Pass It (Them) On

The “Pass It On” movement is a wonderful concept in society. The idea of passing king acts along to other people, who then pass on another kind act is amazing. However, the “Pass Them On” movement being forced on public school teachers is not a benefit to the students, teachers, nor society. Public school systems are now so enamored with successes with numbers that we no longer care if we actually teach the student anything or not. Graduation rates and test scores are all that matter. Our public school systems are no longer concerned with whether or not actually each and prepare students for life after high school.

There are several ways to observe the impact of the change in focus of our public schools. Our students are no longer students to our public school boards, they are only numbers. My research for this article focused on the time period of 1998-2018. I think it is important to have the 2001 No Child Left Behind Act as an early portion of the study. From 1998-2018 the national graduation rate climbed about 13%, depending on your source. Either way you are looking at a movement from the low 70% to the low or mid-80%. The corresponding number is to look at the average time taken to earn a 4-year bachelor’s degree. Again, using 1998-2018 as the reference, the shift goes from just over 4 years to just over 5-and-a-half years. Due to the lack of education, actual learning, we as teachers are now allowed to provide our students college’s are forced to have students use their first year taking college prep classes.

It seems odd. However, our students were provided a much better education when our national graduation rage was in the low 70% range. At that point more of our students were better prepared for college, or work after they finished high school. We are so much more concerned about the numbers than the students we literally are forced by our school board and administration to give students grades even when they do none of the work. Under this policy a student can sit in the classroom, do zero work, not take test, and end the quarter with an absolute “0” average. Yet, at the end of the grading period we are forced to change the grade to a “50%”. It only takes a 60% to pass in my current school system.

The reasoning given to defend the giving of students a grade is so a student does not fall behind at the beginning of the year and give up. What really happens is that the student quits at the beginning of the year, understanding they do not have to do anything until the final grading period. We actually have students who tell us they aren’t going to do anything in the class because we have to give them a 50% anyway. The students are not being positively reinforced by this policy. The students are not being “saved”. All we are actually doing is encouraging them to do even less work than they would have anyway. When these students graduate (and they will graduate) they will eventually get a job. We have taught these students that they will go to work, do nothing, and still receive half of their paycheck. What will actually happen is exactly what we have trained them for; they will go to work and do nothing and get fired.

So, what exactly did we do to help this students? Nothing!

Devalued Diplomas

One of the extremely frustrating aspect of teaching in public schools today is watching the declining value of our students’ diplomas. By declining in value I am including several factors and stats into my reasoning. Things to quickly come to mind include: graduation rate increases the past two decades, No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, the average number of years it takes to attain a college bachelor’s degree increasing, and several other factors.

When I graduated high school in the mid-1990s, we were not pushed to believe college was the only way to go for our future to be bright. We were pushed to have a post-high school plan and to research how to make that plan work. Then we were instructed on what we needed to do to graduate high school to be best prepared to for our plan. The final step rested on our shoulders. We had to earn our diploma. We had to prepare appropriately for own plan. We were not given grades, we were not passed to the next grade level until we earned it, and we certainly were not graduated without earning the diploma.

Now teachers are forced by school boards and administrations to do any and every thing to pass students on to graduation; whether they earn it or not. We are no longer encouraged to teach our students. Instead, we are told to “get them through”. A student sits in class and does zero work and teachers must give them a 50% at the end of the quarter. In my current school system we use a 10 point college grading scale, meaning we have to put their grade at 10% below passing. They have done none of the work, they have learned none of the information, but they are almost passing.

I understand the urge to have every student graduate. However, the answer is to find ways to approach struggling students in a way to encourage their continued effort. The truth is that it will not work for every student, and that is a tragic fact. The hard truth is; when it does not work, the student will fail. Giving a student a diploma, or even a passing grade, does not benefit the student. Worse is the negative impact this has on the students who find a way, who do what they need to do to earn their diploma. It now takes an average of five-and-a-half years to earn a college degree due to the devalued diplomas we are issuing. Colleges know some students are graduating high school unprepared for college.

We are cheating all of our students. Those graduating without earning it are left believing they can keep a job without doing the work they are assigned. Worse, some go to college assuming they will simply be given the grade until they graduate. Those doing to work to earn their diploma are placed in introductory courses their first year of college to ensure they are ready. This costs these students a semester, or year, of time and money.

