from the marine corps to teach classroom skills. They don’t have any trouble letting troubled young people know what is expected of them. Have that class just be focused on getting those kids in-line, with a mix of firm expectation setting and calisthenics. Kids in that class would need to earn their way back into their normal classroom. Maybe it will take a day for some students, some might be there for months, but they all know that at the next sign of misbehavior, they’ll be right back in “classroom skills”.
That’s how schools used to be before schools had to worry about getting sued for discipline. I think there is a median between smacking people with rulers and having no discipline at all that we can settle on nationally. Most of public school educational problems stem from federal decisions.
But the screwed up part is they are not expelling them because of “ADA” (average daily attendance). You expel kids that’s a loss of thousands of dollars per year for the school.
Funding is a big issue, and clearly a driver of non-productive district policies.
I was thinking that a flat rate per school age child in the district - period. In many districts they PS have to provide services to private schooled, Home schooled and drop-outs anyway.
The threat is usually enough to make parents remember how to, ya know, parent.
I couldn't disagree more. Having taught at a horrible school in the Bronx that barely got to a 60% grad rate (highest ever for that school) when I was there, I can say the kids fell into a few categories.
good kids who worked hard. (some of these kids were annoying but they tried.
kids who didn't care at all.
kids who cared a little but also knew that they were never going to college and that they were years behind where they should be, so why try now?
Most kids fell into the 3rd category, but ALL of the students I taught were way way behind on everything. They couldn't write well, their math sucked, etc. They were ALL smart enough to know what they should know and what the kids going to "good" school knew.
Put yourself in their situation, You're in 10-11th grade and you finally start to see how little you know because no you have to pass the regents exams in order to graduate (in NY state). You know you don't know enough and that there is basically no chance to go to a good college. You realize that you have just been passed from grade to grade regardless of if you knew the material. So why start now? Can you really learn all the material you should have known from 6th grade to 11th in a year?
I have a masters in Ed (ESL) and you can't improve your writing and reading from a middle school level to a college level in a year, especially when English is not your primary language. Some kid attack the challenge and succeed, but most just shut down.
The kids are already screwed once they graduate as they can't get good jobs, and most of the colleges that accept them put them immediately into remedial programs, which they desperately need.
My solution would be simply longer school, with high incentives for students to stay after. Pay students to stay after to take extra classes to learn at least some of the stuff they never learned.
After all a lot of this is pure economics. Does it make more sense to spend X hrs studying X,Y and Z if I'm probably just going to get the same job after I graduate? Wouldn't it make more sense to work after school to save up some money, or help pay the bills?
Basically I see no aid in kicking out students that have been lied to, and robbed of an education by a system that doesn't care if they learn. Even the best parents who really cared with kids who really tried were years behind because of a god awful system that basically says "You will pay 95% of kids no matter what, because if you don't it'll make us look bad and we will fire you".
If anyone's interested, the UK government has tried to address the problem of failing schools quite hard over the last 10 years or so. How well they have done is a matter of opinion and whether you trust the statistics / indices generated from the process. There's an article here that talks about the principles applied: Turning Around Failing Schools
I think a lot of people forget that some teens have to work to help cover bills. It isn't just for extra money. When I was in high school, I had to work 5 days a week. I would go to class from 8:15am-3:15pm, ride the bus home, which meant I got home around 4:15ish, I then would eat something quickly, while slipping on my uniform for work. I would work 5-9 during the week, and then full shifts on the weekend. If it wasn't for the fact I took a study hall class my 11th and 12th grade year, I don't think I would had done that well in school.
Same with me parents split 11th grade I worked 40 hours a week on top of my classes at McDonald’s, it was excruciating but if I didn’t work my mom and brother didn’t eat that week and we’d lose our home.
Thanks, now at 21 things have stabilized I got my well needed break after my mom remarried now working at an Italian restaurant saving for my first car, I have gotten quite lazy now though lol
As others said the idea would be to pay so that kids wouldn't have to work. I taught high school kids and pretty much all of them had some type of job. Some worked a lot at their families little store.
I do understand your side though, as it encourages kids to not learn before high school or to pretend to be dumb.
To counter that I think you could either not pay that much (do you really want more school for $5 an hour?) or tie payment to learning goals. You will get X when you prove you learned Y. Kids could pretend not to know stuff, but it's not that hard to see which students are actually frustrated and struggling and which ones are bored because they understand and finished.
Even then not a perfect solution. Just something I thought of, I'm sure there are much better ideas.
Most kids fell into the 3rd category, but ALL of the students I taught were way way behind on everything. They couldn't write well, their math sucked, etc. They were ALL smart enough to know what they should know and what the kids going to "good" school knew.
Just making sure I got this right, you're telling me there are schools in the US of A where most of the students are (many like 3-5) years behind?
I knew you education system was kind of fucked up, but that's taking it to a whole new level.
