Everyone seems to agree that the public education system in America is failing on all fronts. A recent survey revealed that of 25 developed countries the USA was 23rd in student scores. Many well educated and well meaning people have spend countless hours trying to figure out how to solve this problem. All the focus is always on what the school system needs to do to fix the problem. The teachers usually take a punch to the nose, in most of these reports and surveys. I am not convinced that it is all the teachers' fault, yes there are teachers who are just making time until retirement and that is a situation that needs to be addressed.
No child should be left behind was the brain child of a recent President, and has pushed the educators in our schools to teach students to pass a test. Every teacher is graded on how well the students in their class take and pass the end of grade test, (EOGs), and every student will tell you that the EOG is something they stress about. The schools are ranked and graded based on the overall results of the EOGs, and teachers' and teacher assistants' salaries are connected the results of these test. Conceptually this is a good idea and rewards high performance schools and faulty. The draw back is, that no exceptions are allowed and those students that can not, for physical or mental reasons, pass the EOGs, are still required to take the test and expected to perform. Even that can be over come and is not the root cause of the problem. To fix a problem one must get to the root of the problem, if your car tire is low on air you can air it up for a little while, but you better find the leak and fix it.
We now have the first group of children in the school system that was and is being raised by the village. The biggest problem in our school system is the home of many of the students. We have students in our school system that have no idea of how they are suppose to behave in public, because they have no direction at home. The school system is not allowed to correct the problem with any authority, other than corrective positive reinforcement. The teachers and assistances are so busy trying to teach children how to act in public and function in a group environment, that they can't teach reading, writing and math.
My wife is a teacher assistant in a public school and is in a K grade class and has had children tell her this year that they would hit her if she corrected their behavior. Her teacher calls it a power struggle and refuses to address the behavior, of course that is coming from the Principal of the school who uses the same methodology.
The school used to be a great magnet school of math and science, and had a great group of children and parents, from across the city. The leadership has changed and is focusing more on being a neighborhood/community based school, sounds like a good idea, the only problem is that the community is 98% low income black. Most of these students are from single parent households and may even be living with a elderly grandparent, and may not be receive the discipline they need. There fore these students don't know how to behave in public and think that they are in charge, thereby the "power struggle" in class rooms.
The answer may be as simple as restoring strong corrective discipline in the school system, but we know that is a simplistic answer. Parents need to be re-empowered to take control of the children and provide discipline and direction to children, the idea that children should be disciplined by positive corrective reinforcement sounds nice in books and seminars, but rarely works.
Now I am not encouraging child abuse. What I am encouraging is setting limits and having accountability for actions. Sometimes a swat to the bottom will go a long way to provide needed corrections. To answer the question of what is the root of the problem, I have a fairly simple answer, families are needed to raise children, and discipline needs to taught at home, not at school.
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