Cookie Cutter Education Will Not Work!!!

Educators at every level spend time in professional development. In my current school system (and most other public school systems) we begin each school year with three in-service days. We are granted very little time to be in our rooms actually preparing for our students’ arrival. We spend lots of time being reminded how each of our students are unique. We are reminded to be patient and thorough with each student, as each will learn the information differently. This is actually one of the only useful messages public school systems put out any more. Then the professional development begins and all of this is proven to be lies like all the others.

You see, when the professional development begins we are told that we really do not know how to teach. My current system has a Superintendent who is friends with the author of a program called “Learning Focused”. So we spend eight hours in one day being told that we are teaching incorrectly. We then spend four hours the next day being told that we are not covering enough of the “Tests” because we spend too much time teaching items in different ways.

Common Core, or the equivalent curriculum in use in public school systems presently are only testing curriculum; not learning curriculum. Testing curriculum are created and designed specifically to align with tests; not to actually teach the students in any meaningful or impactful way. To maintain pace testing curriculum requires that each and every student must be taught only one way to arrive at an answer to a question. Students must come to the same answer, using the same methods as every other student.

With limited time allotted around testing anyway, these restrictions further limit the learning of every student. Advanced students cannot be pushed. Struggling students cannot catch up. The objective of answering a question is to arrive at the correct answer. Limiting the ways students have to arrive at the correct answer is detrimental to the education of all students. Expanding the ways to arrive at the correct answer allows students to find the method which bests works for them.

Our School Board and administrations preach how each student is unique and needs to learn their own way. Then we close the doors and tell teachers that all that matters are the tests. We are told that the school system knows the best way to learn the material, and we are to push it down their throats until they pass the test. It is disgusting. It is disheartening. It is sad.

Bullying in a Public School System

As 10/7/2019 was World Day of Bullying Prevention, I thought it would be appropriate to let everyone know how it is addressed in my current school system. I have noticed it for years, but I took yesterday as an opportunity to simply watch and listen each time our students were in the halls between classes. The exercise proved disappointing, disgusting, sad, with very little of anything uplifting. The reason this is now something I have to force myself to do is that we, as the teachers in this school system, have learned to tune out what we see and hear in the halls. We are left with little choice.

We are powerless. If we report what we see and hear nothing is done to the offending student. Instead, we are called to the office to be asked why we were singling out this student for just his/her behavior. Or, even better, we are informed that we misunderstood what was said or done. Why? Simple, if we discipline the students to match the severity of their words and actions they will miss enough time to where they will not pass their state tests or even graduate. To our superintendent, school board, and administrators all that matters are the numbers. As long as our students pass their state tests, and graduate, then we are ok with just about anything else they do.

We have students who are late to class because they are afraid to be in the halls between classes. They wait in their previous class until the halls are almost cleared and then head to their next class. Another example of how our students are not as important as our numbers in this school system. Our students (and teachers) fear coming to school because they no we have taken no steps to prevent or limit the possibility of a school shooting. It is even worse that we have students who fear coming to school because they know we will not protect them from harassment and bullying. This is something we can control, we just choose not to. Until we do take action against this behavior our teen suicide rate will continue to increase. We wonder why our suicide rate continues to grow. The answer is that we allow these students to feel as if there is no other option other than continuing to feel the same hatred and negative interactions with bullying.

Wrong Direction!!!!

I am so confused by so many things which we do today in public schools. The sad part is that many of the misguided things we do hurt the education, and emotional, growth of our students. The worst part of all of the misguided things we do is simply to avoid having parents calling administration and school boards who feel they have better things to do than to simply explain the rules and regulations to the parents, and tell them the decision is final.

For instance, in the past two school years my school system has built a new high school, placed I.D. scanners on doors to all schools, and instituted a dress code which now consist of one rule: cannot show the student’s mid-drift. Each of these issues were put in place to show a strong front in protecting our students or to lower the number of phone calls the school board and administrators have to answer concerning dress code violations. Each of these issues have placed our students and teachers in considerably more danger. I will start with the dress code as it seems to not refer to school and student safety.

