By Tom
I went on-line this week to see how last year’s students did
on last year’s state test and it got me depressed. It’s not that they were low
– my students did better than the other
fourth graders in my school, my district and the state – but what made me
depressed was who scored low.
I had twenty-eight students last year. Each of them took
three tests: math, reading and writing. Altogether, that’s 84 tests. Of those
84 tests, 23 did not meet standard.
But here’s the part that bothers me: twenty-one of those 23
low scores belong to students who live in what New York Times columnist David
Brooks would call “disorganized households.” These are homes where little or
nothing is done to support what I do at school. Bedtime and meal time is
random, homework is not checked or even acknowledged, school attendance is not
a high priority, reading doesn’t happen, and families don’t regularly attend
evening school activities.
Dysfunctional families are common fodder for TV sit-coms.
Think Arrested Development, Roseanne, etc. But there’s nothing funny about really
growing up in a home in chaos.
Children who grow up in these homes tend to enter
kindergarten behind their peers, and it only gets worse. By the time they get
to high school, many are so far behind and so disillusioned by school that they
simply drop out. When I see them in fourth grade, there’s still hope. So I do
what I can to “light their fires,” to get them excited about school or at least
see the importance of school. And to some extent, I’m successful.
But then I look at the data and see that I can only do so
much.
And that’s the great unspoken truth about American
education. We can talk until we’re blue in the face about teacher quality, and
there’s no denying how important that is. But at some point someone needs to
lay out the cold, hard facts: it is nearly impossible for a child to succeed
academically without the concerted effort of a competent teacher and an
organized, supportive household.
And that’s what depresses me.
Well, that’s why I asked about the evidence you were using.
So first, the test scores aren’t the only measure of success. Despite policy direction, let’s hang onto what we know as teachers and parents. How do we measure and recognize other indicators that school is having a positive impact on a kid’s life? How do we work with Olympia to legitimize those indicators? And how do we use the time and money we have, which we know is inadequate, to help kids get an education?
I’m not trying to be Pollyanna about the hurdles we face, but I believe we can find solutions for most kids.
Yes, Kristin, but I bet you get your girls in bed before 1:00 AM. I bet they don’t play video games ALL weekend, every weekend. And if they do play video games, I’ll bet they don’t involve shooting people.
I’ll also bet that your kids eat decent meals for breakfast and dinner and they don’t bring Cheetos and grape soda for lunch.
I’ll bet you and your husband don’t scream at each other all night and I’ll bet they’ve never visited either one of you in jail.
And finally, I’ll bet your kids get to school every day unless there’s barf or broken bones, and I’m also willing to bet that you don’t oversleep on school days and bring your kids to school at 11:30.
Like yours, my household doesn’t look like something from a 1950’s dream world. Ir’s a real place. But there is a vast, vast difference between your shortcomings (and mine) and the realities facing many, many high needs kids in this country.
I don’t know, Tom. I just read David Brooks’s op-ed on why society is falling apart, and I don’t see the connection to 3rd graders whose families aren’t supporting their education. That article sounds a little to me like “if all the poor brown people would just adopt the good old-fashioned bourgeois values that made this country great in the ’40s society would be more healthy.”
I’m a teacher, for crying out loud, and so is my husband, and I don’t go to all of the evening school events. In fact, I kind of resent how many there are. From 4pm to 9am, I want to be with my family, not my daughter’s teacher. I’d rather hang out with the neighbors and watch kids scooter than go look at a bunch of science projects parents did.
I don’t do a great job of supervising homework, either. My second daughter didn’t complete even one packet, that’s how lousy I was at it by the time she came along. Doing laundry, making dinner and forcing them to flush the toilet and practice piano was about all I could handle.
I often forget to sign permission slips, put the check in the folder so the classroom mom can buy the teacher’s holiday present, and let the bean in the sandwich bag die.
I guess you could say I am not working hard enough to support Ruth and Iris’s education. But they’re white girls, and they don’t qualify for free and reduced lunch, and I am pretty sure none of their teachers would blame a low test score on a disorganized household. I don’t know what evidence you have, which is why I asked, so please know I’m not assuming you’re using ethnicity or economics to make your claim, but I do think we overwhelmingly assume that certain children aren’t getting the necessary support from home because of their language, skin color, or economic status. It’s dangerous territory. Few parents are less supportive than I was this year, so why did my girls do okay? Maybe that’s what we need to look at.
If there are other reasons those children didn’t perform well on the tests, wouldn’t we be better off if we exposed them? And wouldn’t they?
How do you know those kids who failed to meet standard lived in homes where “little or nothing was done to support” what you do in school?
Yes: “But at some point someone needs to lay out the cold, hard facts: it is nearly impossible for a child to succeed academically without the concerted effort of a competent teacher and an organized, supportive household.”
You and I know this. We also know that there are rare exceptions–the kid who perseveres in spite of what hand was dealt. The problem with policymakers and public perception is the erroneous belief that those exceptions can somehow EASILY become the rule through the ascription of some legislation, curriculum or new rule.
I was recently having a conversation with a colleague about parenting as a teacher–and how the way I read with my kids at home is informed by what I know about teaching reading…the way I help my own kids with math homework is informed by my understanding of learning and developmental cognitive stages. I’m NOT saying that this makes me a better parent that a non-educator parent, but it does make me wonder how parents with different experiences engage with their own children as learners.
I was in your JumpStart session this summer. I have reviewed the Standards many, many times at your and the others’ advice. What I DON”T read is that accomplished teachers get all of their kids to pass standardized tests. What I DO read is that accomplished teachers do their best to do what they can for kids and never give up. They also use multiple pieces of data and assessments to demonstrate learning, not just the state’s required data. And they know when to take time to renew themselves. You did the best you could with the context of your children’s lives. It’s insanely frustrating to work with this system. But the highest standard in our nation for our profession says you are doing what’s best for kids. And whack any fussy administrator with the NBPTS standards if they give you flack.
After working in high poverty schools for so many years, I feel your pain. Some of the family support I’ve seen in place in Shelton and in Pasco are multilingual home liaisons, a parent education center with free childcare, homework help, and a computer lab for families, before and after school clubs and tutoring, as well as office staff that is multilingual. These supports have made inroads into affecting family involvement and increasing student achievement, but it still feels like an uphill hike at times.
You can access your own scores? Wow. It must be nice to work in an organized, functioning district.
What interventions are in place at your school for kids who struggle in reading and math but don’t qualify for sped or ell?