Yikes! Back to School!

As the last whimper of summer heat approaches and August appears on our calendars, it’s time once again for schools to re-open for another year of “educating” our nation’s youth.  As a former teacher who left the profession recently, I cringe at the idea of what that education does not include!
    Most districts in Texas pray at an alter called “TAKS scores”.  Teachers are whipped like teams of oxen to make sure their students pass “The Test”.  Everything that happens in that classroom until spring (March for some, April for others) revolves around “The Test.”    Several benchmark tests are administered between the opening day of school and the test date; results are analyzed and placed on statistical graphs, and teachers work ten to twelve hours a day to compile these reports for administrators — never mind preparing to teach their content areas and revise lessons to include the results of those benchmarks.  Why then should it be a surprise that students are dropping out at record levels?  (Teachers are also dropping out of the profession because they care about students but feel helpless and frustrated by administrators who demand everything be according to The Test.)  To teachers, it is no surprise.  To administrators, it is because teachers don’t build relationships with their students. 
    I recently left the profession because I was referred to as being a dinosaur.  This dinosaur had only two students fail The Test during 2008-09, a passing rate of 93% which was better than most of the teachers in my department and the district average.  Later, statements were made that I did not build relationships with my students, but no one ever asked my students and parents what they felt, or asked to see the data from a voluntarily administered anonymous evaluation to those students asking that very question, among others, or asked how many emails I receive from former students who proudly tell where they have gone and thank me for “being there”.  Exhausted, frustrated, and plain angry at the lack of support from administrators for teachers like me, I left the profession after twenty-two years.  I will soon enter another career, but it won’t be in a classroom.
    So, an inexperienced teacher will be hired to fill my position, but s/he will play games with the students to teach knowledge level information, use projects to reinforce that rote memorization, and teach, teach, teach to only those skills to be tested — if s/he has the miraculous skill of being able to manage to teach in a classroom where students feel free to refuse to work, to call each other and the teacher profane names, and to show up for class less than 90% of the time as required by Texas law.  Even veteran teachers struggle with those issues, but, we have a depth of experience that allows us to have many tools in the

box we can employ; rookie teachers have very limited tools in their box.     In time these rookies may become wonderful teachers, but your student is in the class this year — not five years from now when teacher skills have been developed, tested, and honed.
    Many minority and low-income students are interested in going to work because that is what their families need and value.  They have absolutely no interest and see no value in The Test, so they don’t work, act out, and stay away from the classroom.  Teachers who advocate for a dual track state-of-the-art academic and vocational educational system are called racists and told they are non-supportive of school mission statements.  The actual truth is that at least 80% of all academic programs are designed to meet the needs of 30% of the students — those who are college bound. 
    Where are the programs that allow ninth and tenth graders to be “helpers” with increasing responsibilities as plumbers, electricians, body repair persons, beauticians, lab technicians, nurses?  These “helpers” can be lured to stay in school with the knowledge and encouragement that when they are eleventh graders, with attendance, grades, and no discipline problems, they will become “real” vocational craftspeople as twelfth graders who, upon graduation, will become certified, registered, or journey workers ready to earn good wages for themselves and their families.  Their math, English, reading, and other academic content should be based on materials from these vocational paths to keep students interested in the “boring stuff”.  I doubt any of them will read Shakespeare or conjugate verbs in their later lives, so why teach those to vocational track students?   Show them how to read their textbooks and technical manuals instead.   Why not teach social studies by tying it to the history of the chosen vocation and community expectations?  Why not teach science that is related to home improvement and the chosen vocation?
    These vocational programs should not become dumping grounds as they have often been used in the past.  They should have stringent admission requirements like passing grades, 95% attendance, and clean discipline records.  The equipment and techniques taught should be state-of-the-art.  A drafting person trained with a ruler and pencil has no place in a career where CAD is the operating standard.  Office skills taught on Microsoft Word 2000 have no relationship to the 2009 Microsoft Word edition.  Auto mechanics should have the latest computer diagnostic equipment on which to work as students.
    Yikes!  It’s time to return to classrooms all over the country.  It’s time to worry about what is not being taught in classrooms. 

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