The Truth None of Us Wants to Face
I still teach GED part-time, so I have not become completely absorbed into the edu-political world that is so divorced from the reality of inner city schools. I seek a balance, addressing the school improvement proposals that are politically viable, while remaining connected with the reasons why practitioners and parents are so dismissive of reform agendas.
I can't deny that I've been acculturated into much of the "status quo" mentality illustrated by my first principals' mantra, "Pick your battles." The battles that we inner city teachers want policy people to launch are simply not winnable.
However, Jay Mathews, in How Do We Help Our Least Motivated, Most Disruptive Students?, tackles the issue that I know I shouldn't touch.
Twenty years after I was repeatedly warned that assessing disciplinary consequences in a credible manner is an issue that school systems won't dare address, and as the agenda has shifted to reducing suspensions, why should I try to answer Mathews' question? Against my better judgment, I'll respond to his columns and readers. (After I read the book he cites, I'll see whether I dare to get closer to the 3rd rail of edu-politics by discussing it.)
Mathews wrote a three-part series on Caleb Stewart Rossiter's Ain't Nobody Be Learnin' Nothin'. His first column on Rossiter's indictment of grade inflation "inspired a flood of comments and e-mails saying such malpractice was happening nearly everywhere in the country." But Mathews, like so many teachers turned advocates can only ask, "What do we do about it?" He then turned to Rossiter’s solution to low academic and behavioral standards which doesn’t seem practical to Mathews (or me) but which "represents the toughness I sense many Americans think is overdue."
Mathews begins his third column with his obligatory praise of KIPP, even though he probably realizes that its methods can't be scaled up and are thus irrelevant to systemic improvement. He concedes "that a significant number of low-performing students are likely not to enroll in schools like KIPP — or will drop out — because they don’t like the emphasis on good behavior and hard work."
Mathews agrees with Rossiter that neighborhood schools should teach good behavior and they should not keep returning disruptive students to their original classes, "where they distract students trying to learn." I would add that disruptive students also want to learn and, above all, they want to learn how to control their behavior. I would also argue that troubled students should never be described as "miscreants" or "slow learners" which is Mathews' characterization of Rossiter's views.
Like Mathews, I oppose the segregation of low-performing students or directing them to a vocational track "as early as the beginning of middle school." If older students choose vocational schools, that is one thing, but we adults need to make sure that they are not pressured to do so or to make a premature decision that could limit their horizons.
According to Mathews, Rossiter wants "miscreants and slow learners switched to remedial classes, where their problems would be addressed so they could return to the mainstream courses at the beginning of the next quarter." I'm afraid that Mathews uses such wording because he correctly surmises that that is the sort of tough talk that the public (not Mathews) wants. Regardless of what Rossiter wants to say, I believe Mathews is correct about what the public wants to hear, and the result would be increased (and cruel?) segregation. On the other hand, I support the carefully worded proposals of Professor Emeritus Lynn Canady which would incorporate a type of block scheduling This Week In Education: Thompson: The Truth None of Us Wants to Face: