
How My School and District Failed its Students - thisisnotmyname
http://www.anurbanteacherseducation.com/2011/02/tfa-alumnus-describes-barriers-to.html
======
maxharris
My solution? Make attendance voluntary by abolishing truancy laws. Disruptive
students don't want to be there, and forcing them to go doesn't teach them
anything.

Human beings can't be forced to think. This runs absolutely counter to all
kinds of notions and traditions, but it's how nature is. Wishing, legislating
and expecting that facts be otherwise won't work any better here than it would
in the physical sciences (imagine how you might react to such a stance against
thermodynamics or the inverse square law).

Edit: if you disagree, say _why_ instead of just voting me down.

~~~
frossie
_Make attendance voluntary by abolishing truancy laws_

I didn't downvote you, but I strongly disagree. I personally don't want to
live in a society full of kids (did you see his percentages - up to 25%!!)
that are considered unmanageable at age 12. If they are unmanageable at age
12, what do you think they are going to be at age 25? Angry, illiterate,
jobless oh and yeah, still unmanageable. Or, in jail and unmanageable. Can you
build enough jails for 25% of the population?

There are no easy answers to the problems of universal education, but let's
not forget why it is there in the first place.

~~~
mycroftiv
The purpose of universal education is to educate, not to provide free day
care, much less to serve as a corrective institution for young people with
behavior problems. Our education system is a failure because it is
overburdened with non-educational mandates. In my very biased opinion, it is
the most motivated students who are harmed the most by this. The difficult
challenge of improving the behavior and attitude of angry and undisciplined
individuals is not a goal the public schools should be given.

~~~
tptacek
It very much is part of the purpose of our public education system to "serve
as a corrective institution" for the behavioral problems of young people. A
key reason we provide education is to ensure that children grow up to be
contributors to society. It's folly to think that students that can't
contribute despite public education would contribute without it.

------
grannyg00se
I don't agree with the notion that classroom discipline is the teacher's
responsibility. If a child needs discipline, the child should be sent away to
receive it. A teacher should be responsible for teaching, period.

Also, if a child commits a crime in school (vandalism, verbal assault,
physical assault, disturbing the peace) and is found to be a threat to the
learning environment then they should be suspended. It's simply a matter of
giving some power back to the authorities. Right now the children know that
the teachers are their bitches. Until that changes the fight can't be won.
Especially in children who have a gang member mentality.

~~~
michael_dorfman
I agree about the first part; a teacher should be responsible for teaching,
and other administrative staff for disciplinary issues. However, this requires
(naturally) that there be funding in place for the necessary staff positions.
As long as school funding is tied to local property taxes, there are going to
be huge variations in the amount of spending per pupil, and staffing follows
suit.

As for your second point, I think it is a gross simplification to say "It's
simply a matter of giving some power back to the authorities." We _do_ need to
give some power back to the authorities, but there's nothing simple about it.

------
novas0x2a
If you want a more visceral account, "The Corner" by David Simon is a non-
fiction chronicle of the Baltimore drug culture's effect on the people who
live in it. Simon spent about year (~1993) following and interviewing the
people who lived on a specific drug corner in Baltimore; one of those he
followed was a high-school-age kid whose description is much like this
teacher's description of M.W.

There's also an HBO miniseries based on it (which I haven't watched, so I
can't vouch), and Season 4 of The Wire is partially about a Baltimore inner-
city school (The Wire is fantastic). Simon also spent a year embedded with the
Baltimore police homicide division, which became a book, a TV serial (called
Homicide), and informed much of The Wire.

Some people are commenting that the solution to the problems at these schools
is to completely give up on the troublemakers; I don't think it would be that
clear-cut for you after you read or watch these. The kids you give up on are
the ones lost to the hardcore drug culture forever. Those same kids are the
ones that perpetuate the problem- there's a terrible feedback loop going on.

------
swift
HN seems to have decided I've commented too much in this discussion, and
that's probably true, but I want to make one more post to clarify my views
before I leave this debate for others to carry forward.

In response to jmm, who suggests that by allowing kids to decide freely
whether to go to school I am advocating, as he says, throwing some of them
overboard: I really don't feel that that's an accurate description of my
feelings about this topic. I think that kids are people, not slaves of the
state or of their parents. I am not advocating simply abandoning kids who are
not interested in attending school; instead, I'd like to see a variety of
educational, vocational, and artistic services available for them, free of
charge, which they can take advantage of whenever THEY come to the conclusion
that they want to do so. I'd like those services to be easy to access, with no
red tape involved, and I'd like them to be well publicized and well known
within the community.

