Serious problems in DC schools; and around the US

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2017/12/17/570255742/teachers-around-the-country-react-to-investigation-into-ballou-high-school?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=npr&utm_term=nprnews&utm_content=2046

From the linked article:

We've also gotten word from teachers around the nation who read, listened to or found the story on Facebook. They told us of similar stories where they are: chronic absenteeism, a reliance on methods like credit recovery and makeup work to graduate students, as well as pressure teachers say they feel to pass unprepared kids.

Understandably, many of those educators asked to remain anonymous if we shared their stories. We granted that when appropriate.

We've aggregated some of their stories here:

"This happens everywhere. I hate the days grades are due. So much nonsense, accepting garbage work, 'adjusting' grades, pressure to 'work with students', etc." Jen Stephens, Facebook.

 

 

The comments in the article from many teachers around the US are what should give us all pause.  Good public schools are essential to a functioning democracy.  If these comments are accurate our national problems are only going to get worse.

[GAROVORKIN]

This is nothing new, the education system has been broken for decades and nobody in charge seems want to do anything to fix it. 

[ants]

So, as an Australian reading this I'm a little confused.  Obviously what was happening was poor.  But how did anyone get into Colleges off the back of just school results?  Surely you have national or state entrance exams, which everyone has to sit?  How do they cheat those? I'm also a little stunned that if someone misses that much class their meant to be automatically failed.  Surely if you know the stuff, that is what is important?

All that said, its clear that a lot of corruption was going on and students were being passed who shouldn't be.  That is wrong.  

The parts about the substitute teachers was also appalling.  

[dornishpen]

12 hours ago, ants said:

So, as an Australian reading this I'm a little confused.  Obviously what was happening was poor.  But how did anyone get into Colleges off the back of just school results?  Surely you have national or state entrance exams, which everyone has to sit?  How do they cheat those? I'm also a little stunned that if someone misses that much class their meant to be automatically failed.  Surely if you know the stuff, that is what is important?

All that said, its clear that a lot of corruption was going on and students were being passed who shouldn't be.  That is wrong.  

The parts about the substitute teachers was also appalling.  

 

These kids  probably aren’t going to college, if they are it’s probaly colleges that accept everyone with a high school diploma like community colleges. The US doesn’t have compulsory entrance exams, there are some standardized tests (SAT) used by most but not all colleges and there are no national (and in most or all states no state) level exams required to receive a HS diploma.

[Ormond]

Yes, as a professor at a "non-selective" private university, I can attest that there are plenty of colleges and universities in the USA, not just community colleges, where having been granted a high school diploma is basically all you need in order to enroll.

[aceluby]

1 hour ago, Dornite said:

 

These kids  probably aren’t going to college, if they are it’s probaly colleges that accept everyone with a high school diploma like community colleges. The US doesn’t have compulsory entrance exams, there are some standardized tests (SAT) used by most but not all colleges and there are no national (and in most or all states no state) level exams required to receive a HS diploma.

There are absolutely state level exams required to receive a HS diploma in many (most?  all?) states.  I worked for a company that provided and administered those exams, and the motto was to never get yourself into the paper, because whether kids didn't graduate because of a mistake, or kids graduated who shouldn't have, it was never a good thing.  The biggest player in this space is Pearson, who when I worked for a competitor had screwed up and had kids not graduate who should have, and were sued because of it.

Here's just a cursory glance of the impacts statewide testing can have on graduation https://www.google.com/search?ei=-H85WoydBMLRjwTx6aDgDA&q=pearson+mistake+graduate&oq=pearson+mistake+graduate

[Iskaral Pust]

2 hours ago, Dornite said:

 

These kids  probably aren’t going to college, if they are it’s probaly colleges that accept everyone with a high school diploma like community colleges. The US doesn’t have compulsory entrance exams, there are some standardized tests (SAT) used by most but not all colleges and there are no national (and in most or all states no state) level exams required to receive a HS diploma.

As someone who grew up outside of the American education system, I was pretty shocked by the subjectivity in high school grades use for college applications.  Students report their GPA to colleges, but those are not based on standardized exams, even where schools do follow a standardized state testing system.  The GPA is based on the aggregate of subjective grades assigned by individual teachers, including any manner of extra credit opportunities or credit make-up opportunities, not to mention parental pressure and wheedling students.  Talk about ripe ground for grade inflation.

