Samuel Johnson, Jr., Superintendent;
Robert Griffin, President, Board of Trustees;
and Members of the Board:
We, the
1. We are
concerned about the resources needed to enact a true academic core. Resources do not appear to be part of the
proposal. Real improvement requires real
money and real time. No one tries to
keep students from academic success. If
academic success could simply be mandated, wouldn’t we already have done it?
2. We are
concerned about the speed of the changes.
Many requirements are being changed in a very short time span, without
time to gauge the effects of the changes. The effect of moving
minimally-prepared science students to elective/G -level science is not really
established, and we are already moving them to lab/D-level science. We have not really had enough time to
establish the effect of starting students in Algebra 1-2 with Algebra Support;
even so, they are now, in effect, required to pass Geometry 1-2 without
support. Many of our concerns might be
addressed if we had time to develop and examine programs for needy
students. In our haste to move, are we
creating problems and overlooking solutions?
3. We are
concerned about the loss of electives.
Students who are taking additional coursework in core subjects and
taking additional support classes are not going to have spaces available for
classes like music, drama and home economics.
These classes provide an opportunity for students to discover talents
and pursue interests that core classes do not provide. Typically, a different group of students
excels in these electives, and as a result develop an appreciation for school
and learning. These students will not
develop this appreciation if they continually have to repeat classes or
struggle with subject matter for which they are not adequately prepared. Is sacrificing valuable
electives in favor of the academic core benefiting these students?
4. We are
concerned about overloading the freshman and sophomore years. We question the wisdom of putting a
struggling student in a foreign language class in the sophomore year, and
having them get a D or F. Might it not
be wiser to put the this level of student in as a junior, to get an acceptable
grade, with time still remaining to complete the two years needed for college
admission?
5. We are
concerned about the process used to arrive at this point. In developing the academic core, the advice
of curriculum councils has been overridden frequently enough to render these
bodies irrelevant. How has this shift
affected the long-term viability of these councils? In the short-term, the process has not
produced the cooperative environment necessary for making successful
reforms. The current proposal is viewed
with a skeptical eye by the very people who are expected to implement it. Without doubt teachers will do their jobs,
but how much smoother might implementation be if teacher input had received
more thoughtful consideration
6. We are
concerned about the difficulty of the core curriculum for lower-achieving
students. Many students will have no
problem with it, but for less academic students, the core makes the minimum
curriculum a tremendous challenge.
Expectations for our lower-achieving freshmen and sophomores are
dramatically increased. If we simply put
all students through more difficult course work, without changing the students
or the coursework, it is reasonable to suppose that the percentage of D’s and
F’s will rise (if it didn’t, we would just put all of our freshmen in AP
classes and call our job well done). We
may not care if a student who is failing Applied Biology 1-2 (an
elective/G-level science) instead fails Biology 1-2 (a lab/D-level science). However, it is reasonable to expect that a
student who is getting a C in Applied Biology might only get a D or an F in
Biology; we should care deeply about that.
It is reasonable to suppose that some students who are getting a C or a
D in English might get a D or an F in Foreign Language. These D’s and F’s should worry us. How are these grades affecting the student?
This sixth concern seems particularly pressing if the
academic core is poorly enacted. What is
the likely outcome of putting unprepared students in more challenging courses
without proper planning and resources?
We see two undesirable outcomes:
1. Many more
students failing. Common sense suggests
more students will struggle with and fail the harder courses if we don’t plan a
better solution to the problem. It is
unclear what the result of increased failure would be. It could be repeating the course over and
over. It could be ‘learning the hard
way’ and improving. It could be an
increase in the dropout rate (although we seem to have a hard time evaluating
this). In past years we could send them
through less academic courses and expose them to possible careers including
carpentry and automobile repair, but this avenue has been removed.
We don’t believe anybody favors more failures as an end to
the problem. Students are demoralized
and disenfranchised by D’s and F’s.
Parents are annoyed by D’s and F’s.
Administrators don’t like the looks of D’s and F’s.
2. Lowered
standards.
Something in scenario 1 would have to give. A good guess is that it would be the course
standards. There is no point in teaching
standards that students are not prepared to understand. Teachers teach students as much as they teach
material. Regardless of what the
standards say, if a class isn’t ready for some material, the teacher has to
slow down and prepare them, before teaching it (an example from Biology is
teaching some basic biochemistry before teaching about cells). If more time must be spent on groundwork,
less time can be spent covering standards.
