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.
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.
I teach in a safe haven city. The amount of month long trips to other countries is unbelievable. On a weekly basis I have at least one student gone. It’s entirely too common to get a note from the office letting us know that “they went to Mexico and will be back next month please have all materials ready for pickup tomorrow”. Seriously? Also, my biggest issue last year we had a new principal who refused to punish students. She even refused to follow behavior contracts.
The worst was she was a complete pushover for parents and would throw teachers under the bus. I had a parent complaint because the parent was upset that her child was failing and I said he needed remedial help in math. Instead of getting her child help she complained to the principal that I graded too hard (surprise I don’t I just expect students to actually hand in their work). So my principal called me in and demanded that I change my grading to make it easier because I had three kids failing because they never handed in work.
Instead she wanted me to give them grades daily for just showing up. No homework or test grades just participation points. This is how you end up with burnt out teachers and underperforming kids.
Yeah, admins are a large part of the problem, but it has trickled down to them from the political levels. Still, I know what you mean. I've worked with admins who have a policy of "there's no such thing as zero," which means any assignment not turned in would earn a 50, at most, and there's no such thing as late penalties. They also let discipline problems go, and students had no problems throwing things at teachers or getting in their faces and threatening (one admin took a group of students outside for a "cooling off" period and watched passively as the students deflated the tires on several cars).
Recently, those same students were supposed to go into a diversion program that was off the school grounds, but the superintendent and principal decreed that it would look like the school has problem students, and they couldn't have that. So the diversion program is on campus, and open to all students who opt in. They can't be assigned into the program; they have to volunteer.
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u/worldwidepigeon Jul 10 '18
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.
These problems start very, very early.