Public School Problems
Last night my friend invited me to a screening of “Backpack
Full of Cash”, a documentary vilifying charter school and school-for-profit
education models. The film did convince me that certain charter schools,
schools-for-profit or vouchers don’t always work just as public schools don’t
always work. By the end of the film viewers were supposed to love the teachers
union. The film used the turnaround in NJ’s Union City School district to make
a point about how working together with teachers, public schools can be made
into a shining example of how to educate our children. The most telling point
of the film was the audience reaction when Governor Chris Christie says that
the Teachers Union is what is killing public schools in America. The audience
sighs. I want to applaud his honesty and wish he would run for president.
But let’s get back to Union City, NJ. The turnaround to
becoming a great school happened during Gov. Christie’s tenure. How did this
high poverty school district get so smart? It started because court decision
required the state to infuse poor school districts with cash. But if you look at other NJ low –income
districts that got money, they still perform poorly. Money doesn’t solve the public school
education problems. In the book “Improbable Scholars” by David Kirp goes into
the explanation of how Union City achieved this status. They adopted a
consistent curriculum across classrooms with a focus on early reading and
vocabulary. It is for this and other reasons I support the common core. Union City used best practices, tests as
diagnostic tools rather than to punish students, and every teacher got a
mentor. Tests used measured critical thinking not rote memorization.
So now my daughter is in 6th grade. She did
brilliantly in 4th and 5th grade at public school so I
hoped middle school would continue the trend. I
lobbied for certain teachers in 4th and 5th grade, but knew
little about 6th grade and thought I'd just go with the flow once I got her placed in 7th grade math (no 6th grade accelerated).
The first week of school she comes home and makes cartoons
of what happened in school. It’s prison. It’s memorized this and takes a test.
It’s awful. I speak to the principal and ask him to ease up on teacher’s
threatening students with detention for every little infraction. The policy is
don’t talk and do what you are told or you will get detention. Joking around
with your best friend a bit too loudly – in school suspension and you are not
to attend classes and must miss the review for the midterm.
Within a few months my daughter came home dejected. She lost
interest in everything extracurricular. Her primary focus is how not to make the teacher’s mad. No going to the bathroom. No asking clarification on subject matter. Do your rote homework, and only her homework. She loved playing in the
orchestra and where as in 5th grade she played the cello and violin,
she despised the policies of the new orchestra teacher she did not want to
pursue any additional time with the music teacher.
I thought it would get better, but it got worse. They took a student who loved-to-learn and
consistently tested in the 99th percentile on standardized tests and
turned her into a mind-numbing bob. It’s
an educationally known fact that students who are on the bottom of the bell
curve often need something that public school can’t provide. We are looking at private schools.