The Black Informant | African American Commentary, News and Community Building

I’m a former history teacher who left the profession when it was clear no change was going to occur. I was tired of promoting academics and high expectations while everyone else debated and argued about social and funding concerns.

While in the education system for 7 years (I was a high school history teacher), I saw several problems. Amoung these I will cite the following:

1. low student performance expectation and drive — too many students come to school to socialize not to learn

2. mega-schools and districts (1500 students and above / school districts like Dallas and New York)– establishment of these institutions reduces accountability

3. schools segregated from within — the low performing segment, the regular classes, and the high performing classes (Advanced Placement and/or Honors classes). Few minorities, if any, are in the latter classes. School administrations and faculties tend to throw all their resources toward the low performing students, dragging the other two student levels down.

4. over-emphasis on extra-curricular activities — SPORTS! Every principal I had hired under-qualified coaches to fill vacancies before they would hire highly-qualified teachers. Have you ever wondered why students in Asia and Europe score better in science and math than US students when we spend 3 and 4 times as much? Schools in Asia and Europe have few sports teams. They generally have privately sponsored sports clubs instead. On the other hand, we fund and support dozens of teams, teams that only about 15 or 20 percent of the students participate in. Go to a high school pep rally and look at the students. 70 percent of the students are socializing with other students about anything but the squad of players down on the court. The next time you pay your school tax ask yourself how much of it goes to academics — I’d say 40% goes to facilities and district administration, 30% for extra-curricular activities, and 30% for academics. Coaches are expensive. Ask your local paper to do an accounting. I think I’m pretty close to being right.

5. Black racism — to each other, to white students, to white faculty — The worldview of black students is that of persecuted individuals. Black students self-isolated themselves from learning any other perspective. This situation is the hardiest thing a white teacher has to overcome in his teaching environment.

6. ISS (in-school suspension). ISS is a timeout room for middle and high school students. It is used principals to handle behavior problems through school imposed isolation. In practice it is used by schools and districts to keep attendance numbers up so that funding is not cut. It is a useless behavior and educational tool. Some of my students spent weeks in ISS. Some students would act up just enough to be sent there and have a low stress day.

7. Bad teachers — with a teacher shortage principals keep their teacher turn-over rates down by holding onto bad teachers

8. The waste of money on teacher training — all to often teacher training is about the educational process. Generally, teachers are asked to sit through a series of discussion on educational theory and practice — the speaker’s PhD dissertation or his new book on education. No money is spent on training in your subject area. The result is a dumb teacher trying to teach what little he know in a new way and we get more confused kids.

9. The lack of funding and participation in academic clubs and organizations. Pull up any school’s website and look for the academic clubs. What you’ll find is one or two token organizations but little else. Do a little more research and you’ll likely find that even the clubs mentioned are no longer up and running. The teacher-sponsor quit when he got no support and student involvement. (Parents tend to go to soccer games not Model united Nations Conferences.)

10. The numbers game — All the numbers on education are doctored and delayed. You can’t trust them. Once again, I ask you to go to any school’s website. On it you’ll find mention of its scholarly success. Look closer. Usually the success happened years ago or only came from the talents of a few exceptional students. It doesn’t mean it is still occuring. Schools change a great deal from year to year — even from semester to ssemester. The only way you can know how good your child’s school is is to check up on it frequently.

11. The lack of support from everyone. From teachers. From faculty. From parents. From the community. From the administration. From the School Board…

Sorry for the venting. I only wanted to add a brief comment. If I had children, I’d homeschool them. The US educational system is broken and it can not be fixed. Think of it like you do global warming. Many advocates think Mankind can alter its lifestyle and slow or even reverse global warming. It’s not going to happen. The same can be said about US education. They’ll say we can change it, make it better. It’s not going to happen. Charter schools are a stop gap measure. Vouchers are not a solution. Parents prepare yourselves for what needs to be done. Prepare yourselves to teach your own children. The state has failed.

My sister-in-law is a kindergarten teacher here in SoCal, in a low-income school district, and her experiences are much the same as Mr. House’s.

At her level, her greatest problem is the ambivelent attitude of parents. Far too many treat school as a day care facility, and seem unconcerned about their kids’ progress. She will frequently have new children come in that don’t know their colors (I’m not talking teal or chartreuse here, but red, green, and blue), or have haven’t even started on counting, or worst of all, don’t speak ANY english. She frequently comments on how easy it is to tell the kids whose parents who work with them even a little bit from those whose parents use the TV as their children’s primary babysitter. It seems that the road to Mr. House’s #3, internal segregation, frequently starts at home, and is often compounded by the school systems. Unfortunately, with 30 kids in a classroom, it’s just not possible to give these little ones the attention they need to catch up to the kids whose parents have prepared them. And it’s not fair to the other kids to hold them all up, while the unprepared ones catch up. So, one of two things happens: they squeak by, to be the underachiever in the next grade (they can’t hold back kids for speaking insufficient english to actually succeed in 1st grade, by the way), or they repeat the year, frequently doing little better than the first time through.

I was fortunate enough to attend a great school in the midwest, and even so, my parents made sure that I supplemented my education by encouraging learning and reading, and steering me towards reading things that would help me learn, not just the pre-digested pap frequently fed one by the public school system.

It seems like there is an epidemic of ‘laissez-faire’ parenting on the rise, where parents rely entirely on the schools to teach their children. To teach them to think, morality, sex ed, everything. Public schools are only going to teach our children so much, it is still our responsibility as parents to be the primary educator of our children. The state has failed because parents are failing.

I totally agree with what Rick was sayibg. I find that the school systems failures are only magnified by the lacking science and math skillsets that our children possess. How can we create successful adults and compete with other nations who spend more and value education more than the US? Why do parents not question more where the money is spent each year? Why not ask for a financial validation of our education system?

Actually, the US is #1 when it comes to education spending.

U.S. tops the world in school spending but not test scores

Thats what she said, but yet we in the UK achieve higher grades.

I think the difference lies in the students general perception of education that – Its not cool !!! .