Reports abound reflecting the “fact” that Standardized Exam scores have improved across the nation and of course a variety of experts have chimed in supporting or opposing their political candidate…I mean, their view of the “facts”. Are we as a nation that naive? Scores haven’t improved due to increases in learning. Scores have improved because the administrators and teachers who are now being “held accountable” thanks to No Child Left Behind are getting better at scamming the system.
Scores have improved because administrators “improve” at scamming the system
At my wife’s school, their score has improved slightly. How did they do it? The Principal rounded up anyone who didn’t fit the normal mold and couldn’t afford a lawyer and he kicked them out of school. Students over-age for their grade, learning disabled kids who didn’t seem like they could graduate, students with spotty attendance were all eliminated. So while the school didn’t really improve, they eliminated a good chunk of the student body who traditionally weakened the school’s ratings.
Forget the fact that those low performers tend to be poor, suffer from Learning Disabilities and have IEPs, Individual Education Programs that are expensive and challenging to implement…therefore many teachers simply ignore them. Exceptional Student Education is all too often a joke. It is supposed to provide an appropriate education for students who don’t fit neatly into America’s pigeonholes. Instead it is a route for incompetent teachers to hide in the system, literally ruining the future for hundreds of kids right under our noses!
Exceptional Student Education Certification Exams are a joke
In Florida, Exceptional Student Education Certification fails to deliver any kind of quality. My training and experience lay almost exclusively within the business world, yet I took and passed the Florida ESE Certification Exam on the first try, without any kind of course work, study or preparation. Ridiculous!
What is the exam like? It is a 45 minute, multiple choice joke. If you can understand English and apply a little common sense, you can pass it. While researching for this post, I found zero hits on Google for the search “exceptional education blog” — so let me say here that Rotten Apples is an Exceptional Education Blog.
RATs, Rotten Apple Teachers, hide in the in-demand world of Exceptional Student Education
So what happens is that a RAT–Rotten Apple Teacher–starts getting flack for being a shitty teacher. Why? Because now that there actually are some independent standards (via standardized testing) by which students, schools and teachers can be judged, it is actually possible to find out who is teaching and who is farting in a windstorm. Realizing that they are going to be dealt with, these teachers can take the ESE certification exam and switch over to the in-demand world of Exceptional Student Education (or ESOL - English Speakers of Other Languages). For the unindoctrinated Exceptional Students aren’t valedictorians, they’re Challenged: they have Attention Deficit or Asperger’s or Dyslexia or some kind of learning disability that makes them special. What a stupid term.
Lousy teachers hide in ESE programs because when they blame failure on “retarded” kids, everyone buys it
Is this a new phenomenon? Nope! Lousy teachers have been hiding in ESE programs all over the nation for as long as they have existed because when you blame the failure on “retarded” kids, people believe you! Its the teachers who are retarded–in IMHO–not the kids, as well as the retarded administrations that hire them and are too lazy to actually fire them and instead pass the problem teachers on to another school or district. But since this demographic is expected to be failures, no one raises an eyebrow when a shitty teacher does a shitty job and the ESE kids get shitty scores in standardized exams.
I don’t have all the answers, but if we want this system to change then the PARENTS have to get vocal and get involved, the teachers have to get their act together and perform to an ethical standard instead of to a negotiated employment contract, and administrators have to stop living the political suck-up’s wet dream and start doing their duty to eliminate the bottom 10% of teachers instead of the bottom 10% of their students–the ones who need the help the most.
If you think it is expensive and time consuming to fire a rotten teacher, think about how expensive it is to keep them
And if YOU, dear reader, think that the bottom 10% of a school’s population is a bunch of retards, immigrants and gang members, you might be right about that. But if you think it is too expensive to educate them and prep them for real life as a working adult then wait until you see the bill for the damage they do as a criminal, for the social services they need as a dependent adult (because they missed out on independence) and for their incarceration as convicted felons. Just hope that you and your families don’t wind up collateral damage when they rob your corner 7-11.
July 25th, 2007 at 11:55 am
WOW and I thought it was just my area. I’m in Baltimore County and the same thing happened here this year. The High School, being in it’s 4th year of corrective action expelled 7 kids within a 4 block radius of my house (my son included) two weeks before the High School Assessment testing. All these students had IEP’s. The plan was to put them in alternative schools. In fact one was built in the last few months. We no longer have a neighborhood high school.
July 25th, 2007 at 10:32 pm
Donna,
That’s a shame. There are no snappy, simply answers to all the education woes, but it is clear that doing what is good for students just isn’t on the agenda. I hope your kids are in good hands!
-Snoop