I simply don't understand how allowing kids the freedom to make their own
decisions about what they want to learn and when they want to learn it can be
anything but a good thing. Must everyone be subject to coercion and force from
the earliest ages? Do we have to crush the genuine love of learning most
children are born with under the boot of an oppressive school environment they
have no choice but to be a part of?

My views on this topic are derived in part from my own experience, but they
have also been shaped a great deal by the writings of John Holt. For those who
are interested, I'd recommend How Children Fail as a great book to start with;
it has really been influential in my thinking about education and the nature
of school.

------
alexophile
What I don't understand about all this is why there isn't a way to use these
_clearly failing_ schools for experiments in alternative styles of education.
Say what you will about things like voluntary attendance, but when your school
is descending into anarchy, it just seems like there's too little to lose not
to go out on a limb.

The school my mom used to work at was rampant with corruption and ineptitude.
It was taken over by the state BOE and three years later, nothing has changed.
When the school falls into dire straits, why not offer it up as a test case
for passionate researchers?

~~~
RickHull
> _What I don't understand about all this is why there isn't a way to use
> these clearly failing schools for experiments in alternative styles of
> education._

As a resident New Yorker, I can answer this one: entrenched interests. There
are a lot of people who have bought a lot of influence to achieve the status
quo, and they don't really see what the problem is.

------
kmfrk
Sounds to me like the result of a lack of accountability. I see the same thing
in many areas of the public sector in my country where responsibility is
deferred in an infinite loop.

It's as frustrating to the those who use the system as to those who work in
it.

------
maxklein
I come from a family of educators & private school owners, and if a teacher
cannot handle a disruptive class, then we change the teacher. Children are
ALWAYS disruptive. It's the natural state of things. Some teachers can solve
the problem, and some can't. If a teacher cannot solve the problem, it's not
the fault of the Government, or the Community, or the Principal or the
Students. It's the fault of the teacher. It's her job to learn the techniques
to handle such situations.

In our private schools, we simply swap out the teachers. In such schools where
the teacher cannot be changed, one can ask an assistant to sit in, or send the
teacher on more training courses.

A teacher is to train students, and part of that is making the students
respect education enough to sit down and listen. If the teacher can't do that,
then sorry, but that's not a good teacher. If the teacher realises that a
particular class constellation does not work, then he or she should do
something about it, not blame an invisible 'system'.

~~~
SystemOut
Your disruptive is most likely different from this teacher's disruptive.
Unless your private school has the same requirements and policies of the
public school system I find it difficult to see how your comparison and
opinion holds any water whatsoever.

Most private schools that I have visited don't admit or will expel any student
that is disruptive on a regular basis which would mean the teacher has a way
to enforce policy and rules which is different from what the author of the
post has to deal with. On top of that most kids that go to private schools
have a much different home life than urban schools. It's just not a valid
comparison.

------
splat
I'll bet that one of the reasons that children in honors courses (AP, IB,
etc.) do better and learn more than children in regular courses has nothing to
do with the curriculum or the teachers of those courses, but is just due to
the fact that they're surrounded by other motivated students and there aren't
any disruptive students.

------
radioactive21
PARENTING.

The root cause in all of these issues is parenting. If the parents don't
bother to care about their kid's education, it's already lost. The education
and school system is part of the problem, but you can trace the child's
inability to learn back to the parents.

1) Parents dont care about the child's learning

2) The child realizes the parents dont care and so they mess around in class

3) Teacher and school has no authority to really enforce learning. Meaning,
you can assign homework, you can punish them for not doing them, but beyond
that, you can't force them to sit down to read and learn.

4) Student fails.

5) Parent is up set at the school system so they complain to the principle,
and the school district

6) School district pressures principle, principle pressures teacher to water
down the curriculum

7) FAILURE of the entire system

~~~
jordan0day
While I'm sure your premise is entirely correct, blaming parenting is
essentially punting on the issue. It might be entirely accurate, but it
doesn't help any, because it is one thing that can't be changed by the teacher
or school administrator.