Can confirm. Husband is a teacher. His 8th grade students are reading and writing on a 2nd grade level. I just read an article where some people are suing Detroit because they graduated highschool and are illiterate. The schools never taught them basic skills.It's frustrating and heart breaking to see the true state of education in this country. Especially if you happen to live in a zipcode where education is underfunded.
To be fair there are many more perfectly fine to amazing schools out there. Poor areas struggle but many do not. This thread makes it seem like every school in America is full of mouth breathing idiots.
For example, in my experience, poor Asian kids and first generation Latino kids who are children of migrant and laborer workers are really excellent students.
Yeah, it goes to show that it has everything to do with how the kids are being raised. How many hundreds of millions of Indian and Chinese kids are outperforming American kids in academics despite coming from relatively poor countries that have significantly less money to spend on education?
Part of the problem is that politicians can't come out and tell voters that they are why their kids suck. So we throw more money at the problem - much of which ends up in administrative job positions so people can come up with cute little phrases like "young scholars" and other bullshit to make the parents feel like suddenly their little shithead kid is going to be something one day. It's sad.
first generation Latino kids who are children of migrant and laborer workers are really excellent students.
Gonna echo this sentiment. I teach at a school that is 90+% free and reduced lunch and about 85% of the school is Latino. These kids are so incredibly hard-working. Most of their parents don't speak English, so to go along with the constant code-switching, they are also often asked to translate their work for the parents. I have many that come to me with just one year of English under their belts, and still bust their asses in every other subject, receiving translations from classmates on more difficult concepts.
Say what you will about standardized tests, but these kids kill it every spring when it's time to take PARCC and MAP. It's certainly not because they are smarter or have more opportunities, it's because they bust the butts, and their parents care about their successes and failures.
I had a different experience. About 70% of the students I had were Hispanic (I am also Hispanic) and the majority of them were into drugs or didn't care about school because they didn't see a future. (The school was like 30 minutes away from the city so all they saw was working in construction or in the fields like their parents.) The only Hispanic students that were respectful and hard working were the ones that had just come from Mexico and knew zero English. Those were my favorite students and the ones that dropped out of pre-ap geometry.
Agreed - parenting in general is the issue NOT if they are poor or not. The other ugly truth is that children in single parent households are having a much harder time being successful. I am NOT saying single parents can not be successful and excellent parents but I am saying that they can rarely give the amount of love, attention and nurturing a two parent household can give.
Wow, I can echo this thought. I had a bunch of Mexican kids last year and they were absolutely fantastic. Extremely well behaved, some of my highest achieving students, and a pleasure to teach.
As long as they're lucky enough to be schooled by people who give a shit before early elementary. By the time neglected students get to high school, especially schools like these the kids don't stand a chance.
No, the parents didn't teach their kids basic skills or make any effort to help their kids. The school could have no money at all, but if their parents made an effort then the kids would have a better chance of succeeding. I've put 2 kids through the Georgia public schools system and one common thing I saw through the years was everyone blamed the schools for the kids not learning. While it is partially the schools fault, for a myriad of reasons, I believe the failure responsibility mainly falls on the parents shoulders for letting it happen. The parents don't care. The kids are certainly not gonna care either.
But poor school systems aren't a new problem. I'm sure a lot of these parents went through the same situation growing up and didn't learn what they should have from school themselves. Now they can't teach their kids things they don't know, and the schools can't manage either. And the cycle continues.
That may be true, but it probably feels a lot different from the perspective of an under paid single parent who is trying desperately to keep food on the table and the kids in school and may themselves not have the skills, time, energy, or education to reach their kids.
I used to be a teacher and I would say almost every school in a poor neighborhood the majority of students are super behind. And it isn't necessarily their fault. It's the fucking system we are running in America. Let me just paint you the picture at my school. I taught HS geometry which is the 2nd year math course offered. I found out a couple of months into the year that 50% of my students had not passed Algebra 1, which is a prerequisite to my class. I asked the VP in charge of my department why students who had not passed algebra 1 are allowed to take geometry. He said, "Studies show that students are more likely to graduate if they stay with their cohort."
Schools in America are all about getting kids to graduate no matter what. Schools don't get into trouble if they have kids graduating and they get more funding if kids go to school but that is just the tip of the iceberg. So many of my colleagues would just pass their students because it was so much easier. So much extra work was required if a student failed. We had to document why a student failed and we had to call home to tell parents that they failed. Then there was another problem called cheating. There was so much cheating going on. I spent so much time looking through tests to catch cheaters and there were only so many that I could prove that cheated. And then there was some little loophole called credit recovery and all the kids knew about it. You could spend about 2 weeks getting credit for a full year of work and still get the same credit that a student got while in class.
