Why Can't Pedro Read?

[Nbadan]

It's time to quit blaming the system based on a game rigged to fail students and start working on the real cause and effects...

Comment: Tests don't account for poverty trap
Walter Brown
Special to the Express-News


Your readers should understand the full context of the comment by Brooke Dollens Terry, "School accountability system lacking" (Sunday).

Just look at all the low test scores in low-income schools, she says. Those teachers and administrators must be goofing off. If they would just do their jobs properly, all those poor children would ace the TAKS, or the end-of-course exams, or whatever else our legislators cook up.

According to her posted bio, Ms. Terry has never taught in an inner city or any other classroom. After graduating from a wealthy suburban high school and Baylor University, she worked for a series of conservative Republican politicians in and out of Washington before joining the Texas Public Policy Foundation.

TPPF is a "think tank" that lobbies for vouchers and against public schools, for coal-fired power plants and against "environmentalism" in the curriculum, for high standards but against smaller classes, and generally to decouple issues of educational quality from questions of equity and school finance reform.

So when she tries to blame teachers for poor student performance, she has no credibility.

I am a teacher, and I know that students can't leave their home experiences at the schoolhouse door. Their economic, social, and emotional burdens often hang in my classroom like a toxic cloud.

Does Ms. Terry really expect me to fully compensate for a mother who allows a young man to move in as her 14-year-old daughter's "fiancé" because he brings in an extra paycheck? For a father who provides a "role model" of abandoning the family, or going to prison? For a "home" consisting of a single unlocked room over a bar, with a shared bathroom down the hall? Or more generally, for a street culture where the meaning of honor, respect, and achievement has been perverted to practically require an active resistance to learning?

Those are not "education" issues, at least not in the narrow sense in which an under-financed school district can address them. They are symptoms of a poverty which extends beyond a simple lack of money, and which cannot be eliminated without a broad social commitment that includes, but is not limited to, a robust system of public education.

Those who attack our public schools are simply unwilling to make this commitment. They want to isolate themselves and their children from poverty and its consequences. For them, society has no right to tax their resources to advance the common good except for national defense and local law enforcement, to keep the "problems" away from their doors.

Children of the poor are the problem of the poor, and become a community problem only when it's time to expand the police force or build new prisons.

Narrow, cheap-to-score, multiple-choice tests are just another political tool to advance this backward agenda. The bar is set high enough to "fail" many poor children, but not so high as to embarrass the sons and daughters of suburbanites.

The tests sort kids, and their schools, more by family income than by the competence or dedication of teachers and administrators. Then the scores are said to "prove" that public schools are failing, and therefore are undeserving of our taxes.

Enough already. Self-serving ideology never educated a child. And it will never break the cycle of poverty that entraps generations of innocent children, burdens our entire nation, and persists as evidence of our collective indifference.

Walter Brown teaches math at Brackenridge High School. (http://www.mysanantonio.com/opinion/stories/MYSA013108.01O.browncomment.264988b.html)

[Holt's Cat]

It's comforting to think that we shouldn't expect teachers to help poor students actually learn something and hold them accountable for that. With a quality education the only possible hope for poor children we should measure teacher performance based on whether or not they can fog up a mirror.

Also, so what if someone attended a "wealthy" high school? Should we assume that automatically disqualifies someone from the public debate on this issue? Maybe we should ignore those from humble beginnings who think they know how the "wealthy" should be taxed, no?

[Nbadan]

It's comforting to think that we shouldn't expect teachers to help poor students actually learn something and hold them accountable for that. With a quality education the only possible hope for poor children we should measure teacher performance based on whether or not they can fog up a mirro

Doesn't matter how much the FEDS or the State try to micro-manage schools, or how successful researchers think any particular program will be, unless they deal with getting kids into a stable home situation first, were learning and a good education are valued instead of dissed, it's all a shell game...

[Nbadan]

Also, so what if someone attended a "wealthy" high school? Should we assume that automatically disqualifies someone from the public debate on this issue? Maybe we should ignore those from humble beginnings who think they know how the "wealthy" should be taxed, no?

....Certainly would lend to her credibility if she had taught in the public school system for a decade...it's lazy to just think you can fix something by studying it from the outside in...

