The recent knee-jerk reaction to President Obama’s message to public school children would be almost laughable if it weren’t so troubling. Instead of supporting a message of self-responsibility among our nation’s students, there is a group of conspiracy theorists who see the specter of socialism raising its ugly head every time the current administration sneezes. As an educator for more than 25 years, I have finally decided it is time to speak up about what I see happening in our schools and to my alarmist friends, it is my sad duty to inform you that you are missing the boat by a mile. I have read the text of Obama’s message and reviewed the lesson plans and I don’t understand how student responsibility and staying in school is a socialist agenda.
The sad truth is that despite all of our misplaced legislation with No Child Left Behind, there is a critical stakeholder who has not been asked to assume any responsibility in student achievement: namely, the students themselves. It is the school and its faculty that must shoulder the blame when standardized testing shows students are not proficient in reading, writing and math. There are no consequences for the student who takes the test with grudging indifference. When the results are published for the community to scrutinize, it is the school that is held accountable when it is the student who really bears the responsibility.
Our students have learned that praise is based on potential, not on the actual completed hard work that it takes to reach the goal. Many school districts will not allow teachers to give a zero for missing homework assignments. Instead, a “courtesy” 60 is recorded in the grade book. What does this say to the struggling student who attempts the work and earns only a 70 for the effort? In the end, instead of encouraging a student to reach for the bar of academic achievement, it is lowered until the student can step over it, and, failing that, the child is picked up and carried over it by a system that has forgotten that temporary failure can often be used as a very strong motivator.
Standardization has served only to promote the work ethic of mediocrity. In Maine, a student taking the SAT in junior year is either “proficient,” “partially proficient,” or “not proficient.” The ability to excel has become lost, and it doesn’t take a bright student too long to realize that excelling isn’t really that important as long as the bare minimum criteria is done. I do not mean to suggest that all of our students are buying in to this premise, but I do see more and more students lacking the intrinsic motivation to want to do well in school.
The gap between a high school diploma and college readiness is widening at an alarming rate. Many students arrive at the doors of a university expecting the perpetuation of the “easy A’s” they have received while in high school only to experience academic meltdown when they realize they really have to go to class, take notes, study, turn in work and be accountable for their own learning experience. These matriculating college students have traded critical thinking skills and higher levels of learning for a curriculum that asks only for proficiency and tests for it in multiple choice format.
Indeed, there needs to be a dialogue opened up among educators, parents and students while leaving political ax-grinding to the media pundits. Letting politics further muddy the waters of a dire situation in our public school system is only delaying the reforms that need to be put in place before our children fall further behind in their education and in their ability to adapt and flourish in real life, where success is rewarded and failure is an unpleasant option.
Lori C. Wingo is co-director of the Upward Bound Programs at the University of Maine and a lifelong public school educator.