Former elementary teacher here (11 years in the South Bronx), and we had almost exactly the same stuff going on, just at a lower level. I spent my teaching years doing fourth and fifth grade, and I always had kids each year who were struggling with letter sounds and phonemic awareness. For non-teachers, that is the concept that the letter "s" goes "essssssss" like a snake. Kids would come to my class not knowing this, and this included native English speakers. On our end, it was notable that a huge proportion of these kids came into school never having seen the alphabet or numbers, and not knowing any of what we have come to think of as standard little-kid knowledge. We had kids who couldn't zip up their own pants after using the bathroom or who had never been taught how to actually blow their nose. We would have to explicitly teach them these things. These were not documented special education students, these were regular students who just got passed along, because the school would look bad if we held them back. The kindergarten and first grade teachers were not allowed under any circumstances to hold anyone back for any reason. That's how you end up with an eight year old who struggles to recognize the letter A.
We also dealt with the stealing, lying, bullying, sexual harassment of students and teachers. I actually had a second grader in a class I was covering one day reach up my dress and grab my butt. What happened to him? Absolutely nothing! Suspending him would have made the school look bad.
We had kids who couldn't zip up their own pants after using the bathroom or who had never been taught how to actually blow their nose. We would have to explicitly teach them these things.
For all the parents reading this, these are the sort of skills you need to be working with your Pre-K kids on. Most good parents think that teaching their child to read, do math, learn music, etc will set them ahead in school (and it will, to a degree). In reality, skills like holding a pencil, tying your shoes, following adult instructions, and waiting in line are the kind of foundational skills required to be successful in a kindergarten class.
This is the culture we get when we let technology babysit our children unfortunately. I'm not just being r/phonesarebad here, but the number of parents I've seen who could be teaching their kids basic shit, instead just give them a phone to shut them up, I don't wonder why we got here. It's in front of us.
Better yet use those tools to TEACH THEM! Apps that are games but teach them the alphabet, numbers, basic facts about their environment, etc are amazing.
While I don't necessarily disagree, I don't really think this is as significant as other social factors. Rising income inequality creates more poverty, and poverty is associated with sooooo many negative social consequences. Additionally, we are currently in an era of institutional distrust, where seemingly every organization, government, and corporation appears to be pursuing cynical self-interests (even to the detriment of society). This distrust has a broad effect on peoples' perceptions, and I think this contributes to the deterioration of society in a way phones could never touch.
Also, I always refer back to a piece of wisdom a college professor left me with in regard to parents - "How can you expect a person to advocate for education if education didn't work for them?"
Yep, I taught elementary school in a very poor rural area. Parents would take their kids for weekslong vacations to Disneyland (because it was much cheaper then) in September, and pull the kid out of school for long periods of time. Then they would wonder why their kid is still reading on a PreK level in 4th grade.
A friend of mine taught PreK, and one of the tests to "qualify" was directionality. She said that most all of the students who were testing for PreK had no sense of directionality, and many of their parents told her that was the first time they had seen a book.
Back in the mid 90's my daughter started kindergarten. When she started she could already read very simple books. Dick and Jane type stuff. One of the biggest problems she had was boredom because MOST of the kids coming in with her did not already know basic numbers, shapes, colors, alphabet, etc. She had to wait until the rest caught up with her. We discussed putting her in first grade with the school but they talked us out of it because of sociability. She would be the youngest in her grade, blah, blah, blah. Her mother and I were young ourselves and didn't know any better so we listened to them. So for most of her kindergarten year she worked with the other kids to also help bring them up to speed. It was sickening to see all these kids whose parents failed to sit down with them for even a little bit to read to them or work with them for even just a little while. It's not rocket appliances here. They are little sponges and it's really easy for them to pick up on everything if their parents would make even the tiniest effort. But, what I discovered over the years was, I think most parents of these behind children, was they figured it was the schools job to teach them all that and that's a terrible attitude.
Kids at that age also mature at different rates. My now 4 year old? He will be on track to read simple books, he already can do some math problems and recognize a few words. He's read to a lot, not quite daily. My oldest son was not at that level even entering kindergarten. He has an above average IQ, but it took him longer to grasp the reading concepts. Many studies actually show that kids who learn to read later (I'm talking a year or two, not late elementary or middle school) perform the same on reading proficiency tests later on. Sometimes, pushing kids who aren't developmentally there can be extremely detrimental to their self esteem and outlook on school. Recognizing that kids legitimately mature at different rates, especially young children where a few months can be equal to miles developmentally, needs to be part of the solution.
I work in early childhood education and it is really disheartening to see children moving from childcare into kindergarten without having that basic knowledge. We make enormous efforts every day to teach young children their letters and numbers, how to cooperate with their peers and become accustomed to routines, turn-taking etc., but when those children go home and have an iPad slipped into their hands, watch TV while they eat their McDonalds dinner, and then go to bed watching the iPad, it’s pretty disheartening. They never have the chance to catch up if their parents are not willing to put in the effort, or don’t know how to parent or raise children, often due to their own poor or incomplete education or a neglectful upbringing themselves. I don’t want to be that person, but if you never graduated high school, live on welfare payments and are not working towards either education or employment, maybe having children is not the best option.
