help me figure out how a person can get to 9th grade without knowing how to read… is the american highschool system really that screwed up? i know some people that are not very smart get through it but not reading seems like a bit of an excess…
Another man named Dexter Manley got not only through high school but college without being able to read. The advantage he had was he went in the neighborhood of 300 pounds and could still run like a running back, all the while wreaking havoc on a football field.
He just passed and passed and passed through his high school and college courses all the way to the pros. Only toward the end of his career did people realize he was functionally illiterate, thanks to an educational system that rewards athletic ability with bogus degrees.
I teach at a charter high school in tucson and I am continually blown away at the disfunctional intellectual level of quite a number of our 9th graders. We have one 9th grader who is a self-styled “gangbanger” but it turns out he can’t read or write and just felt really stupid and lost in class so this was his front to act like he was “too cool for school.” He is actually a very earnest and good kid, and I think we can turn him around. (We are a SMALL school with SMALL classes… which I think is very important.)
I started off with the impression that I was going to be teaching history. In fact, I am primarily a life skills coach and mentor and, hopefully, a role model of sorts. Definitely they fell through the cracks of the educational system, but when you pay teachers 30k a year and then stuff 30+ kids in a class, crack falling is gonna happen. Culprit #1 is the family. Most of these kids have very disfunctional families… drug use, intense apathy, imbecilism, culture of levelled aspirations and limited horizons… american suburbia under the walmart and McD veneer is a very sick and troubled place indeed.
Anyone here who teaches any level (including college) will tell you stories of students who can’t do the simplest things.
“Culprit #1 is the family. Most of these kids have very disfunctional families… drug use, intense apathy, imbecilism, culture of levelled aspirations and limited horizons… american suburbia under the walmart and McD veneer is a very sick and troubled place indeed.”
It’s not just disadvantaged families either. My mom teaches H.S. in a very affluent area and those kids are just as bad if not worse because their parents contribute to their sense of entitlement. She’s actually had parents yell at her for failing kids on daily quizzes when they were caught cheating red handed. Some of the stories she tells about parents could make you wonder how any of those kids ever function in life at all.
I used to tutor at Camden County College. It still shocks me to think about how many of the students there were close to illiterate.
Just another reason why we need mandatory testing starting in the elementary schools (among many other things). Let’s catch these kids before they fall through the cracks.
This is the part I don’t understand. Ever since I can remember, when I was in school and even now with my daughter in school we’ve always had testing. If memory serves it was fairly frequent as well. These test were scored outside the school and sent to the parents and teachers. I guess I just don’t understand how someone coudl pass these tests or even come close to having an acceptable score in english and not be able to read.
Didn’t every one here take those tests? You filled in the little ovals and 3-4 montsh later they came back and told you were you were percentile wise in the school, state and nationally? IOWA tests or something like that?
~Matt
is the american highschool system really that screwed up?
If it was discovered in 9th grade … it’s not the high schools that are screwed up.
I would be more embarrassed to be the parent of a child that couldn’t read than be a teacher of a student that couldn’t read.
Just another reason why we need mandatory testing starting in the elementary schools (among many other things). Let’s catch these kids before they fall through the cracks.
There’s plenty of testing. The problem with many kids is constant absences … they’re never in school long enough to even learn anything. Students can fail students so they repeat a grade … parents can (and do) over-rule that.
"Students can fail students so they repeat a grade … parents can (and do) over-rule that. "
You’re kidding me! Parents can overrule the school even if the school fails the kid?
Another question wodul be how does any kid over 3rd or 4th grade get ANYTHING but F’s without being able to read? ou can’t do the math, english or science. I guess you could pass PE, music and art, but even those classes had written tests that counted for a portion of your grade.
I really can’t even comprehend it.
I will say that it all falls almost completely squarely on the shoulders of the parents.
~Matt
Just another reason why we need mandatory testing starting in the elementary schools (among many other things). Let’s catch these kids before they fall through the cracks.
I wish it were just a matter of doing some mandatory testing but unfortunately in reality this is not as effective as it should be. Right now colleges are seeing more and more students who are the product of No Child Left Behind and the results are dismal. In theory testing is done to catch students who are struggling but the reality is that it is seen as a test for the teachers and district. When students do not pass the test the schools/teachers are effectively punished and lose needed resources. The perception by teachers us that is that schools are being held accountable for many things out of their control: parental involvement, learning/behavior issues, community support etc…and therefore resent the whole process. In additon, the schools will do nearly anything to keep their funding like teaching to the test or even cheating. The result is a student who is good at memorizing but has little understanding exactly what it is they have memorized.
It's unfortunate because testing is important but it isn't as simple as instituting mandatory testing. I prefer the action of setting higher standards, putting a foot down on grade inflation, and encourage schools to hold someone back as many times as necessary. The question is how to do this effectively? The answer of "mandatory testing" only seems simple and reasonable but the details how to actually do this are muddled with problems.
i’ll highjack the thread a bit … didn’t you morph from an attorney into a teacher?