The only standardized exams considered in college admissions, if they even are considered, are the SAT and ACT.  The SAT, the most commonly used, is a multiple choice exam for math and reading comprehension, plus a short essay to show you can actually write.  So all of the math has to be something you can answer by choose A, B, C or D within a minute.  No proofs of theorems, challenging multi-stage derivations, solving difficult calculus equations, or any complex multi-step math problem.  And all of the reading comprehension is to select one of four provided answers that best fits the question posed -- no one has to just provide an open form response to a question, or write an essay about what Hamlet was thinking, or what imagery Keats used.

This is all so incredibly dumbed down and open to manipulation compared to the standardized essay-based state exams in English, History, Geography, Science, Irish, German and Math (with all the stuff I mentioned above) that I had to do in order to apply to university.  It's pretty incredible how low are the expectations for high school students here.

Some high school students actually study pretty advanced material in AP classes (supposed to be like first year of university, but also dumbed down), but you could never tell from their grades or standardized testing whether they actually understood any of it.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

2 hours ago, Ormond said:

Yes, as a professor at a "non-selective" private university, I can attest that there are plenty of colleges and universities in the USA, not just community colleges, where having been granted a high school diploma is basically all you need in order to enroll.

And what compounds this problem is that a lot of schools dramatically lower the standards for graduation for their struggling students. I had a lot of friends get placed in diversion programs (I think that's what they were called) which were a total joke and they'd still get credits for passing. In one of the math programs, I swear to God all they were doing was packets that consisted of problems meant for 6th graders. And these were high school seniors. 

[dornishpen]

2 hours ago, aceluby said:

There are absolutely state level exams required to receive a HS diploma in many (most?  all?) states.  I worked for a company that provided and administered those exams, and the motto was to never get yourself into the paper, because whether kids didn't graduate because of a mistake, or kids graduated who shouldn't have, it was never a good thing.  The biggest player in this space is Pearson, who when I worked for a competitor had screwed up and had kids not graduate who should have, and were sued because of it.

Here's just a cursory glance of the impacts statewide testing can have on graduation https://www.google.com/search?ei=-H85WoydBMLRjwTx6aDgDA&q=pearson+mistake+graduate&oq=pearson+mistake+graduate

I just googled this. Less than half (but almost half) of the states require exit exmso graduate.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_exit_examinations_in_the_United_States

[ants]

12 hours ago, Iskaral Pust said:

As someone who grew up outside of the American education system, I was pretty shocked by the subjectivity in high school grades use for college applications.  Students report their GPA to colleges, but those are not based on standardized exams, even where schools do follow a standardized state testing system.  The GPA is based on the aggregate of subjective grades assigned by individual teachers, including any manner of extra credit opportunities or credit make-up opportunities, not to mention parental pressure and wheedling students.  Talk about ripe ground for grade inflation.

The only standardized exams considered in college admissions, if they even are considered, are the SAT and ACT.  The SAT, the most commonly used, is a multiple choice exam for math and reading comprehension, plus a short essay to show you can actually write.  So all of the math has to be something you can answer by choose A, B, C or D within a minute.  No proofs of theorems, challenging multi-stage derivations, solving difficult calculus equations, or any complex multi-step math problem.  And all of the reading comprehension is to select one of four provided answers that best fits the question posed -- no one has to just provide an open form response to a question, or write an essay about what Hamlet was thinking, or what imagery Keats used.

This is all so incredibly dumbed down and open to manipulation compared to the standardized essay-based state exams in English, History, Geography, Science, Irish, German and Math (with all the stuff I mentioned above) that I had to do in order to apply to university.  It's pretty incredible how low are the expectations for high school students here.

Some high school students actually study pretty advanced material in AP classes (supposed to be like first year of university, but also dumbed down), but you could never tell from their grades or standardized testing whether they actually understood any of it.

That’s ........ crazy. 

[aceluby]

14 hours ago, Iskaral Pust said:

Some high school students actually study pretty advanced material in AP classes (supposed to be like first year of university, but also dumbed down), but you could never tell from their grades or standardized testing whether they actually understood any of it.