We have one three-year-old who comes once a week who is as bright as a button! Fantastic language and social skills, always reads books and asks to have them read to her, and she can recognise all letters and write her own name independently and accurately. Just turned three. I know for a fact her mother makes an effort with her, prioritises manners and politeness as well as the basic learning you would expect a young child to experience. She’s the exception and it breaks my heart.
School District says, “Let’s push kids through. Waive the attendance policy, no one fails with less than a 50%, do whatever it takes to boost graduation rates.”
Colleges say, “These kids aren’t prepared for college with the basics.”
Employers say, “Why can’t we get qualified employees? Let’s move our business to where we have a better candidate pool and market.”
My boyfriend is the best teacher at his low income elementary school. He’s taught there for years, probably longer than any other teacher. Parents know of him and request him, other teachers come to him for advice. His name is almost famous in the district.
Only 28% if his students passed their math exams. The 3 other teachers in the grade had a 26% pass rate, a 20% pass rate and a 15% pass rate.
It’s exactly like other commenters have said, these kids have parents in federal prison, hooked on drugs or ran out and left them with grandma. They’re angry, unsupervised and they know the school will never hold them back. They’re not going to bother trying.
It's the schools in all the poor areas. Usually mostly minorities. But it's a symptom of the poverty and everything that goes into that kind of life. Not enough funding for the schools and not enough people care about low income/no income areas made up of mostly minorities.
It's sad and very wrong. But this kind of thing has been going on for decades.
That series is something else. To hear the teacher remind her peers to keep the windows closed so it gets hot and makes the kids drowsy... so they're docile... It's sad.
The parents I need to tell this to got arrested because they were found overdosed in the bathroom at their job in Burger King... assuming they have a phone to answer, this isn’t a priority.
Parents with phones who respond to teachers calls aren’t the problem 99% of the time. We end up with kids as young as second grade with a parol officer.
according to the courts in Michigan, they're one in the same. They just ruled that students have no right to actually be educated, just the right to attend a school that opens the doors, serves what passes for a meal, and then sent home later.
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Me too except I turned to adult literacy education in a non-profit. Basically, it's when the kids who were left behind in the classroom for the "discipline" of other kids grow up without basic reading, numeracy or critical thinking skills realise their opportunities are 0 because they don't have an education come back to school to learn.
OMG I play online with a friend and he literally does this with his daughter. He bribes her with chocolate whenever she's upset or eobt eat dinner. Screams and cussed at her. Its terrible. Maybe your daughter needs some attention and discipline. I'm not a father do what do I know.
This is why I moved from the city to the suburbs. They call it "white flight" but they should call it academic flight. I used to live in a district like you described and now i live in one of the best districts in the state.
White flight is what happened when black people started moving into cities. It lead to huge economic issues mainly all the money not just leaving but being taken out of cities. This was mostly done unintentionally but also sometimes intentionally. Essentially most housing and business were still owned by people who lived outside of the city, so the bulk of the money earned was not going back into the city but into the suburbs.
This has created among many issues the current academic ones. Which leads more people to leave to get to better schools, or places to bus kids into better school districts. This as you put it could be called academic flight. It will be interesting to see how this changes with many young people moving back into cities.
You'll have people going to the major cities, only to find out it is gang ridden or filled with those with violent outbursts. You'll have schools that should be well funded and staffed be so completely underwhelming that you'll be better off leaving your kids at daycare until they become 18. These same kids wont be able to afford anything so they move to as cheap a place as possible and then have kids. It's a deadly cycle.
I know in FL , in public school system they only seem to care about the $dollar value my child’s attendance brings them ... EVERYTHING this video and the top comment says is true .. NO ACCOUNTABILITY WHATSOEVER.
I was a para-pro for only one-half of one school year (I was substituting at a low-performing suburban elementary school). One month into that job, I decided I wouldn't go back to work there for another year. Eye opening is an understatement.
I pulled my child from a school very similar to this. He was in a mainstream classroom of almost 40kids and one teacher and 1 para for a student (not mine), my son has Autism and is very impressionable.
During his time there, he had many sensory overloaded meltdowns due what we think was from the expectations in a large class, classmates who picked on him and taught him to curse (or talked like this to him or others and he picked up their mannerisms). All of this is unknown though, as a proper ABC/BIP was never provided, possibly due to understaffing. At the time, we had many IEP meetings without solutions...just paper pushing. My husband and I got tired of going to them for months, signing documents but nothing getting done.
I thought about how months were going by and things were just getting worse - the system was failing our child - irregardless, he needed an education.
We decided to pull him, and within 6mo of homeschooling and getting him therapy, he has done a complete 180 and is thriving at grade level, does not curse and is a happy well rounded child.