How did you make the transition? did you have to return to school for a teaching certificate?
reason i ask: i’m contemplating a career change (from law enforcement to teacher … i have a bachelor’s degree in cultural anthropology and american studies and a master’s in criminology ).
i’m just curious about your experiences, and what the transition was like.
please feel free to pm.
thanks.
“The answer of “mandatory testing” only seems simple and reasonable but the details how to actually do this are muddled with problems.”
I guess I don’t understand this either. Send in an unknow test based on certain accepted levels of knowledge for different grades. Take the test, send it back out. Grade it send the results back.
The teachers do not have a chance to “teach the test” becasue they don’t know what’s on it. The only option left is BLATANT cheating which means the teacher just gives the answers, assuming they know them. Thi type of cheating is fairly easily thwarted and if attempted should be reason for dismissal.
~Matt
People read in highschool?
NCLB has it flaws but there is evidence that it is working. The recently released Nation’s Report Card showed significant improvement in overall student scores for the first time in decades, with 9-year-old reading and math scores at an all-time high. It also showed the smallest achievement gap in the 30-plus year history of the report between white 9-year-olds and their African American and Hispanic peers.
** Right now colleges are seeing more and more students who are the product of No Child Left Behind and the results are dismal.**
Evidence is support?
** In theory testing is done to catch students who are struggling but the reality is that it is seen as a test for the teachers and district.**
The reality is that it was enacted in large part as a test for the teachers. Reasonably, too.
When students do not pass the test the schools/teachers are effectively punished and lose needed resources.
Resources that they weren’t utilizing effectively. (Or weren’t able to utilize effectively due to factors beyond their control, if it makes the teachers’ lobby happy. Whatever.)
It’s unfortunate because testing is important but it isn’t as simple as instituting mandatory testing.
I don’t know what that means. Testing is important, but if made mandatory, it somehow wrecks the educational system?
** I prefer the action of setting higher standards, putting a foot down on grade inflation, and encourage schools to hold someone back as many times as necessary.**
That sounds great, I’m in. How are we going to set higher standards? More pertinently, how are we going to determine if we’re meeting those standards? How are we going to determine if a teacher or school engages in grade inflation without an objective measure? (As for holding kids back, I’m with you there, but keep in mind that TT tends to minimize the educational system’s role in social promotion. It isn’t as if all these schools had nothing to do with it, and were forced into it by nutso parents.)
There are a lot of reasons to dislike NCLB. Mandatory testing, and the idea of holding teachers and schools accountable, are not among them.
"Right now colleges are seeing more and more students who are the product of No Child Left Behind and the results are dismal. "
Mine is totally unscientific and based on the changes I have witnessed in the last 5 years of entering college freshmen.
Whether NCLB is good or bad the HS teachers perspective is that it is unfairly judging them and interferes with their ability to teach, unfortunately without their support it is unlikely to be effective.
“Resources that they weren’t utilizing effectively. (Or weren’t able to utilize effectively due to factors beyond their control, if it makes the teachers’ lobby happy. Whatever.)”
What about lower socio-economic demographic areas that already have a hard time attracting good teachers, less parental involvement etc…? It is very easy to say they weren’t utilizing their resources effectively provide any insight in how to better use those resources…instead it just punished the school. Some may say that this is just punishment and you must deal with the consequences but the reality is that it has a further negative effect without actually dealing with the problems. IMO the current implementation of NCLB deals with the symptoms rather than the problem.
I don’t know what that means. Testing is important, but if made mandatory, it somehow wrecks the educational system?
** **Actually I am not against mandatory testing, my point is that *how *it is implemented and perceived by teachers is important. I am not against the overall concept of NCLB but I don’t think it has been developed or presented in a way in which it is effective yet. How should the desired outcome be accomplished? That is not an easy answer and one I don’t claim to have the answers to.
People read in highschool?
I was too stoned during my high school years to remember if people actually read in high school.
I just wish I could have gotten C’s and had a rich and powerful daddy so I could go to Yale. that way maybe I could be president some day.
I would agree. I went to my son’s "meet the teacher night at their High school. One of the english teachers was remarking that last year ALL of her kids parents came and visited her but this year not one came. The difference between last year and this…Last year she taught AP/honors english and this year it was remedial english.
eyebike … for the most part, my experience is similar to that.
Occassionally, I will get to met a parent that I need to have communication with. Sometimes they are effective, but most times they don’t want to invest the time/effort required to be “the heavy” and make sure their kid is doing what they are suppossed to do. It’s the whole wishing v. wanting thing. They ‘wish’ their kid would improve academically, but they don’t ‘want’ to actually do anything to see that it happens.
Some parents are straight-up overwhelmed. Single parent, 3 kids, one’s a teen, the others are young. Treading water.
By the time the students get to high school, parents already know what’s going to be said. They’ve likely heard the same thing every year since 1st grade. By this time, it’s up to the student (or at least that’s the impression I get).