The dress code is first and foremost disgusting. I would be offended if I saw an adult wearing the things our students are wearing thanks to this new dress code. (By the way, the students wear tank-tops showing their mid-drifts as well with zero consequences to this point.) Even worse than that is the fact that with the new dress code it is even more difficult to recognize students. Students can now wear hats and hoodies in school. This means when they are walking up and down the halls we as teachers have no idea if it is a student from our school, or an outsider who should not be on our campus. With the number of school shootings occurring in our country our rules and regulations should be getting stricter to make our schools and students safer. We seem to be going in the wrong direction.

The I.D. scanners were placed on all school doors in the county over the past couple of school years. This is an example of a school board going as far as they think they have to so they can pound their chest and scream to the parents how much they have spent on protecting their children. Problem: they do not protect anybody. The I.D.s were only given to teachers and not students. Meaning: between each and every class period our doors automatically open so students can get in and out to move between buildings during class changes. To solve this problem is very simple in several ways. Move all classrooms into one school building, then there is no need for students to need to leave or re-enter the building so the doors do not need to open. Second option would be to give students I.D. tags as well so they can scan in when needed, also alleviating the need for the doors to be completely unlocked for eight minutes between every class period.

The new high school which was build over the past couple of years is no safer than the old school. How is it that we just spent millions of dollars with all of the school shootings taking place, yet make it no safer than the building we were in? The first floor of the new high school has windows in every classroom. It looks nice. It is also stupid as anyone who wants to do harm to our students or staff can simply walk up to the window and do damage without even needing to enter the building. We just built a new school, yet we continue to have classes in another building, meaning about half of our students must leave the main building and walk to the second building with no safety precautions in place to protect them from anything (even the weather, much less someone trying to harm them). As noted earlier, the doors to the main building, and the second building, unlock for eight minutes between each class period, meaning when our students are most vulnerable and the halls are crammed with students anyone has access to our building.

We need to stop putting numbers, appearances, and inconveniences ahead of our students’ safety. Every time we allow our students out of the building without protection, every time our doors unlock between classes, every time we cannot tell who is under the hoodie, we are endangering each and every one of out students. I hope we never have to suffer through a school tragedy, I hope no one ever has to suffer through anything like that again. However, it is absolutely unacceptable that we seem to invite one. If, God forbid, we ever have something tragic happen at one of our schools our school board and administration will be at fault for doing nothing to proactively protect our students and staff.

Testing…Testing…Testing…

 

  Testing.  Testing.  Testing.  Testing is all our students know, because testing is all we teach them.  I hear all the time how wonderful the school system I currently teach in is perceived to be.  Parents literally move their families to this county for the public school system.  Our test scores and graduation rate are among the highest for public schools in the nation.  In my decade in this school system I know one thing personally:  my children will never attend one day of school in this public school system.
     This school system has a very specific blueprint which all teachers in the county are held within.  This blueprint is well planned and detailed to achieve a 100% graduation rate and the highest possible test scores.  It is actually sad to see how much time and money has gone into this blueprint.  This blueprint is a prime example of what happens when school systems care more about public perception than the students in their schools.     The Blueprint:  To achieve a 100% graduation rate we simply do not fail any student.  We use a 10 point grading scale where a 60% is passing.  Teachers cannot allow a student’s grade to be below a 50% for the first three quarters of the school year.  So, when a student sits in class and turns in zero work for the first three quarters of the year, the teacher must move the student’s average from a 0% to a 50%.  And when a student still manages to fail, it is the teacher who is questioned about how that is possible.  Then the teacher is asked to pass the student anyway.    

To achieve our extremely high test scores, teachers are to only teach to the test.  We do not even focus on the information needed to successfully take the test.  Our blueprint calls for us to train our students to look for key words in questions and answers.  Students are taught to determine an answer, not actually have the knowledge and thinking skills to know the answer.  It works.  The school system does look great.  However, our students are not ready for life after high school. Our students are left unprepared for college or the workforce. Our students do not learn to think for themselves.