AP classes have a standardized test at the end to determine if you learned what you are supposed to.  Most, if not all, colleges will only give you credit for taking the class if you got a 3 (out of 5) or above.  I also wouldn't consider it 'dumbed down' either.  You learn the same thing you would in a first or second semester university class (in my AP classes, we learned more than in my first year courses), it's just that the AP class takes a full year instead of a semester.  There are also IB programs that are even more intense and are harder than most first year schedules, but are much rarer to find in the states.

[Gertrude]

My cousin is a teacher and I've been hearing her stories for years. She works at the grade school level so doesn't deal with graduation issues, but I can confirm that she's frustrated that there are no consequences for bad performance. She says it's nearly impossible to fail a student, or even give them an F for a specific test or assignment they fail to complete.

Her feelings are that the major problems are the parents. Just recently talked to her and her estimation was that of the students with behavioral/ academic problems, about c20% of them had parents who cared and were willing to work with the teachers to correct it. The rest were apathetic or excused their kids. One parent refused to believe her kid had behavior problems, so the school figured they would video a typical day. The mother watched her kid disrespect and disrupt the class and made excuses for each instance and blamed the teachers for provoking him. ( this particular student was from the 'rich kid' district, which she says is worse to work at than the other districts)

Another anecdote - I work with teachers from the Czech Republic who come over to teach language classes in the summer. They have a hard time dealing with the parents because it is so much not what they are used to. Mostly it's the over-involved parental type they deal with, but it causes problems. What I got out of our discussions basically boiled down to the fact that they didn't get the respect that they do at home. We've not had major problems, but enough that Lora felt the need to vent at me a little.

[Alarich II]

From what I hear from people who went to the states for a year of university or even a full Bachelors degree right after high-school, the entrance standard is pretty low. But then again, in Germany we select at a much earlier age and only about 40%-50% of the students will reach a general qualification for university entrance. The rest goes on a skilled trade/labour kind of carrer path with apprenticeships and master craftsmans diplomas. But in the US - at least so it seems to me - your educational path is college or bust. So the standards have to be lower by necessity, because there are no or not enough decent alternatives like apprenticeships or vocational training. So when we compare the standards of entry, the whole pre-university school-system will necessarily skew the comparison. At masters degrees level I believe that standards are largely the same.

[Iskaral Pust]

4 hours ago, aceluby said:

AP classes have a standardized test at the end to determine if you learned what you are supposed to.  Most, if not all, colleges will only give you credit for taking the class if you got a 3 (out of 5) or above.  I also wouldn't consider it 'dumbed down' either.  You learn the same thing you would in a first or second semester university class (in my AP classes, we learned more than in my first year courses), it's just that the AP class takes a full year instead of a semester.  There are also IB programs that are even more intense and are harder than most first year schedules, but are much rarer to find in the states.

Ace - first year university material in the US is high school material in the rest of the world, especially in math. That’s what I meant by dumbed down. 

You should read some exam papers for the the English A levels, Irish upper level leaving certificate or Australian equivalent.  Those are standardized state exams to graduate from high school and apply to university.  No subjective GPA is considered alongside.  I think you’ll be horrified by the gap in expectations. 

The US obviously produces a huge number of excellent students despite these low expectations, and has many of the best universities in the world.  But once you drop below the top quartile of students, the low expectations of the system are undermining the students in the middle of the bell curve. 

And the US system of college applications is far less meritocratic: legacy admissions, donor admissions, students/parents pressuring high school teachers to lift grades in the GPA, focus on extra-curriculars, narrow scope of SAT is more prone to paid specialized test prep.  And this gets balanced with informal quotas, primarily by race and gender, which undermine faith in fairness. 

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Iskaral Pust said:

And the US system of college applications is far less meritocratic: legacy admissions, donor admissions, students/parents pressuring high school teachers to lift grades in the GPA, focus on extra-curriculars, narrow scope of SAT is more prone to paid specialized test prep.  And this gets balanced with informal quotas, primarily by race and gender, which undermine faith in fairness. 