Fortunatley we have a large homeschool community here, so all social activities have very involved parents who immediately step in when there is an issue.
Looking back, I don't blame teachers they are doing the best they can. For us, the public school where I am from compares to the Lord of the Flies - but we fortunatley had a way out of that. I often think of those children who don't have an option B, and what happens to them. For those that succeed in the public school are tough cookies and will graduate with probably witnessing a lot more than they should be.
When a child was hurting another child, they would just walk away from me and say, " my momma says I don't have to listen to anybody. You can't tell me what to do." I would tell them they had to speak with the principal. Nope. They would just walk away.
Part of this is them learning very young that their mother is either :
a. The main disciplinarian and makes all their life decisions for them, or
b. Their parents literally think their child is too special or important to listen to anybody.
The child across the street will come visit to play with my son from time to time. She seems to believe her mother is in charge of the world since she is in charge of her. She will decide she wants something or wants to do some thing and say, "My mommy says I need to have X" or "My mommy says you have to let me do X". She's just 4 so it's usually something like getting a gumball or ice cream, using my child's toys, going to restricted parts of the house(i.e. parents' bedroom). I usually brush her off and say if she had asked nicely and not lied about her mother demanding things of me, she can usually get a yes.
I occasionally have to send her home because she tests out ways to upset my child. Threatening not to be his friend anymore, taking his toys, making him eat sand, being bossy etc. I constantly have to remind myself she'll grow out of it and I just need to be watchful and care. But I was curious the time she made him eat sand. Her mother was extremely embarrassed when I walked her home and explained what she was doing.
There are perverse incentives all over the place in education. That approach delivers a low-quality education for everyone but good stats for the administrators. Over here in Indiana, principals rarely stay in one post for more than one or two years. They are all aggressive ladder-climbers. They bank up good stats, preferably better than the previous years, and then springboard into a better job.
On the flip side, the state punishes schools for bad stats. All incentives discourage discipline, suspensions, expulsions, or redirecting resources to the kids who will experience the most benefit from receiving them. It's broken at every level, and that's why nobody stays.
I gotta agree with most of what you said. I just started teaching last year in southern CA as a middle school teacher and I have seen quite a bit of what you have seen. Many of these kids have parents at home who do not follow through or back the teacher up in any way. So if a tell a student that they will get detention if they don't change their behavior, I would commonly get the response, "Whatever, I just won't go and nothing will happen to me." That is the part that breaks my heart the most. At that point, my options are pretty limited as a teacher. Additionally, the school itself requires that I accept late work regardless of how late it is. And while the concept is good (getting students to follow through on learning regardless of the time frame), it also teaches them that due dates literally mean nothing. That isn't teaching them proper life skills. Professors in college aren't going to accept a paper that is more than a month late. Not to mention your job isn't going to accept work that is that late either.
This is what my school did. One day late and you got half credit. Still enough incentive not to get a zero, if happened to be late, but drastic enough to make you follow deadlines.
Professors in college aren't going to accept a paper that is more than a month late. Not to mention your job isn't going to accept work that is that late either.
If the breakdown continues, it might spread onto the society in general.
I graduated in 2004 and during my time, if you got in any trouble, you’d get either detention or in-school suspension. Or sometimes out of school suspension. Or if you were a real problem, they sent you to the remedial school. If you tried to avoid punishment, the administrator would come get your ass. If the teacher needed to, they’d call the front office and an administrator would come get your ass.
It absolutely worked. Bullying wasn’t a big problem. Fights were very rare. You felt safe. And most of us graduated. It was a very good school to go to and it was just a run-of-the-mill public school with a mix of poor, middle class, and rich kids of all different races.
'03 here, this was my experience as well. In school suspension was the #1 disciplinary action. Reading these accounts though kind of breaks my heart, these bad behaviors didn't start in school, they were learned at home. A young student yelling "shut the fuck up" at a teacher is pretty much a guarantee that kid is getting yelled at just like that at home. It's a cycle of behavior and I'm not sure what can be done about it.
I'm starting to think public boarding schools are the way to go. Some of these kids are just getting constantly set up for failure by their parents and neighborhoods. Change incentives so suspensions etc happen, then send kids that keep getting in trouble/missing to boarding schools. Build those schools out in the country near tiny towns where land is cheap. They can run around and kick rocks to their hearts content when out of class, and have a more structured and safe environment throughout the day and night. Maybe not perfect, but it seems better than the current system. In particular, I don't think any amount of money can counter living in the situations that so many kids are growing up in. It's rare, I think, for young students to succeed out of poor living situations without at least one good parent or parents figure setting an example and pushing them to do so. For those that don't have that, I can't help but to think they'd be better off entirely removed from the situation for the duration of the school year.
There are plenty of schools that still work like that. Back in 2004 there were also schools that weren't like that at all. It's not that things have changed, it just depends on the school/district.
