A potential dropout? This student has a B-plus GPA, and a 1250 SAT score. She’s headed for college.
She is not alone. Tieasha attends one of the Pentagon’s 154 schools overseas. One-third of their 115,000 students moves each year. Mobility reduces academic achievement? These schools’ low-income minority students rank at the top of their counterparts nationally on the fourth- and eighth-grade reading, writing, math and science NAEP test scores.
Some educators think wealth determines learning ability. Low-income kids just don’t do as well. Some even believe race determines achievement.
Texas Governor Bush is having none of it. As he says, “Pigment and poverty need not determine performance. That myth is disproved by good schools every day. Excuse making must end before learning can begin.” The military schools’ results seem to support his opinion.
How do they do it? They have some advantages. It’s a little easier for a base commander than for Superintendent Plugge to insist parents attend teacher conferences. Need mentors or other community support? “Volunteers” are always available.
And the Pentagon’s had time to work out the details. But it’s also bringing to bear a rational focus with lessons for all.
The number who do is well above average. After all, every student takes algebra and geometry, two years of foreign language, and three years of science.
We neither can, nor want to, duplicate military conditions. But most of these benefits don’t require it.
A recent four-part series by Robert C. Johnston and Debra Viadero in Education Week addresses the so-called achievement gap. What causes it? “The bottom line,” they say, “is that no one knows for sure.”
Poverty doesn’t explain it all. Nor peer pressure. (The disparities exist in kindergarten when kids want to please their teacher.) Preschoolers from single-parent families can do as well as others.
Parenting plays a big role. (Some schools pay parents to attend Reading Recovery training.) Teacher quality is number one. (Half of New York City’s teachers fail their certification tests in math.) Even the American Federation of Teachers advocates tougher professional standards.
What works? “Long-term leadership with high expectations” and “solid, consistent implementation of curricular programs” is more important than the programs themselves. For example, some successful schools use phonics, others don’t.
Montgomery County, Maryland focuses on reading skills. Principals and teachers are retrained. There’s a 90-minute daily reading block. Reading classes are about 11 students each. The result? Nearly 70 percent of the formerly under-achieving second-graders now read at grade level.
Our district also needs to identify the under-achievers and stimulate the improvement that will enhance their lives – and our community. But not at the cost of losing either the enthusiasm of the third-grade girl at the 99th percentile in math nor the vast number of students in between.
And there’s more to education than school. Of the 8760 hours each year, kids are spending roughly 14 percent (1260 hours) in school. What’s happening the other 86 percent of their lives? Even if TV watching and video games are limited to four hours a day that’s 1460 hours a year – 200 more than school. (Some kids spend more.) And all TV is educational TV. The only question is, “What is it teaching?”
Parental interest, encouragement and support – rather than neglect, ridicule and abuse – make an enormous difference. Reading to children pays big dividends.
One of the authors’ most crucial findings echoes George W. Bush’s admonition. As they put it, districts that “give up and blame the environment” don’t do as well as those with the attitude, “We can teach anybody to learn.”
If any district “can teach anybody to learn” it ought to be ours. If we believe we can. If we can enlist parental support. And if we will provide our teachers the professional respect and resources they need.
Nicholas Johnson is an Iowa City School Board member.
More information is available on his Web site, http://www.nicholasjohnson.org.