[Holt's Cat]

Doesn't matter how much the FEDS or the State try to micro-manage schools, or how successful researchers think any particular program will be, unless they deal with getting kids into a stable home situation first, were learning and a good education are valued instead of dissed, it's all a shell game...

So we shouldn't expect to have some minimal level of achievement expected before one can receive a high school diploma? How on earth do you expect to encourage quality instruction at those inner city schools without some measure of how well teachers in those schools perform? If there was any wonder why this nation lags so many others when it comes to educational performance...

And believe it or not, some of those "wealthy" suburban kids can actually grow up in some fairly shitty situations.

[Nbadan]

So we shouldn't expect to have some minimal level of achievement expected before one can receive a high school diploma? How on earth do you expect to encourage quality instruction at those inner city schools without some measure of how well teachers in those schools perform? If there was any wonder why this nation lags so many others when it comes to educational performance...

...we live in a technical world...our kids read at a higher-order thinking level than ever before, but the real-world demands are still so much greater...our kids don't do well on math and science tests because both of these disciplines require dedication above and beyond the level currently taught in books bought and supplied to our kids by the very politicians who then turn around and blame the ineffective system...and guess who's walking away with the money?

[Nbadan]

And believe it or not, some of those "wealthy" suburban kids can actually grow up in some fairly shitty situations.

Take the avg. problems of your rich suburbanite kid, multiply them threefold and you get the avg. problems of kids living in poverty....

[BonnerDynasty]

unless they deal with getting kids into a stable home situation first, were learning and a good education are valued instead of dissed, it's all a shell game...

Exactly.

[101A]

...we live in a technical world...our kids read at a higher-order thinking level than ever before, but the real-world demands are still so much greater...our kids don't do well on math and science tests because both of these disciplines require dedication above and beyond the level currently taught in books bought and supplied to our kids by the very politicians who then turn around and blame the ineffective system...and guess who's walking away with the money?Our kids don't know math and science because the educators who write the texts have over-thought the subjects, and the result is worthless. My children go to relatively affluent public schools, but their mother and I are the reason they learn ANYTHING! The "education" they actually get at school is borderline worthless.

Equations are called "number sentences", "Estimation" is taught as a math skill (a lot). Drilling addition and, later, multiplication is NOT done. Science classes are not taught by scientists, or people with REAL Chemistry or Biology degrees; they are taught by education majors with an "emphasis" in a science discipline (meaning they couldn't cut it in the ACTUAL classes real scientists take - wife being an ACTUAL science professor gives me first-hand knowledge).

The curriculum is ALL public schools (my kids have attended in Texas and PA), is what is wrong. The incredible advantage kids of educated parents have is just that: the parents, not the schools.

[Extra Stout]

I agree with Nbadan and 101A at the same time. We are asking teachers to compensate for the cultural and socioeconomic poverty of students who are unprepared to learn. And in order to have a system built around dragging the least-prepared students across a minimum standard of acceptability, we sacrifice educational opportunities for better-prepared children by dumbing down the curriculum to be nothing more than a year-long preparation for a standardized test.

I don't think the spreading cancer of cultural poverty among our youth will be solved under the current order. That will fall to the USA's successor state(s).

[spurster]

Agree with ES.

I just got the latest stats on the test yesterday. There is about a 70% rate on juniors passing the test. So if the whole focus is to increase the pass rate, then the system ends up focusing on the bottom 30% to the detriment of the top 30%. Given the problems the bottom students often have at home, there is a diminishing return for more effort by the schools.

[101A]

PA doesn't have "a test"...but the system here is JUST as screwed up. It's endemic in the entire system. Textbooks, curriculums; they just suck. They are ripe with agendas, experiments, new ideas - but not a lot of coherent subject matter.

Here is a recent message I sent to my daughter's 4th grade teacher regarding an upcoming Social Studies test:


My gosh, what a discombobulated array of facts to memorize! I can't imagine who or why this book was chosen to educate our children, assuming the "study guides" are taken directly from that book! Or are the study guides supplied with the books? If not, then there must be some over-riding pattern to the book that is being lost in the translation to the study guides.