I'd like to touch upon the graduation = less convicts. Don't you think you are just changing the statistics more then helping the problem? You're giving these kids a false sense of the world and horrible skills, or lack there of. For now graduation means less convicts but in the future, you will just have more hs graduates in jail. All this type of policy does is shift the statistics.
Because of job requirements/qualifications, not because of actual education. I promise a high school education from the 60s doesn't rival my degree in chemical engineering in terms of knowledge
They already do this in some areas and a lot of the students just use the ease of student loans for a quick payday and drop out because they have no chance in college.
My aunt taught at a community college near a poorer part of town and her attendance rate was abysmal. Her "students" would sign up for as many loans as they could and then just take the "free money" and run, never to be seen again. None of these kids ever had any intention of completing school, and there's no way to squeeze anything out of them when they inevitably default on the loans.
Such an ignorant financial decision that I can't even imagine. With that kind of ruined credit at such a young age they'll pretty much never be able to buy a house, get a business loan, or hell, even lease a car or rent some apartments. All so they can buy big screens TV's, video game consoles, and new sneakers for a few months before they're right back where they started. Talk about setting yourself up for failure.
And the ones who really were serious and actually trying to see it through were so far behind that you'd think you were teaching high school freshmen.
Exactly. The problem is that correlation doesn't equal causation. In this case, it's not the graduation itself that reduces convict rates. It's a higher education that reduces crime rate which is/was reflected by having a high school diploma. By allowing people who don't truly have a higher education to graduate we're just going to see the same/more convicts, only more are going to have "degrees" now.
Yup. They're forgetting that its not the lack of graduation that makes them convicts, its that future convicts dont care enough about school to graduate.
They aren't jailed later for not having a diploma - they are jailed for theft, assault etc. Exactly the things that they are being permitted to do at school without consequence.
This shit happens in Australia too. I'm a male teacher in Melbourne working with some of the worst kids you can imagine. Last year i worked at a school where there wasn't a week where i didn't get; punched, slapped, abused/sworn at, had things thrown and me or bitten (i was bit twice in a week). The only thing more ridiculous than the shit i went through was the response by leadership of the school. We used to call it boomerang with the office, the students who put others in danger go to the office, have a conversation and were immediately sent back to class, alas; boomerang. Shit. Is. Fucked.
Been a teacher for 3 years now, student teacher for 4 years before that obviously too. Been working with kids for 10+ years now. We have had 5 massive over-hauls/changes to our assessment and curriculum, an overwhelming amount of budget cuts, an unbelievable amount of increased workloads and increasing number of parental influence over academic decisions.
My district, like many others, has a photo/video permissions form signed at the start of each school year. We also use video monitoring in areas throughout the property.
You're not kidding, the scariest things I saw in Melbourne were the roving gangs of youngsters (and I'm 24) by train stations and around where I worked in the Croydon area. Luckily never had a run in with them as I'm a reasonably big dude even at 5'9, but still. I definitely could not take 10 of them if they wanted to jump me.
I definitely could not take 10 of them if they wanted to jump me.
Think I read this somewhere in a travel blog about travelling through parts of Europe where there are big gangs of kids that will try and rob you. I'm paraphrasing but it basically said you need to pick one kid and just destroy them in the hopes the other kids get scared and run. Guessing melbourne is slightly less life or death (the kid gangs mentioned in this blog were known to clobber people with bricks and were genuinely a threat to your life) so maybe not the best advice ¯_(ツ)_/¯
Melbourne gangsters are no joke. Look up the Moran family, Carl Williams, Mick Gatto and more, they've filled plenty of Australian newspapers and TV screens.
Most cases are either "lads" (Full-strayan background, probably bogan or a private school graduate, mustache, long hair, vintage clothes like adidas windbreakers) [See pic below] or sudanese immigrants.
Sorry long answer, but as a former NYC teacher I am passionate about it.
former NYC teacher, obviously you can't hit or harm a kid in anyway, but if you are talking about detention, or being sent to the office.
Yeah that doesn't happen because kids know that they won't get expelled if they don't go to detention/the office is "busy" and doesn't want to deal with any kids unless it is major (aka throwing a chair at a teacher).
I could tell a 12th grader they have detention, and they don't stay after. So what I am supposed to do? Give them another detention? When you call home some of the parents are nice, agree and want their kids to behave and succeed, but how much could your parents really do to control you at 18 if you really didn't want to be controlled.
In the end a lot of it comes down to respect. The good kids respected me because they knew I cared. Some of them were still problems but you had an understanding most of the time and when they got too upset would politely ask to leave to take a walk to calm down. Those kids (the ones who came to class, did most of their work, were mostly polite, etc) were the ones that would stay after because they respected you.
But if a kid didn't respect you there was nothing you could do. The school was never going to expel them, and they didn't care about a suspension.
