By Tom

We were having a “conversation” one day during a faculty meeting. It was during one of those Teacher Learning Days that happen before the school year starts. We had just been given the specialist schedule, which, for those of you who don’t teach elementary, is the schedule that tells you when your kids go to PE, music or the library. In other words, it tells you when you get your daily, 30-minute planning time.

The fourth grade teachers were upset. “We always get our planning time in the morning! Why should the fourth graders always get the bad schedule! That’s just not fair!”

I’m not normally one to enter into a vigorous debate between various groups of middle-aged women, but sometimes I can’t help myself. 

“Actually, that is the only fair way to do it,” I said. “Think about it: if one grade level has to have a bad schedule – and apparently it does – then the fairest way to do it is to give the same grade level the bad schedule every single year. That way, every kid gets it only once. But if you move it around every year, then you practically guarantee that some kids will get it more than once and some kids will never have it.”

“Of course,” I continued, “that’s only if we’re looking at this situation in terms of what’s best for the kids. If we’re talking about what’s best for teachers, then that’s a different conversation.”

I’d like to say that my razor-sharp logic won the day, but I can’t. My comments weren’t appreciated, least of all from the fourth grade team, who only glared at me with their collective stink-eye. And as I recall, it was my grade level that ended up with the crappy schedule that year.

But seriously, how often do we really regard policy decisions from the perspective of the educational stakeholders who hold the largest stakes? How often do we look at the long-term benefits for the greatest number of students when we decide policy?

Take NCLB, for example. As it stands now, schools that fail to make AYP for four years in a row face an enforced “turnaround.” As I described in my last post, they get a new administration, half their faculty gets replaced, and the curriculum goes back to basics. All reading and math. Is that really what’s best for these kids, most of whom have little extra-curricular experiences in science, social studies or the arts? It seems to me that the last thing high-risk students need is a narrower curriculum. And the second-to-the-last thing they need is uncertainty and instability in their schools, to match the uncertainty and instability many of them already have in their homes.

Instead of punishing low-performing schools, it seems to me that the best thing we can do to close the achievement gap is mandatory early learning. Think about it: put every kid into school half time at the age of three, full time when they turn four. And if we can only pay for twelve and a half years of schooling, like we’re doing now, maybe we should make the last two years optional instead of the first two. High school juniors could opt for a program that matches their individual interests, which may or may not be getting ready for college.

Of course, that would probably mess up the high school athletic program, which would have an impact on college sports, which would never work.

Never mind.

Or what about Bill Gates’ latest idea? He argues that the best way to spend our limited educational money is to give the best teachers more kids and more salary. That sounds like a good idea, especially when your mental image of teaching is an adult talking in front of a large group of children. If that was the case, then of course; put me in the auditorium and bring on the caviar. Unfortunately, talking in front of a group of students is probably what I spend the least amount of time doing.

Today, for example, the trickiest lesson I taught was when I had my third graders adapt a fairy tale to the setting of one of the four Native American tribes we’ve been studying. It was absolutely crucial that I check in with each student to make sure their plan included the six elements of a fairy tale (which we’ve also been studying) as well as critical elements of their chosen tribe’s culture. Having even four more students would have dramatically altered the entire lesson. It wouldn’t have worked.

Same with the lesson I taught earlier in the day, during math. I was teaching them how to tell time. It takes a lot of personal interaction to make it work; between me and each student and between student partners. The best teacher in the world couldn't teach that lesson with 40 students in the room. 

Again, looking at education policy from the perspective of the students changes everything.

What about you? As you look at some of the current educational issues, do you think we’re looking at them with the right set of eyes? Or, like my fourth grade teaching colleagues, are we looking at them with the wrong perspective?