Students Not Numbers

     When did students stop being students and become only numbers within our school systems?  What or who allowed this to happen?  Is it money?  Is it arrogance?  Is it politics?  The answer is unfortunately yes to all of these reasons and more.
     When policy makers set standards which have to be achieved and school systems do not fight back, students no longer existed.  When school systems began receiving recognition, awards, and grants for overachieving these standards students no longer existed.  When superintendents and administrators began touting their success based on the numbers, students no longer existed.  So now our educational system is made up of numbers not students.     Until our educational system from top to bottom focuses on students, not numbers our students will continue to fall short of their potential, and to struggle in life after high school.  Our advanced students are no longer pushed as they are seen “safe” when it comes to passing tests and their grade level.  So since the advanced students are going to reach their testing numbers they are now deemed not worth the time.  Our struggling students struggle even more because we pass them on before they have earned it so our numbers don’t fall. The struggling student is put even further behind as they are pulled from their classes to be “coached” to pass a test, not to learn anything.
     The job of a school system from top to bottom has to be about more than numbers and test curriculum.  Our job has to be to teach.  Teaching should include:  curriculum, understanding how to learn, how to succeed, how to make decisions on their own, what is acceptable behavior in certain settings, and so much more.  Our responsibility is to develop successful citizens, not just college students.  College is not for every student, nor necessary for every profession.  And to be completely honest, as watered down as our testing curriculum has become we are not producing many prepared college students anyway.   We prepare students to take tests, not to think critically for themselves.  We teach our students to circle answers, not to write a comprehensive paper.  Right now we only train, not teach our students.  All of this is traced back to numbers.  The numbers have to look right.  The problem is education is not about attaining numbers, it is about teaching students.
     We have to get back to teaching, not to a test, but to the student.  We have to teach students how to teach themselves, to think for themselves.  We have to inspire and allow our students to think.  If students are not thinking for themselves they are not learning.

The Issue We Choose to Fight

    Since my last post discussed the issue of school shootings I would like to comment on the nation wide student walkout which took place shortly after the Marjory Stoneman High School shooting.  In some ways I would also like to link this back to my “Simple Things” series.  The reason for this is my school decided to be one of the few in the nation who decided we should punish our students who wanted to honor those students their age who were killed.  We made a conscious decision to punish students for being willing to make a stand and honor the 17 students who died in the Marjory Stoneman High School shooting.
     We basically do not even have a dress code anymore.  We do nothing to teach accountability or responsibility.  We allow our students to play on their cell phones during instructional time.  We do nothing to discourage students coming to class whenever they please.  Yet, when our students want to go together to stand outside for 17 minutes to honor students their age who were killed in what should be a safe place…now we want to crack down on this behavior.  I must be missing something.
     I was upset by this even though the administration would not tell us what the punishment would be.  I do not care how minor the punishment may have been, even a warning for this was ridiculous when we allow everything else to go unpunished.  I addressed my concerns with a couple of my fellow teachers.  One of my colleagues actually agreed that we had to discipline the students due to liability.  I followed this up with one of our administrators.  According to our administration, we were obligated to give consequences for our students leaving the main building as it is unsafe to allow them outside.  I laughed.  I tried not to, but I really could not help it.     Let me explain.  According to the justification given by our administration we should be doling out consequences to about 75% of our students on every single school day.  We have classes in three different buildings.  So every school day, between every class, we have one-third of our students walking outside of the main building to reach their next class.  They are not escorted.  They are not supervised.  They are simply allowed to go outside from one class to another.  So, according to our new found strictness, we should hand out consequences to each and every student who walks out of the main building to go to class.  Like I said, I had to laugh. 
     We do need discipline.  We need to use discipline to encourage better decisions by our students.  We need to use discipline to prevent disruption to instructional time.  We need to use discipline with common sense (granted it has been a long time since this took place).  We allow our concern of our public perception to run our school systems to the detriment of our students’ education.  We rarely enforce our own policies.  Yet, we take a stand to not allow our students to support others their age who suffered such a tragic event.  We chose not to support an opportunity for our students to have a life experience.  I do not understand why we came to this decision.  I know it was not about school or student safety.  It was certainly not based on common sense.  It was not a decision made in the best interest of our students’ growth.
     Thankfully we had students who stood up and walked out.  They gathered in front of our school around the flag pole.  The irony of this location is it is the most exposed location on our school campus.  The road to our high school goes right past the front of our school.  If we truly cared about our students’ safety, which we clearly do not, this is the last place we would have allowed them to gather.  We, meaning public school systems, attempt to make things so complicated in hopes the community will assume we are doing more than we are.  Why not for once try to accommodate our students who are trying to experience a life lesson moment in support of people their own age?     There was a simple solution to this issue.  Make an announcement informing students who would like to participate in the walkout of a location they can go.  Then allow the students to go to the football stadium which places two large buildings between the students and the exposed road in the front of the school.  The football stadium is easily supervised by a only a few, as it is every Friday night in the fall.  We could have put the 17 minutes on the scoreboard clock.  We could have put the date of the shooting in the “Home” and “Away” score blanks on the scoreboard.  We could have turned this into a very positive event in conjunction with our students.  We could have enhanced a really meaningful event for our students.  We did not.  Instead, we chose to make our students fell as if they were doing something wrong in supporting a movement initiated by 17 kids their age being murdered. 