~~~
ZachPruckowski
OK, but if teachers and administrators can't do more than write nasty notes in
files and make kids sit in the corner, and we can't expect parents to
discipline their kids, then any sort of educational reform targeted at those
kids is basically trying to push a string.

This idea that a teacher can stand up in front of the class and say something
so inspiring that it magically makes the goof-offs and the slackers want to be
A+ students is great for a Hollywood movie, but completely unrealistic. On a
1-on-1 basis, sure that's probably possible if you're really good, and really
can take the time. But if teachers had the power to inspire and move those
troublemakers en masse with the power of their words without taking half their
class time, then they wouldn't be teachers, they'd be world-class salespeople
or winning politicians.

~~~
radioactive21
I completely agree with you. When I talk to people about the education system,
little or no mention is made towards the parents. When it is in fact the
parents that can actually do something. Meaning checking to see if your child
is learning, how is he learning, where does he have dificulties, and why.

When a parent can understand at what level their child is at in their
educational path, then they can make an impact. Meaning, if my child has
problems just sitting down and absorbing information, they can go out and find
answers.

One large part of why the educational system is so bad right now, is that
parents are not taking responsibility for their child's education. They blame
it on others.

~~~
jordan0day
Again, I think I am in total agreement with you and ZachPruckowski... I just
don't see how we could make parent involvement part of the system as a whole.

I mean, maybe that really is it -- we have truancy laws where a parent can get
in actual legal trouble if their kid doesn't go to school, perhaps there
should be laws where a parent can actually get into trouble if their kid is a
disruptive student. I have a hard time seeing such a system actually working,
"can't legislate morality" and other platitudes, but it's a thought, I
suppose.

------
jordan0day
As someone from Kansas City, the alleged ineptitude of the school district in
KCMO is widely-known. In fact, I would say the problems with the school
district impacted the decision of my wife and I more than any other to buy a
house across the state line in Kansas. We both continued to work in KCMO, we
just knew we couldn't live there once we have children.

------
dfghjkfgh
The solution is simple - increase teacher salaries and have more computers in
schools. It's worked for the last 30years

~~~
earl
Sadly, no.

See, eg, [1] for a chart of teacher salaries vs inflation over time. Quoting
the article: "[...] we also find dramatic erosion in relative teacher earnings
since 1960." See also figure C, "Real weekly wage trends for teachers and
others, 1979 - 2006". In short, teacher's have been taking a hit in the wallet
for the privilege of teaching for 30-40 years. In fact, if you're familiar
with employment in America, you'll know the quality of teachers has fallen as
women have been able to find alternate careers; we used to have a surplus of
talented, skilled women who entered teaching because they were unable to
pursue alternate careers.

A big part of this is no doubt due to Baumol's cost disease [2], but the trend
in wages is real nonetheless.

I'm not sure why people on HN in particular, with an IMO more entrepreneurial
mindset than most, are surprised that quality tends to follow wages. In this
case, away from education.

[1] <http://www.procon.org/sourcefiles/epi-teacher-pay.pdf>

[2] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumols_cost_disease>

~~~
wiredfool
That wikipedia link should be
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumol%27s_cost_disease> .

When I was in school and played cards on the bus, sometimes we played
capitalisim, a fun game if you were on the top of the heap. Invariably the
lowest status role was named teacher. Next up was garbageman.

------
Zakharov
I think the most immediately obvious solution to the problem of disruptive
students is to separate them from the other students, and put them into a
separate class. However, someone who enters that class at age 10 isn't going
to learn anything, as the entire class is full of disruptive students, and
they'll be stuck in the disruptive class for the rest of their schooling,
after which they'll be released into society with few useful skills and a lot
of problems. Also, very few good teachers will voluntarily work with the
disruptive class.

One solution is to create a separate school with an educational model tailored
to the problem, such as a military academy. This only works if there is a high
enough population density to fill that school, the educational model actually
works, and parents are willing to admit the problem and send their kids to
that school.

There are a lot of disruptive students who are best served by going through
the normal school system with a moderate amount of discipline when they act
up. Many of these kids don't want to be in school, and would prefer to be at
home playing video games, or barring that, in an easy, low-effort class.
Allowing these kids to skip school, take easy classes, or putting them in a
separate system risks allowing them to jeopardize their own future because of
the impatience and short-term thinking common to almost all teenagers.

