I have written many blog posts about the functional and
cultural illiteracy of young people. We all have stories of entire classes of
college freshmen unable to write essays, calculate a percent change, identify
nations on a map, or distinguish between U.S. Constitutional clauses and mere
political slogans. I have often stated
that something is terribly wrong with our educational system…but this article
will be different.
This is not about criticizing students, or, for that matter,
their teachers.
It is an indictment of politicians who hold teachers and
schools “accountable” for these problems, while themselves being a significant
contributing cause to the problem.
As the President of a teacher’s union at a local community
college, I have watched in amazement as the politicians and bureaucrats have
fought us tooth and nail each time we have sought to improve teaching and
learning. If you are one who has assumed that the blame for students’ poor
performance can be laid at the feet of their teachers…please reconsider. What
follows are just two of the head-shaking realities.
Currently, adjunct college teachers around Massachusetts are
voting on a new contract. This new contract includes an incredible “win” for
labor that we fought long and hard for – a requirement that Management actually
evaluate new Adjunct Faculty before they receive reappointment rights.
Yes, you read that correctly: we, the teachers in the union,
have been asking for new teachers to receive timely, helpful, substantive evaluations
from school administrators soon after being hired to help them become better teachers.
Management has fought us on this. For Years.
Finally, they agreed to this in our new proposed contract…as
long as there were no repercussions if they failed to get around to it.
Yes, folks, this is the reality of teaching in 2014.
In a separate process, the state’s Board of Higher Education
is implementing a brand new approach to math course delivery throughout our
colleges.
The Boston politicians, taking their cues from Washington,
are concerned that it is taking students too long to graduate from
college (ignoring the fact that many students are also working due to a financial crisis none of them created.) Another reason for this is the need for many students to take what are called “developmental" math courses (in days past
these were called “remedial” math courses.) Many
students arrive at the college doors with a high school diploma…and critically
poor math skills.
In our school there
are three levels of sequential math courses that our instructors use simply to get many of
these students *ready* to take their first college-level math. That’s three
semesters of developmental math – which, of course, means that students will
not be able to simply walk in and walk out of college like a revolving door.
One would think that our politicians would be concerned with
this, and would allocate teaching and support dollars to our K-12 system to
beef up math instruction.
But no. Instead, they
are attempting to find a way to get these students in and out of college without
being tripped up by such annoying subjects as math.
We have been asked to consider removing math requirements
from courses and programs. We are being
asked to consider allowing students to take developmental math at the same time
they are taking the very courses they need those math skills for. As a business
and economics teacher, I can not imagine having to instruct students in basic
financial statements, stock fluctuations, and economic analysis while they are
still attempting to master the concepts of decimals and the order of
operations - but apparently, that makes sense to Boston politicians.
We have been asked to reconsider whether math is really even
necessary in many of our programs. At
one community college in the state, the administration has been moving forward
to allow students to receive college credit for remedial courses whose
subject matter is essentially at a high school level – another effort to simply
process students through the institution in a timely fashion without actually expecting
them to have accomplished college-level work.
This de-construction of math curricula is a precursor, I
fear, to the next step in this process: a re-examination of the English curriculum,
which is another subject where there are significant developmental needs among
our students.
When all is said and done, the politicians will no doubt
claim victory: they will point to increased graduation rates, and more timely
completion of degrees.
The losers will be our students, who will continue to lack
basic skills; our teachers, who will be blamed for turning out
illiterate graduates; and our society, which will continue to be frustrated
over poor employee performance even after our politicians have declared ‘victory.’
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