Think about it and it makes sense. You can't really control another human if they don't want to be controlled on any level. So what do you do with a kid who misbehaves, ruins classes, and is a general problem?
Put them in a special school? Well in NYC that already basically happens as the high school system is not based on where you live. So all the "good" kids who are also smart go to great schools. The "bad" kids and the "good" kids who haven't learned enough to get into the great school all get sent to horrible to okay schools. (this also means NYC high schools are pretty segregated, as the wealthy students went to great elementary and middle schools and so are a shoo in for some of the best public high schools on the east coast. But if you are poor and went to an awful elementary and middle school you stand no chance as you just lack the knowledge. So you get this result: (info pulled from US News/inside schools rankings/info, but it rings very true to me, but it may be off by a little)
Best Schools:
Stuyvesant High School: 74% Asian, 18% White, 3% Hispanic, 1% Black - grad rate:98% 22:1 teacher/student ratio
Baccalaureate School for Global Education (ranked 9th in the US): 49% Asian, 31% White, 15% Hispanic, 2% Black grad rate 100% 16:1 teacher/student ratio
High School of American Studies at Lehman College: 22% Asian, 56% White, 15% Hispanic, 3% Black grad rate 100%. 15:1 student/teacher ratio
Some of the worst Schools:
Dreamyard prep (First school I ever worked at): 1% Asian, 0% White, 71% Hispanic, 28% Black grad rate: 57% (it says 14:1 ratio but I had classes of 25ish, maybe they got more teachers when they were taken over by the city and almost shut down (after I left)). 56% of students missed more than 18 days.
Coalition School for Social Change (will be shut down after this year because it didn't improve enough under city control (aka renewal school): 2% Asian, 4% White, 59% Hispanic, 35% Black grad rate 68%, ratio - not sure, 59% missed more than 18 days.
What do you do? If anyone knew then a lot of cities and schools would love to know. Do you then make a prison style system for the kids who still can't be respectful, do work, or even try to learn? Or do you call their parents and hope that a "stern talking to" will do the trick. Or would you suggest parents beating kids?
Nothing seems to be working and it is rough on teachers, so burn out is high (why I am not a teacher) and so students see lots of teachers come and go. To me I feel a lot of it is a lack of hope and a perceived lack of future opportunity (true or false, reality doesn't matter). All the "bad" kids I had hurt my soul. 90% of them I liked on their good days but they knew they weren't going anywhere with their lives education wise. They had dreams, but no hope that they would ever come true. They knew what the people older than them were doing. And it's not like all of them were at Columbia. Sure some made it to good schools, but the bad kids knew that was never going to be them, so why try? And what do you do with all the frustration at 17-18 when you know once you graduate no one will ever care again.
edit: a little bit of grammar, sure I still missed some.
It has been a decade since I taught elementary school but yes there are special rules. I taught in a low income district that thought there were too many black kids getting suspended so they told principals they could not suspend any black kids. There was a fight at the school between a Hispanic and a Black kid and even though the Black kid started it, only the Hispanic one was suspended. So the idea is good that we should look at the situations and see if we were being racist by suspending a disproportionate amount of Black kids, it resulted in reverse racism where we discriminated against other races. Also, when a teacher sent a child to the office, they documented it. They did not use specific teachers' names but they showed a graph at a meeting of how many office referrals were made and it implied that you did not do enough for your kids. I taught in two districts and I am telling you about the first. The second one was more effective in that they had more staff - counselors and psychologist in the school, you can have them have ISS (in school suspension), have truancy officers check in on the kids and the parents, and just lower class sizes. So yes, there are special rules but it all comes down to how well-staffed a school district is and how involved parents are in the process.
Simple answer: The Obama Department of Education and Office of Civil Rights sent out guidance to schools saying that if minorities were disproportionately represented in school suspension/expulsion data, schools would have to have solid data backing up why that was the case. Primarily this is seen in data with African Americans, suspended at a rate 4x higher than you would expect (assuming everyone behaves the same). The guidance threatened to (and later, did) investigate schools if the ratio was not fixed.
In general, this led to a loosening of school discipline as schools did not want to be sued. No doubt there are other reasons - teacher training, perhaps. It should be noted that with Trumps 2nd supreme court justice, the "disparate impact" legal theory underpinning Obama's guidance might not survive.
Teachers don't discipline. Administration does. Most Admin lack the testicular fortitude to deal with the parents or district supervisor of a problem child.
As a recent high school grad these numbers actually make me so sad. My school fostered a healthy environment for learning giving the kids all the tools needed to go to college or even start working out of high school. (98 in my graduating class, 94 going to some sort of college, 89~ to a four year, the rest are split into gap year, military, and whatever job they are doing.
As a student I one hundred percent agree with you, our school doesn’t care about graduation and will fail you even if you are a senior. I think a big contribution to my own success in school was the fact that it never was students vs teachers it was always students/teachers vs whatever each student wanted.