There is not common thread, no coherence, NOTHING to intellectually grasp on to to learn the material. That then begs the question: What is the point? What is the point of having students memorize a group of facts that have no bearing to one another, which will simply be forgotten twenty two hours after the test is taken?

The study guide begins with the definition of "generation", meanders through trees as a resource, touches on swamps and the names of a few of them. Then we talk about food processing and textiles, have a bunch of ports in the Southeast to memorize, talk more about trees and cotton, then onto immigration in Miami and some tourism. But we're not done! We then begin a discussion about cities along the Gulf of Mexico, where "manufacturing" is listed as a primary industry. oh? Really? I'm from that area, and I couldn't tell you what is manufactured there! There is oil, there is tourism, there is shipping, but manufacturing? I'm sure there is some, but a major industry? I don't think so.

Next, we're on to Cajuns vs. Creoles, and somehow we work Zydeco music into the discussion! Then the study guide begins to cover uses of oil, and definitions thereof, before returning to touch on hurricanes. Then we cover something relevant; a hurricane that hit the gulf area. Katrina? Oh no, we're only going to cover Andrew, which had much less of an impact, relatively, AND was over 15 years ago! Heaven forbid we update the material to cover something that is more relevant, that the kids can relate to, and they might have seen on T.V.! Andrew was six years before most of these 4th graders were born!

Finally we come to the last section of the chapter. We are going to talk about barrier islands, the Outer Banks, and what the definition of a "legend" is. Let's throw in coral reefs, Henry Flagler, and the overseas highway for good measure (not that Henry Flagler and the Overseas highway have anything to do with each other) Make sure and cover the hardships of Key West before you learn the definitions of "tropics" and "territory". We come to the conclusion of the study by learning about Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands!

Again, I understand you don't make up the entire curriculum, and have little, if anything, to do with the books chosen to study, But, my gosh, our children are only in school for a short period, and to spend so much energy covering so many disparate topics is probably discouraging and pointless. Not that the kids can't memorize many of these facts and get a decent grade on the test, but what is the point of that? Have they learned any of these things is a manner that will allow them to later build on that knowledge and apply it to future studies? I cannot imagine they have.

By the way, that chapter was all of 6 pages long, and included many illustrations. I'll try to run the down the publisher.

[xrayzebra]

Our kids don't know math and science because the educators who write the texts have over-thought the subjects, and the result is worthless. My children go to relatively affluent public schools, but their mother and I are the reason they learn ANYTHING! The "education" they actually get at school is borderline worthless.

Equations are called "number sentences", "Estimation" is taught as a math skill (a lot). Drilling addition and, later, multiplication is NOT done. Science classes are not taught by scientists, or people with REAL Chemistry or Biology degrees; they are taught by education majors with an "emphasis" in a science discipline (meaning they couldn't cut it in the ACTUAL classes real scientists take - wife being an ACTUAL science professor gives me first-hand knowledge).

The curriculum is ALL public schools (my kids have attended in Texas and PA), is what is wrong. The incredible advantage kids of educated parents have is just that: the parents, not the schools.

I have two daughters that teach school. One in a
private school and another that teaches science in
a public school. My daughter who teaches science worked
at SW Research foundation for several years, not as a research scientist, but as an animal person.

She teaches in a town on the border with Mexico and
faces many challenges, some of which get's downright
frightening. One of her biggest problems is with
parents who refuse to make their kids behave in class.
These students disrupt the classroom atmosphere and
stop other students from learning. Unfortunately, under
present laws these students cant be dealt with
as was the case in my days in school. Of course in my
days at school, we didn't have police patrolling the
hallways. Let that little thought sink in. Police
patrolling hallways. What we sow, we reap. My
daughter also gives to supplies to kids who parents
cant or want buy them. She, my daughter, is also a
single Mom with two kids she is raising. Both very
bright and I assure you do all their homework...LOL.
And who have won several science awards. Yeah,
I'm bragging, so what!

So don't be too hard on teachers, they must do with
what they have to work with. My daughter gets very
little money for science projects in her class. But she
is very inventive in some of the things she is able to
come up with on her own. Like begging old flowers from
the local florist for the kids to dissect and study.