Not sure I'm understanding your point here correctly, but wouldn't methods of access like legacy or donor admissions, which allow enrollment for (presumably) less-qualified candidates with well-off parents, undermine a sense of fairness just as much as informal quotas, which also allow enrollment for (presumably) less-qualified minority candidates?

[aceluby]

1 hour ago, Iskaral Pust said:

Ace - first year university material in the US is high school material in the rest of the world, especially in math. That’s what I meant by dumbed down. 

You should read some exam papers for the the English A levels, Irish upper level leaving certificate or Australian equivalent.  Those are standardized state exams to graduate from high school and apply to university.  No subjective GPA is considered alongside.  I think you’ll be horrified by the gap in expectations. 

The US obviously produces a huge number of excellent students despite these low expectations, and has many of the best universities in the world.  But once you drop below the top quartile of students, the low expectations of the system are undermining the students in the middle of the bell curve. 

And the US system of college applications is far less meritocratic: legacy admissions, donor admissions, students/parents pressuring high school teachers to lift grades in the GPA, focus on extra-curriculars, narrow scope of SAT is more prone to paid specialized test prep.  And this gets balanced with informal quotas, primarily by race and gender, which undermine faith in fairness. 

Yeah, my experience was definitely not the average.  I finished calc 2 in HS and went to a top college that had much higher expectations than those you are describing.

[Iskaral Pust]

9 minutes ago, The Great Unwashed said:

Not sure I'm understanding your point here correctly, but wouldn't methods of access like legacy or donor admissions, which allow enrollment for (presumably) less-qualified candidates with well-off parents, undermine a sense of fairness just as much as informal quotas, which also allow enrollment for (presumably) less-qualified minority candidates?

My point was that both do.  Fairness is undermined from both sides: you can have wealthy hyper-engaged parents who can push their kids into college places above the kids’ actual academic performance, while on the other hand you have the perception of race & gender quotas.  A lot of not-wealthy, not-legacy white and especially Asian families feel disadvantaged, and the admissions system wants to preserve their opaque discretion in selecting students. 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

5 hours ago, Gertrude said:

Her feelings are that the major problems are the parents

Ding ding ding! The educational system is a mess, that can’t be denied. But the biggest problem is the parents and their unwillingness to give a better effort in educating their children. I’m not a teacher, but I did a Saturday morning mentoring program for a year in college and I worked with 5^th and 7^th graders on their math and reading skills. The first thing that became apparent is most of the parents expected to drop their kids off and have us do all the work. Rarely did the children tell me their parents helped them with their homework, even after I started sending notes home with the kids asking them to do so. Some were so indigent that I would dare question their parenting skills as they admitted that they’ve never read to their children at night or worked with them in the areas the child was struggling in. It was a joke.

[Altherion]

11 hours ago, Gertrude said:

Her feelings are that the major problems are the parents.

I agree, with one qualifier: this assumes that they even have parents -- many only have one and some live with grandparents and other relatives.

I went to elementary and junior high school in New York City and one of the things that always puzzled me was how a teacher was supposed to get through to the subset of my classmates who appeared to utterly lack both discipline and motivation. At best, they simply didn't care and at worst, they were openly disruptive. The disciplinary tools at the disposal of the teachers were more or less irrelevant to all of them and the best that punishing them accomplished was temporarily send them out of the classroom if they were too disruptive. My schools were fairly average -- neither the best nor the worst -- and while there were people like this, they were relatively few (and even fewer in the better classes). Unfortunately, there exist schools where they are the majority and I don't know what the teachers there are supposed to do.

The problem with the worst students begins long before school and school is merely the first place where it is formally documented. With all of that said, the schools aren't blameless either: it would be far better to honestly fail those who are clearly short of the mark than more or less commit fraud to make the school look better.

8 hours ago, Iskaral Pust said:

Ace - first year university material in the US is high school material in the rest of the world, especially in math. That’s what I meant by dumbed down.

To be fair though, the better universities treat them like high school -- I took around 6 of the AP classes and the one and only "placement" they were used for in college was getting me out of the language requirement (which didn't apply to me anyway because my native language is not English). I went to a pretty good high school and first year college classes were still on a completely different level (though granted, this doesn't happen if you go to a mediocre college).