I understand the urge to compare the best charter school to an average public school and then argue that if one can work miracles, the other should be able to. And I understand that if a bright-eyed Princeton graduate can go down into the depths of Mississippi and get her second graders to read Antigone – and love it – then I should be able to get my habitually-truant tenth grade gang-banger to pass the state assessment. So, to be clear with where I stand on things, I support the push to evaluate schools and make sure they're effective at what they do.
But let's be honest. Most public schools don't have the luxury of focusing solely on academics. I hear a lot about how we're the wealthiest nation and yet we have high school juniors who can't write well, but I don't hear enough about the fact we have children who, because of catastrophic brain damage or learning deficits, spend their days in a safe, engaging, therapeutic environment paid for with tax dollars. These are tax dollars set aside for public education, but really they're spent on the kind of education that doesn't match up to Race to the Top values. I think Arne Duncan, Jon Schnur and Wendy Kopp should remember that the role of public education doesn't begin and end with academics.
This is one of the classrooms in my building, the same room as in the first photo. You can see the extensive supplies for daily therapy, care, and activities. It's a pretty fancy classroom, one that has a teacher, three aides, and about six students. Our tax money goes to creating this environment for kids who will never pass the state math assessment, no matter how skilled their teachers. A big part of my building's budget goes to this classroom, and another like it.
In the earlier photo you see Dennis, one of the instructional aides, playing piano while the kids sit around. I love that my tax dollars allow us to offer this through our schools. These children belong to all of us, because we are a society that places value on human beings regardless of how they will test. How would this teacher prove her effectiveness through the testing of her students? I'm not sure.
In my building there are 23 staff members (12 teachers, 11 aides) teaching and caring for 144 special education students. That's about a ratio of 1:7. In mainstream classes there are 43 teachers for the other 908 students – about a ratio of 1:23. You can see by the numbers that the state spends a lot more on children who listen to Dennis play the piano than it does on my daughter, who is in a mainstream kindergarten class. I'm okay with that. What I'm not okay with is the big push of pretending that all schools have to do is get kids to succeed on math, reading, writing and science tests. Race to the Top seems to have forgotten that public schools provide major social services. Academics are only one part of what schools are expected to do and, frankly, I think most teachers would agree that academics are only one part of what public schools should do.
Those who are in the business of criticizing public education always focus on teacher salaries and teacher contracts. Perhaps the focus should be that public education has taken on the burden of accepting every child and helping to raise and teach that child for twelve years or more. Raise and teach, not only the second.
Perhaps Arne Duncan and President Obama need to remember that the public schools in the United States of America aren't allowed to focus only on preparing children for university. Out of our budgets we find money to provide a variety of social services: physical therapy, changing the diapers of twenty-year olds, drug and alcohol counseling, feeding the poor, helping new immigrants get established, teaching conflict resolution, exposing children to art, business, and their community, teaching children to treat others well, and a thousand other things that can't be measured on a state assessment.
I don't mind being expected to do my job. What I'd like is for those who criticize the job I'm doing to acknowledge that I'm willing to teach 150 children a day so that Dennis can play to 6.
Hi,
It is necessary to focus on every student if a teacher wants good result in his or her class but, it is not an easy task. The burden than no student leave behind is on the shoulders of a teacher and only a good teacher is one who can carry this burden successfully.
Tom – as a tenth grade teacher I have a lot of students who were exited from special ed services either in middle school or in 9th grade.
I have to say that the earlier and more intense the intervention, the more successful the high school experience. I have some students who spent their early years just like your son and who are now successful in the IB program. They’re all completing their applications for university. It’s really important to offer these services.
Tim-
Special Education is very expensive and very important. My son was in special education for two years when he was a preschooler. He went to our district’s early childhood center, went straight into kindergarten and never looked back. He passed all his state tests last year as a fourth grader, and we credit his wonderful special ed preschool, with a certified teacher, class size of seven, and a full-time para. Extremely expensive, and completely worth every penny.
tim-10-ber, I hear what you’re saying about the future of the supporting population, but what do you mean about “mainstreaming 100%?”
Tom – I agree that charter schools should have to teach a full population. They always get around it by saying they don’t have “the facilities.” In fact, this last September a high school in Seattle sent us their behavior disorder class, saying, “Ooops – we’re overenrolled, we don’t have room for them.” and presto, their test scores just went up!
Amen, Kristin, too. However, we spend way too much taxpayer money on special ed kids and not enough on those that will be supporting them down the road…this needs to be reviewed. Yes, these kids need special services and need to be taught more than life skills but we need to do it with less dollars and put those dollars in the GenEd classrooms…otherwise stop mainstreaming 100%
Amen, Kristin. We’ve got a couple of those classrooms in my school and I love the fact that I live in a society that spends like crazy on those least likely to ever pass a state assessment. Maybe we should allow charter schools in this state only if they’re willing to take on their share of severly disabled special education students, and do it in a way that matches what Dennis is doing with his piano.