The Deliberate and Intentional Lie About the Disappearance of Elective Courses in Public Schools
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I am honored to feature D.A. Russell on the blog today. Don is exposing more of the truth about what is really happening in urban public schools around the country. Through years of research, Don has collected the data and published a book called, Lifting the Curtain: The disgrace we call urban public education.
Today, Don is sharing the lies about electives and why they are disappearing from public schools. It has nothing to do with funding–although that is what the “media” and career bureaucrats continue to report. In the end, the teachers of electives and the students are the people who are suffering. It’s time to start speaking the truth so we can offer a well-rounded education to our public school children.
The decline in music and arts courses in our schools is shocking. Even the most stressed-out classroom teacher will admit music and arts teachers have it worse than the rest of us. All teachers face the constant pressure of mandates that force us to dumb down education and teach to the test. All of us work in an environment of cronyism where teachers who speak out on the real problems in education are the target of intimidation and bullying to be silent. Teachers across the nation cringe when we see an administrator change a failing grade to passing, because we know how much that hurts the child.
But on top of all this, music, arts, and electives teachers have to face the constant threat of eliminating their courses entirely — and the worst part is knowing that cancellation is almost always based on two deliberate and intentionally misleading lies by school administrators covering up the real reasons for cancelation.
The big lie – cancellation is a school funding issue
In the urban high schools I researched over three years before writing Lifting the Curtain, almost all of them had eliminated arts and music electives. In each case it was under the patently false pretense that it is due to a “…lack of funding.” The truth was, in each case that additional funding, if given, would always be applied to programs other than arts and music – because no matter what the funding level, there was no room in the curricula for these courses anymore. The elective class periods had all been preempted for standardized test prep. And non-teaching mandates take up so much urban high school classroom time that teachers are prevented from the level of teaching that would make prep classes for standardized tests totally unnecessary.
Look at a typical 5-course freshman or sophomore day in school 20 years ago when today’s parents were in school:
- Math
- English
- Science
- History
- Electives
The electives slot was the joy for children. Here is where we painted, crafted, and learned about music (other than Elvis and the Beatles!). Here were study halls and gym (more than just one day per week). But look at the same 5 course schedule today:
- Math
- English
- Science
- History
- Standardized test preparation
The real reason for canceling arts and music now becomes clear. Disingenuous administrators claim it is a “budget” issue. But their real reason has nothing to do with budgets – it’s that there are no open freshman or sophomore open course slots for electives, because all are being used for test prep.
In almost all urban high schools, there are no electives, music, or arts courses in the freshman and sophomore years! All available course slots are used for prepping for the standard tests that occur in those two years. Only in the last two years of high school, after the standard test are over, does a period become available for electives. But sadly, those electives that require continuity and a progression of skills, like music and the arts, are no longer possible. It is akin to a football program – you sometimes get a freshman star, but the heart of a good team is the seniors who have been in the program for four years of development. A two-year football program will not be very good. A two-year band will have a hard time marching with John Philip Sousa.
The little lie – music and arts are too expensive
The second lie is one that sounds reasonable – music and arts are far too expensive for today’s school budgets. After all, it is true that equipping a large band or orchestra is expensive. But school administrators intentionally leave out an important factor in their effort to hide the need for test preparation classes. Today’s children dearly want low-budget music appreciation courses, not the high cost performance courses administrators use as a false red herring.
So, we have hit upon yet another unintended consequence of mandates (standardized testing and penalties to schools with low results, and non-teaching mandates in the classroom) that shortchange our children. In every urban high school I researched, the freshman and sophomore children had at least one class each term dedicated to helping pass standardized testing – often one for both English and one for Math. All but two had no freshman or sophomore courses for any electives such as art and music. Literally hundreds of emails and Facebook posts I have received confirm the same situation in schools nationwide. Many schools are even starting to look at adding more such “test preparation” classes for bio, chemistry, and history as those topics become part of standardized testing. After all, the sanctions on a school that does not meet mandated test results can be very severe.
And reprehensibly, many of the schools that still claim to have music and arts programs treat them as second class citizens with little support.
In every one of the urban high schools I studied, I found administrators focused only on protecting their positions and the school’s status by concentrating curricula on passing the tests, rather than helping teachers be freed up from micromanaging mandates so those same teachers could teach again in their classrooms, making test prep classes unnecessary.
So do the math – who loses when one or two classes each day are tied up with remedial test prep training? A typical school has just 5-6 classes per day. If two (and soon to be more than two) are for additional Math and English training to help with passing standardized tests, where is there room for electives anymore? Where is there a space for creative writing? For law? For small business issues? For psychology? For that matter, where is there a slot for band, art, home economics, study hall, or carpentry?
Once again, the real reason for the loss of arts and music in our schools is simple – too many mandates trying to compete for too little time. The career bureaucrats, year after year, do not understand something as obvious as that 7-8 classes cannot fit into a 5-6 class day – and our children are the losers.
This post is part of the WOW! Women on Writing Book Tour series for D.A. Russell’s book. You can read a full interview about Don and his book here.The Deliberate and Intentional Lie About the Disappearance of Elective Courses in Public Schools | M. Shannon Hernandez:
