A city's children left behind past and present
A word of caution as this rant will be political in nature and might be rather lengthy.
Earlier this week, a number of Tulsa news outlets reported the finding that 23 middle and elementary schools in Tulsa Public Schools fell below minimum standards in the state of Oklahoma imposed as a result of "No Child Left Behind." (Thanks to Michael Bates and Batesline for the my initial exposure to the story.) The news got worse when the high schools were included. At least within the district there are transfer options for the youngsters. Only one high school in Tulsa Public system managed to meet the government's new standards. As a result, those students in failing schools (or to be more correct with the government term "Schools that need improvement") have no immediate escape route. While this is an unfortunate situation for all involved, I tend to give the teachers and students the benefit of the doubt since their are merely working with than hands they've been dealt The way the state and local governments and school districts have dealt with the education system has been comical since the time I was a high school student.
As this is a blog, I don't have any good visual effect to signify a flashback, but let me travel back to a political visit during my junior year at Broken Arrow High School in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma. Then Governor Frank Keating had been canvassing the state to build support for his 4x4 education plan (4 years of each of 4 core subjects: English, math, science, social studies as a requirement to graduate high school). On the surface this sounded like a good idea at least on paper. When it was determined that Governor Keating was going to come visit us, the school selected its honor students and student leaders as an audience. Rule #3 of politics: Always know your audience. (For rules 1 and 2 check my earlier post) During the Governor's speech he mentioned some of the struggling Tulsa schools by name which I won't do out of respect, and proceeded to paint all Oklahoma students with the same brush. Needless to say his attempts to gain support that day were futile as he essentially spent an hour telling a room full academic achievers that we were all dumb and needed his new program to solve things. As it was a while back, I can't remember the details of specific questions but the Q and A session turned into something equivalent to target practice with the retrieval cart on the driving range. Had perhaps the state focused on issues such as addressing the budgets or teaching qualifications during this time, we may have seen the necessary improvements. Never mind increasing teacher pay above 48th or 49th in the country to keep the qualified teachers we had.
Eight years later and many of the same schools are failing. Many of the qualified educators are leaving the state with the speed of a summer squall line (and no for you weather geeks this particular line shows no sign of circulation) in search of higher pay and better working environments. Our schools have become focused on a number of social issues rather than the basic education they are needed for. Adjusting the standards or the curriculum requirements only addresses the surface issues. Without addressing the other issues brought up in this rant (teacher pay, teacher qualifications, and school budgets) along with increasing the parental involvement, progress may not be made. That may be too much to ask from a state whose only plan for education is a poorly funded "Lottery for Education"which though approved approximately a year ago has yet to be officially implemented, and a district whose most pressing issue as of two weeks ago was a feud over changing the start times of their schools in part because high school students weren't getting enough sleep.
Thanks for reading.
Earlier this week, a number of Tulsa news outlets reported the finding that 23 middle and elementary schools in Tulsa Public Schools fell below minimum standards in the state of Oklahoma imposed as a result of "No Child Left Behind." (Thanks to Michael Bates and Batesline for the my initial exposure to the story.) The news got worse when the high schools were included. At least within the district there are transfer options for the youngsters. Only one high school in Tulsa Public system managed to meet the government's new standards. As a result, those students in failing schools (or to be more correct with the government term "Schools that need improvement") have no immediate escape route. While this is an unfortunate situation for all involved, I tend to give the teachers and students the benefit of the doubt since their are merely working with than hands they've been dealt The way the state and local governments and school districts have dealt with the education system has been comical since the time I was a high school student.
As this is a blog, I don't have any good visual effect to signify a flashback, but let me travel back to a political visit during my junior year at Broken Arrow High School in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma. Then Governor Frank Keating had been canvassing the state to build support for his 4x4 education plan (4 years of each of 4 core subjects: English, math, science, social studies as a requirement to graduate high school). On the surface this sounded like a good idea at least on paper. When it was determined that Governor Keating was going to come visit us, the school selected its honor students and student leaders as an audience. Rule #3 of politics: Always know your audience. (For rules 1 and 2 check my earlier post) During the Governor's speech he mentioned some of the struggling Tulsa schools by name which I won't do out of respect, and proceeded to paint all Oklahoma students with the same brush. Needless to say his attempts to gain support that day were futile as he essentially spent an hour telling a room full academic achievers that we were all dumb and needed his new program to solve things. As it was a while back, I can't remember the details of specific questions but the Q and A session turned into something equivalent to target practice with the retrieval cart on the driving range. Had perhaps the state focused on issues such as addressing the budgets or teaching qualifications during this time, we may have seen the necessary improvements. Never mind increasing teacher pay above 48th or 49th in the country to keep the qualified teachers we had.
Eight years later and many of the same schools are failing. Many of the qualified educators are leaving the state with the speed of a summer squall line (and no for you weather geeks this particular line shows no sign of circulation) in search of higher pay and better working environments. Our schools have become focused on a number of social issues rather than the basic education they are needed for. Adjusting the standards or the curriculum requirements only addresses the surface issues. Without addressing the other issues brought up in this rant (teacher pay, teacher qualifications, and school budgets) along with increasing the parental involvement, progress may not be made. That may be too much to ask from a state whose only plan for education is a poorly funded "Lottery for Education"which though approved approximately a year ago has yet to be officially implemented, and a district whose most pressing issue as of two weeks ago was a feud over changing the start times of their schools in part because high school students weren't getting enough sleep.
Thanks for reading.
posted by Aaron at 11:15 AM
1 Comments:
I would like to go on record as saying that targeting the retrieval cart at a driving range is extremely difficult. But then, I am a shitty golfer.
Until we start addressing teachers' salaries and qualifications, instead of passing well-meaning laws that won't work in practice and rely too heavily on standardized testing but have uplifting, catchy names like "No Child Left Behind", I'm not sure we're going to see much marked improvement in our nation's education system.
Good post.
Post a Comment
<< Home