School Safety

     I never thought I would fear going to work as a public high school teacher.  Yet, there are days now when I consider taking a day off due to some event or tension that took place the day before at my school.  I cringe when my students jump just because someone knocked on the classroom door.  I struggle knowing they are so scared and feel so unsafe at school.  I fear the idea of what might be necessary to protect my students from one of their own.  During the 2018-2019 school year there was a school shooting in a neighboring county to the one I teach in.  Also during the same school year there was a threat at a school in the county I teach in.  When these events occurred I feared not being able to go home to my wife and children.
     I understand there are jobs where these fears, and many more exist.   I am grateful for our military personal, police, EMTs, firefighters and so many more.  However, I am a teacher.  While I believe teaching is an important aspect of our society, I did not believe that it would come with fears of protecting students or going home safe.  Obviously a main reason for these fears stem from school shootings continuing to happen, along with the increased frequency in which they are taking place.  The fears increase as teachers look for reassurance from their school systems that steps are being taken to keep our students and ourselves safe.  They are not.    The scary truth is there is no way to completely prevent a school shooting from taking place.  The pathetic truth is school systems are unprepared to take any steps which may at least decrease the likelihood of a school shooting taking place.  The public school system in which I teach is unfortunately a great example of this.  With the number of 2018 school shootings our superintendent, school board, and administrators have rushed to throw money at technologies and training.  The technologies do not work; and even worse, the technologies make it easier for a student (or anyone who bothers to look up the bell schedule) to breech our school.  The trainings are scary in how unprepared we are for any active shooter situation, for how few questions and concerns they even have answers for.  How is it possible our school systems are this unprepared?  Since Columbine in 1999, there have been more than 30 school shootings in the United States, with the number growing quickly in 2018.  How is it that after 20 years following Columbine we are still so behind and unprepared?  Theses are questions every school board in every school system should have to answer.  Quit waiting on someone else to find the solution.  Quit throwing money away on technologies that make it sound like you are doing something, but which you know has no impact on protecting our students and teachers.  Quit throwing money and time into trainings which demonstrate how little you know about protecting our students and teachers.
    The technologies.  The greatest problem with the new technologies is that any student planning a school shooting can take their time finding a way around it before they act.  Another problem with technologies is that any sound really good when the school board tells parents what is being put in place, but in reality make it easier to access the school at the precise time when the most students are vulnerable.  For instance, my school system has put I.D. scanners on all doors to our three main buildings. Sounds really good.  The superintendent, school board, and administrators can pat themselves on the back for appeasing the parents.  However, what they have actually done is put us all in more danger.  Because we use three buildings for classrooms students are exposed between classes.  Even worse, to account for the students moving back and forth between buildings the I.D. scanners shut off between classes.  What does this mean?  It means every student knows that every access point to the school is completely unlocked when everyone of our students are changing classes and loaded into the hallways.  Hey, but on the bright side the superintendent, school board, and administrators look good to the parents because thy spent money and forgot to explain the severe drawbacks.
     The training we received from our superintendent, school board, and administrators was frightening and sad in how few answers they have.  We received this training in the aftermath of the devastating shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida.   If this tragedy had been the first major school shooting in the United States it would be understandable how few answers we were given.  Unfortunately there are almost 20 years of examples and research, and that is if we only go back to Columbine.  I cannot and will not discuss the projected response to an active shooter.  However, the worst part of the training were the answers given to individual teacher questions.  For instance; for a classroom with more than one window we were told to quickly put up dark construction paper.  For a classroom with more than one door we were told to jam the doorknob.  We were not given any suggestions on how best to jam the doorknob.  When asked what to do for doors without a doorknob the answer was they would get back to us.  They have still not gotten back to us.  The simple fact is that with 20 years of examples and research available they have no answers for how best to protect our students and ourselves.  But again the superintendent, school board, and administrators look good as they tell the community about the wonderful training they have provided their teachers.  They just forget to mention is that the training was under researched, unprepared, and ineffective training.
     One suggestion discussed nationwide during all of these horrible events is the use of metal detectors at schools.  All other access to the school would be shut off. One entry with security, instead of security randomly roaming a three story school in hopes of seeing an issue coming.  The school systems balk at this suggestion as some parents say it would be like sending their children to jail.  I agree it would take some getting used to.  I agree the thought of it being necessary is disgusting.  However, it is at least an example of something that would at least reduce the possibility of a school shooting.  I do not enjoy the idea of feeling as if I am driving to teach at a prison.  However, I like that idea better than the idea of our community suffering through a school shooting.  There are other options.  I hope some will prove as effective so maybe metal detectors are not necessary.  However, anything which can actually decrease the likelihood of a school shooting is better than what we have received to this point.  In the mean time we teach, we learn, and we pray, because one thing we know is we cannot count on what our school system is providing.