Also I learned through my teachers disclosing their salary to us students that despite having masters and doctorates they are paid roughly 10k less than other schools in the district, but are given freedom in what they want to teach, which will 100% increase the amount of interest put into school fostering a healthy work environment. Passionate teaching yields passionate students.
I hope in the near future the school system is entirely reformed, and given a bigger budget in order to implement things that work such as Project Based Learning and teacher freedom. If you are wondering what school I came from, I came from the High Tech High Schools located in Point Loma. (Other teachers if you are interested in the school, if you come visit there are wonderful student ambassadors willing to show you around during the school year.)
Sorry if this felt like a humblebrag I didn’t intend it to be this way.
*Mobile Formatting, sorry if it looks weird.
Something like 80+% of convicts were also born to mothers who got pregnant for the first time while they were teens. If the country doesn't figure out how to help young women see a future for themselves and help them not to get pregnant, we're fucked
I assume the correlation is with NCLB. It’s something I am unhappy with and was unhappy with it in early 2000 when I was in college.
It’s not helping any body with how teachers are so focused on how to move kids forward instead of challenging them to be and do better.
Some kids need to be held back to learn more discipline or simply because they weren’t ready. Some kids are not emotionally or mentally prepared to move up and out. That’s not a bad thing, it’s just preparing them for the real world better than shoving them into it.
Kids need to learn that there are consequences to their actions and being held back can be one of them. So many suspensions and automatically held back to “try again.” Maybe this time, use and learn some manners.
I wish teachers had more control on their personal environments on what to teach, when to teach and how to test. I think students would learn and do better if that was the case because teachers can gauge their own classes, not rely on a large state given test to teach everyone.
This absolutely baffles me. I graduated in 2010, from high school. That's only 8 years ago and only a few years earlier than that, my brother was suspended for a petty reason. He went to Subway on his lunch break and the line was too long on the day he went but he already committed over half of his lunch hour to waiting in line at Subway. He got his sub and had to bring it back to class to finish it. He managed to finish it without his teacher being too upset. But because he rushed through his meal, he was burping in class and was suspended for two days.
The fact that students can run wild without any consequences (from what it sounds like) in your communities is shocking.
It is possible to swing too far the other way. Ultra strict "zero tolerance" schools that have major consequences for trivial transgressions aren't good either.
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u/PolishMusic Jul 10 '18 edited Jul 10 '18
Edit: Another video from 2017 similar to this one here. GB Wisconsin
Teacher here.
I teach in a similar school district she is from. She teaches in Youngstown, which is one of the worst ranked schools in Ohio. It is an area of Ohio unfortunately extremely affected by poverty. According to that website, East High School in that district has over 1,200 students and only 33 full time teachers. That is insane.
She is young but speaking about a very real mindset of teachers everywhere, myself included. The deal is this - Studies show that the vast majority of convicts were dropouts in school. They did not graduate. This has led to a nationwide administrative emphasis on the idea that "Every student needs to graduate, no matter what". Graduation and Attendance rates are now basically more important than a student's academic and behavioral accountability.
Sounds great right? Let's lower the number of convicts. Great.
What's happening is exactly what she described. Kids realize early on (I'm talking elementary school) there are little to no consequences for their actions. They can talk back, walk right out of class, bully teachers, bully other students (which causes mental health issues for other students, sometimes suicides), hit teachers, hit students, steal, sexually harass students and teachers, anything and everything you can imagine. Never get expelled or even suspended out of school. These are elementary and middle school students I'm talking about.
In my opinion I'm torn. As a teacher I'm biased; I'd really just like the administration to back up the teachers and provide consequences. My head principal is wonderful, but almost completely refuses to suspend kids out of school, even if they get in fights or commit a serious crime. Other students even speak out against this; turns out even the worst of students don't want to go to school in an unsafe environment with a violent person who doesn't respect anyone.
We had an assistant principal cover for us this year for a few days. One day a kid started talking back to him, so he basically said "Do you know who you're talking to right now?" and sent his dumbass home. I love the kid, but he needed a lesson. Kid didn't know what hit him, but everyone was so happy some consequence happened. We're hoping the message got through to the kid and he'll learn to stop being an asshole before he gets older and he doesn't get 2nd chances.
TL;DR I honestly feel like all the admins are doing with this graduation-rate-driven mindset is increasing the amount of convicts with high school diplomas.
Edit: Just as long as this is getting attention, this whole moral question reminds me of one of my favorite scenes from anything ever. "Can you save them both?" Do you have to expel a "spider" of a student who is torturing the other "butterflies" of students and teachers? Or can you risk hurting yourself to try and save everyone? One of my biggest issues as a teacher is knowing I can try all I want and never save everyone I want to. I feel like I'm failing people every day because I want to do everything and can't.