Back in Black

It has been a while, in fact an entire semester of school has gone by, but I return to you ready to spin a few more stories about education. My absence has been a mix of being busy and probably some frustrations with the education system. See where I work the morale has gone right out of the window. A place which two years ago was a beacon of positivity has now become a place that is a shadow of its former self. Each day it seems there is another problem that is forcing us to reevaluate the way that we do things. Friends are contemplating leaving education. People at school that I talk with are thinking about leaving. The entire school seems to be angry. This dark shadow is not unique to my school. In fact it is happening all over. I spoke with several people that have talked about how hard this last semester was, how tired they are, and how they are having trouble getting up each morning. This comes on the heels of the massive layoffs in the state, and larger class sizes for everyone.

    Apathy of the kids and lessening parent involvement are just a few of the problems that have created a negative outlook by teachers today. The last part has to do with the people in charge of the system. This is where we make decisions to try and better our numbers that actually create more problems than they solve. In the corporate world management often makes problematic decisions. Often this results in dissension among the lower ranks, but if the policy does not increase revenue then the change is out. In education there is no real way to measure how the product is affected. The decisions that are made are often not evaluated months down the line to determine their effectiveness, and the decisions that are thrown out often show the easiest decision that impacts only staff and does not cause any waves in the community. Ask a teacher, any teacher, about how he or she feels about administration and decisions they have made recently, and I can bet you that they can give you a list of problems. Now I realize that not everyone is a teacher, so I will give you an example. The best example is to take our make-up test requirement. In theory this sounds like a great idea. You take a kid that failed a test and give him the option of making up a test to get a 70. It is hard to argue with that. Then you make it mandatory for all teachers because the grades and the retention rates in schools are getting higher than you would like to see. The result is lower retention rates, but the collateral damage is that a lot of these kids now rely on that safety net all the way through the year. They come to you with the knowledge that failure is not an option for you, not for them. It is this attitude that reminds me of the A and E show Hoarders. There are a lot of shows like it, but these people live in houses that are so piled with clutter that they are unable to get themselves out of it. The attitude that these administrators have is very similar to the Hoarders themselves. They know there is a problem, but ignore the larger issue. They keep on going until the entire house is rotting, and the city is condemning where they live and threatening to kick them out. We are in a similar situation. There is a problem, but the powers at be are ignoring it. They think that more stuff with solve the issue. Another policy will fix it. It does not. In fact it just keeps getting worse. The entire thing keeps getting worse. This creates a problem with the people in the system because they know that it is not fixing the issue. Inevitably, at some point the system starts to falter and another band-aid is needed. When will the cycle stop? If you want to fix the morale problem in education you start at the source. Stop making bad decisions.

In the first place, God made idiots. That was for practice. Then he made school boards.
Mark Twain


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