A Few Simple Things: Punctuality

    Have you ever worked in a job where you could come in late, leave early, and be late to every meeting all day with no consequences?  If you have, please let me know so I can tell students in my public school system where to look for work.  We teach our students nothing about the importance of being where they are supposed to be when they are supposed to be there.  The reason this is a problem is very much the same as with the other “Simple Things”  I have discussed:  that we as a school system do next to nothing to enforce our own policies.  It is even worse in the case of students being tardy as we have changed our policy to ensure that we do not have to even address the issue. We are even worse with students being tardy than we are with attendance.
     Keep in mind the policy I am about to describe is new this school year, and actually tougher than our previous policy.  I’m not kidding.  Each time a student is tardy to one of their seven classes, the teacher has the student sign a tardy slip.  The teacher then will turn the tardy slip in to the student’s administrator.  The student is not approached about their tardy by their administrator until they have accumulated 5 tardy slips.  With their fifth tardy the student is finally called down to see their administrator.
     This meeting between the student and administrator will consist of a basic discussion about the importance of being on time.  Then to reinforce this discussion the administrator will demonstrate to the student just how important being on time is by giving the student a warning followed up with no other consequence.  The next time the administrator follows up with the student will be after the student has reached tardy number 10.  Somehow I doubt we have taught this student anything about the importance of showing up to work on time.     In fairness, the consequences get more severe  (not really) as the student continues to accumulate sets of five tardy slips.  10 tardy slips will get the offending student a lunch detention.  15 tardy slips will cost the offending student a second lunch detention.  20 tardy slips will finally get the student an actual consequence, a day of In School Suspension.  The best part – the tardy count starts over at the end of the first semester.  So, in theory, a student could have 38 tardy slips (19 each semester) and the worst consequence the student would face would be lunch detention.  What do we honestly think will happen when this student gets a job and demonstrates what his/her public high school education taught them about the importance of being on time?  What happens when this student shows up for work late for the 38th time?  The answer is we will never know, because we have taught this student how to get fired long before they reach their 38th tardy slip.
     Another negative effect of allowing students to be repeatedly late to class is the loss of instructional time for the other students in the classroom.  The loss of instructional time for the tardy student is apparent.  However, each tardy also takes instructional time away from every other student in the class.  Instruction stops as the teacher gives the offending student their tardy slip.  Instruction time is lost with the distraction of the offending student getting to their seat and getting ready for class which has already started.  I admit this is not a lot of lost time if it happens once or twice.  However, consider what the policy, and its enforcement, is encouraging.  We have students walk into class several minutes into instructional time on an every class period basis.  Many classes have multiple students late to each class.     If what we are teaching within and outside of the curriculum is important, then it has to be equally important for our students to be in class on time and ready to receive the instruction.  We are failing our students by not holding them accountable for failing to meet the expectations of their school environment.  We act as if we are doing our students a favor by allowing them to get by on the “Simple Things”.  The truth of it is that each “Simple Thing” we allow them to get by with is a missed opportunity, a failure to teach them the importance of meting expectations.  By letting or students “off the hook” we are not helping them, we are continuing to fail them.