------
narrator
I think this is where all the zero tolerance policies come from. If there is
any disciplinary decision that is made where there is discretion by an
administrator, there is an opportunity for a lawsuit. With zero tolerance, you
remove discretion so you avoid lawsuits at the expense of unnecessarily
disciplining students.

~~~
timwiseman
I am not a lawyer, but I do no think having the policy would in any way
protect against a lawsuit. If anything, I would suspect it could make it
easier for one to succeed because you could show that no due process was
provided when a state actor delivered a non-judicial punishment to a minor.

~~~
dfghjkfgh
You throw kid A out of the class for behaviour, but you don't throw kid B out
because he is usually OK.

But then kid A's parents get mad - or think they can make some money - and it
turns out that kid A is belgian/green skinned/three eyed/an FSM worshipper and
you have a lawsuit. Or at least the threat of a lawsuit which can go away with
a large enough payment.

Throw out all kids that break any rule and you have been perfectly fair

~~~
narrator
So the poorest parents in the whole school have a huge incentive to get their
kid kicked out of the school for disciplinary problems, especially if they are
a minority and can sue for a big settlement. Some people perceive that their
most valuable commodity is to be damaged, such that they can sue for it.

In a poorer minority neighborhood near where I used to live I remember reading
a report about a super market closing down a few years back -- when times were
relatively good. They cited shoplifting and numerous slip and fall lawsuits
against them as reasons for shutting.

------
jux
Honestly, looking back at myself in highschool, I was a little shithead. I
became rebellious at a pretty early age due to my school district having
incredibly strict policies, mostly because it was run by fundamentalists. The
class where I believed I was the biggest cunt was my chemistry class, where my
teacher would often push his evangelical beliefs into the curriculum : Earth
is 6000 years old, evolution is a myth, stars are only there to corrupt people
into evil, etc. The list goes on.

I'd often interrupt class and get into arguments with him because I called him
out on this bullshit pretty regularly and frankly I just couldn't take him
seriously even at that age. This was in a public school system in a small city
in Texas, so I suppose it's kind of expected.

------
johngalt
I agree with the author. The problem that's unstated here is that schools have
become state run low security prisons for children and adolescents. The idea
that academic acheivements are the current focus of public schools is false.
It's compliance training.

------
skittles
I was talking to an Indian friend in grad school when he explained why schools
in India were better than those in the U.S. He said it had to do with how our
kids learned the alphabet with a song. He learned it by memory forward and
backward. He later mentioned how a teacher in India might cane a child who
didn't pay attention. That's when I became enlightened.

------
mkramlich
The elephant in the room was race. I'd bet 90% of the problems were caused by
kids of a particular race. Unfortunately many public discussions involving it
devolve into demonization of the messenger or blame gaming.

My second point was that I suspect the easiest fix would be to adopt a zero
tolerance policy or three-strikes-then-expelled. The harder solution, though
it is better in the long term, is to do something that ensures that the
parents take more responsibility and make better life choices and set a better
example both for their own kids and their neighborhoods. Ultimately, solving
this is not rocket science. Folks are just choosing, explicitly or implicitly,
to not implement them. They then reap what they sow.

My third point is that it may be that some percentage of kids can never be
made to behave properly (short of brain surgery or cognitive drug therapy, for
example) and so we may have to adjust our system to accomodate. Arguably, we
already have. If a child misbehaves enough they tend to end up dead or in
prison.

~~~
rick888
"The elephant in the room was race. I'd bet 90% of the problems were caused by
kids of a particular race. Unfortunately many public discussions involving it
devolve into demonization of the messenger or blame gaming."

When 90% of a specific race statistically have a broken family with no father
figure around, it's no wonder that the kids turn out the way they do. It's a
vicious cycle.

Another problem is that because the kids are getting nothing at home, they
would need tons extra attention in school. How can a teacher possibly fill the
role of parent when she has many other students that also need the same kind
of attention?

Until we can come to terms with things like this, the problems will never go
away.

"The harder solution, though it is better in the long term, is to do something
that ensures that the parents take more responsibility and make better life
choices and set a better example both for their own kids and their
neighborhoods."

This is the problem right here. It's the parents at home, but you can't force
parents to do anything...and you probably won't ever be able to, unless we
were under some sort of totalitarian dictatorship.

