By Mark
The new buzzphrase in my neck of the woods is "Response to Intervention." I know it's been around a while, and I know that RTI can take many forms, but a few recent uncomfortable conversations in the lunchroom have let me to wonder: at what cost do we respond to students who struggle?
My building, like many, has crafted means to "intervene" when it is discovered that students are struggling academically in core graduation requirements.
First off, I am part of a teaching team in an intervention program for 9th graders. The goal is to help students transition into high school by learning study skills, organization and time management–in other words, how to be a student–all the while providing mainstream coursework in order to keep the bar high and keep opportunities open for the students' futures. However, participating in this program means that the students lose one of their half-year electives in order to participate in the program's support period. This means fewer students in art, technology, and P.E. electives. And this obviously impacts those programs and their staff.
Further, our math department has worked hard to craft during-the-school day as well as after-school opportunities for students who struggle in math to achieve greater success since, though our building scores are above the state average, math scores have not had the kind of growth or progress the teachers would like to see. The most aggressive and focused of these interventions is that certain struggling (mainstream) students are given a second mathematics class during their day's schedule. This intervention provides greater one-on-one or small-group support in core math skills necessary for achieving what is required by the state in mathematics. This means that the student now takes an extra math class instead of another elective. This means fewer students in art, technology, and P.E. electives. And this obviously impacts those programs and their staff.
Too often when I'd hear about how the testing movement saps the life out of the arts, music, and P.E. (among other subjects), I would assume that this was in the context of an elementary situation where a teacher with finite but flexible time was being pushed to devote more to the tested disciplines. Now I see that the same is starting to happen at the secondary level as well.
Those uncomfortable conversations I mentioned above have been with elective teachers who shared with me the impact that interventions are having on their courses and enrollment. If nothing else, we're talking FTE and job security here, so certainly people have the right to be impassioned. Besides that, there is the common belief that many kids who struggle in core courses thrive in the arts, technology, and vocational courses…and that the latter are what make them even want to come to school. Overriding all this is the tacit (or not so tacit) message that the only things that matter are the things the state tests us on.
It is easy to blame the Big Test movement and related requirements for these decisions that short-change electives. However, it should force us to re-examine exactly what is the purpose of a comprehensive high school. Is it to ready students for the Big Tests in reading, writing, math, and science? Must something be tested in order to have value? Should the arts be an option only after the Big Tests have been passed? Should the Test trump all?
When kids struggle, what price are we willing to make them pay to get them to pass that Test?
This is a big issue in public education that’s flying a little under the radar. I’m glad you brought it up.
I wonder how many parents know that their child is losing access to art, music, and health and fitness because more seat time is being given to reading, math, and writing?
By high school, even history is thrown out in favor of more reading/writing classes and more math.
As a parent I want my child’s imagination inspired, I want her body’s need to move respected, and I want her to have some creative, expressive opportunities during her day. She would have all that and more if she attended a private school. We are fortunate in that we can afford to supplement these things outside of school time, because we make it a priority to get her involved in art, music, and dance. The scary thing for me as a citizen is that many families who count on public education cannot afford dance classes at the neighborhood studio or a membership to the art museum.
Because decision-makers continue to be guided by comparing our very of-the-people and all-access education system to that of Finland, where kids with learning disabilities go to their own school and at 16 kids branch off according to ability into secondary school or vocational/tech programs, because we’re comparing apples to oranges our students lose access to precious opportunities.
Let me be really blunt. Public schools are sometimes the only opportunity a poor kid has to take an art class, learn to play a musical instrument, or learn to swim. Are we really going to take that away so that we can buy into this imaginary competition between “top performing” countries who don’t try to educate every child equitably? Talk about leaving children behind.
As I read this, I realize that the union rep in me might have been speaking more than the teacher in me… I see several points where I talk about “impacting programs” and FTE. But really, what we’re talking about here is the experience a kid gets in a public school.
Art is necessary. I used to do some rudimentary art experience, analysis and appreciation in my English class…but that has been squeezed out.
PE is necessary. I never have done much of that in my English class, though.
If schools are about the students…what serves a student better, passing a test or taking these other courses?
So maybe the logical follow-up questions then are these:
What is the real purpose of the Test, and does that purpose fundamentally contradict or undermine the purpose of public education?
So, the tests are being used as a proxy for learning, and the sad irony is that all of those other classes a). involve learning, whether tested or not, and b). promote the development of skills and interests which could lead to more practice in reading especially, and possibly math. I’m lucky enough to work in a school that is not under any particular pressure to address its test scores, but still, teachers in our arts and elective courses often promote reading and writing skills, while still giving students outlets to develop a variety of skills and interests.
RTI is the new buzz word in my neck of the woods, too. And it has me worried. At this stage in the year, we are all working out what the intervention schedule will look like. Here’s what I know so far: All kids, struggling or not, will be attending “interventions”. We will have both daily math and reading interventions, each 30 minutes long. These will be tacked on to our current daily required, 2 hours of literacy instruction, and 90 minutes of math. So, that works out to 4.5 hours of strictly math and literacy.
We have new frameworks – none of it integrates other subjects. (art, social studies, science, health, technology) When you factor in the two remaining recesses. (The kids lost one this year.) Their 20 minute lunch and their 45 minute specialist time, I have a whopping 20 minutes every day to teach the non-AYP affecting subjects, such as science, and the other non-testing subjects that give us a reason to want to learn. That’s a 50 percent reduction from last year.
At the elementary level, I’ve been watching this happen slowly over the years. Former students at the middle school share with me their class schedules, and I can tell it’s hit there. Now it’s at the high school level. Watch out, Mark. It will soon affect all students, whether they’re struggling or not.
What gets me is that we all know better. Even the people making these decisions know better. Often times these “interventions” are more of the same curriculum. Just slower and louder. I am reminded by the bumper sticker I see frequently in my area, “Art saves lives.” You ask a great question at the end of your post, Mark. It appears we’re willing to make our students pay a lot.