The Wrong School Policies for Hard Times
hese are hard times in the USA. According to the latest report, 51% of jobs pay $30,000 a year or less. Homelessness is growing in most US cities and families are living doubled and tripled up all over the nation even though foreclosures have left millions of homes empty. Young couples find it hard to purchase a home and many older workers and senior citizens live in fear of losing theirs.
Young people are feeling the pinch. There is a heroin epidemic sweeping through small town and rural America and gang issues plague many urban areas. Gentrification has intensified racial profiling and police monitoring of low-income youth. For some young people—avoiding violence, whether in their homes or in the streets—is a daily challenge; for others, looking at what is happening to the adults around them, the future looks extremely grim.
In circumstances like these, where so many young people live with stress and danger and worry, you would think it would be national policy to make schools supportive and nurturing places.
In circumstances like these, where so many young people live with stress and danger and worry, you would think it would be national policy to make schools supportive and nurturing places.
In circumstances like these, where so many young people live with stress and danger and worry, you would think it would be national policy to make schools supportive and nurturing places.
There would be push for smaller class sizes, more counselors, and time for exercize, sports, and the arts.
Multiple paths to graduation would be developed and vocational and technical programs created for those who are not ready or able to go straight to college.
Teachers who love, comfort and inspire their students would be valued; and special incentives would be created to encourage teachers to stay in their jobs for a long time and teach in the communities where they live.
Instead, policymakers are doing the exact opposite. They are deluging schools with tests. They are raising class sizes and cutting sports and arts programs to make room for the testing and test prep they insist must be the core of the school experience. They are slashing vocational and technical programs, insisting all students master a common curriculum, raising graduation requirements—and in all too many schools, subjecting students to punitive discipline
And while all this is happening to students, they are using test-based evaluations and almost daily observations to force teachers to commit educational malpractice by neglecting relationship-Wrong School Policies:
