The Truly Twisted Life of Educational Deformity

There was an article in the NY Daily News yesterday entitled, "Homeless student numbers leap during 2012-2013 school year:  report."  There are close to 77,000 school children living in temporary housing.  This represents a 16% increase from the 2010-2011 school year.  The article points to several possible explanations, including the economy, increasing rents, better record keeping and Hurricane Sandy.  Happily, "grossly ineffective" teachers did not make the list.  

The New York Times also elaborates on the situation in "Public Schools in New York City are Poorer and More Crowded, Budget Agency Finds."  At the same time as the poverty is on the rise, 450,000 students find themselves enrolled in overcrowded buildings.  Class size has been increasing.

The self-anointed, so-called educational "reformers" have been so off the mark.  Michelle Rhee argued that if students could only have three good teachers in a row they could free themselves from a cycle of poverty.  I suppose there's beauty in simplicity, but one would have to be a simpleton to accept that argument.  It also has convenience, I suppose.  By targeting teachers as scapegoats, other segments of society are shielded from potential blame.  Teachers make an easy target, especially if they can be caught off guard by such stupidity.  Teachers are used to helping other people, not defending themselves.     

The Ed. reformers have tried so many ideas and failed.  Small school sizes did not work.  Charter schools, so far, only seem to succeed to the extent that they are not truly public: they exclude some students and kick out others.  But while there's profits and whopping salaries to be made, some charter operatives will pour their millions into false advertising and paint themselves as Mother Teresas.  

One might as well put a clock on each and every far-fetched "brainy" idea of the educational "reformers," and see how long it takes before it fails.  Common Core will not shock students into meeting higher standards when many still struggle with the current standards.  Over-evaluating me will not help either.  If I am truly ineffective, one doesn't need six observations to conclude that.  Just open your eyes and ears to the line of students with complaints and parental phone calls.  If I am effective, let me teach in peace as a trusted professional.

Schools reflect society's problems.  They do not cause them.  If students' basic needs are not being met outside of school, learning becomes very difficult.  More than at other times, students need to feel secure in classrooms of a smaller size.  They need more individual attention, care and comfort alongside the academia.  All of this seems like common sense to me, but, then, in these days of educational deformity, I often find myself falling back on the words of Voltaire:  "Common sense is not so common."