Less time for standards can mean fewer standards being covered, covering
standards with less depth, or lowering the threshold for “passing knowledge” of
the standard.
It is worth pointing out that the caliber of a course can be
lowered significantly while apparently maintaining “standards.” Science classes, for example, consist of more
than the “standards”; there are labs, presentations, research projects, current
events, inquiries and ethical discussions.
These are the sorts of things that are recognized by our district’s own
teaching standards as excellent teaching, and our site’s own Expected Schoolwide Learning Results as excellent learning. Teachers could eliminate this excellence for
lack of time and student preparedness, have students memorize the state’s
written standards without understanding them, and get students through some of
the standardized tests. We would argue
that a student subjected to this regime would not be prepared for college
coursework (and would not be interested in college coursework).
We end up with courses that are sheep in wolves’
clothing. They say “Biology 1-2” but
their content as taught is more reminiscent of “Life Science 1-2.” Perhaps a class of Spanish 1-2 AS will be
started, covering what used to be called Spanish 1-2.
We don’t believe anybody overtly favors this bogus end to
the problem. In 1999,
Mandating harder curricula for students
who are already failing easier curricula, without providing major classroom
support, certainly appears to encourage relaxation of standards. We have been in this district long enough to
know that ‘lowered standards’ runs against our district’s academic traditions.
Proper enactment of an academic core to
increase the achievement of students.
This outcome is the only outcome acceptable to all parties. Our years of classroom experience will tell
you that it takes more than a mandate (“You, student! Be more academic.”) to
make this happen. Rather, there will
have to be some significant changes in the way high school business is done,
and these changes will require creativity, flexibility, and resources. We are concerned that the resources to make
these changes do not appear to be part of the proposal.
More money and more time will be needed for planning and
implementation of programs that could include:
•Increased support classes, similar to Algebra Support and Reading Development, for fast-moving classes like Lab Science and Foreign Languages;
•Increased time in fast moving classes to make them more
approachable. For example a lab science
class might be spread over a two year period;
•Increased flexibility in the school day, with extensions
into zero period in the morning and 7th period in the afternoons;
•Changes in summer school, to make it truly standards based
(rather than the poor substitute it is), and to add core classes;
•Extended timelines for graduation, making five-year
academic plans a possibility;
•Eliminating the four-year model of graduation entirely, and
graduating students when their requirements have been completed;
•Smaller classes in Lab Science and Foreign Language,
similar to the sizes in Algebra 1-2;
•
Establishing these new programs and new paradigms would be a
monumental effort. Teachers would be
asked to plan and enact these changes and that would require time for
curriculum redesign. A number of these
programs would require contractual negotiation. It would go beyond ‘banked
time’ and far beyond more paid time outside the school day (for many of us,
there simply is no more time outside the school
day). It must be actual, real, paid
time, like release periods during the school day, if it is to be effective.
None of these changes would be cheap. Major curriculum shifts and upgrades will require some resources, but actually supporting struggling student is going to require the real money:
•It requires twice as much money to
get a student through Geometry if he or she is concurrently enrolled in
Geometry Support.
•A five-year student is going to cost 20% more than a
four-year student.
•A Biology student who gets a D, then retakes it to become
eligible for college, costs twice as much as a Biology student who passes the
first time.
•A student enrolled in zero period AVID costs 14% more than a student enrolled in a regular six period day.
The list, obviously, could go on. Is the money there? Respectfully, we wonder. Complaints from schools about unfunded
mandates from federal and state governments are not unusual. It is perhaps unusual, and maybe a little
embarrassing, to think of us foisting an unfunded mandate upon ourselves. Trying to make these changes on the cheap is
essentially committing to the universally undesirable outcome #2, lowering the
standards to make them attainable, producing a core that is academic in name
only.
We want our students to succeed, and we want our programs to succeed. We believe that proper enactment is the only outcome of this discussion worth aspiring to, but we wonder, how deep is the district commitment? Are we looking for reform or relabeling? Are real resources available? Will sites be allowed to make the necessary adjustments? Making real changes to make a real academic core that all students can really achieve requires real money, real district flexibility, and real site-level decisions. We hope the district considers this in its deliberations on this important issue.
