One Epic Rant About Public School

This week is Spring Break for my kids.

Are we in Florida basking in the sun? Are we soaking up history in Pennsylvania or D.C.? Are we taking a family road trip and marvelling at things like the biggest ball of yarn or silos painted like ears of corn?

No. What we are doing is preparing for the CRCT.

Why? Well, because apparently, his teacher can't be bothered to actually, you know...teach.

Well, no, that's not a fair statement. Anybody child who grasps concepts the very first time they are taught and who loves worksheets with a white hot passion is sure to thrive in her classroom.

Diminutive One's struggle has been going on all year. Really, it has been going on since he entered school, but I blamed it on bad teachers and a stubborn streak a mile wide. In first grade, he had a TERRIBLE teacher. She was old and grouchy and impatient. She didn't like him and he didn't like her. She did ridiculous things like refuse to let him go to the bathroom and punish him for not completing his work by taking away his recess time.

She set him back an entire year. He shut down and just refused to put forth any effort. He wouldn't do class work, he wouldn't do homework, and when taking tests, he would fill in random answers. Despite all that, he passed the CRCT with flying colors and moved on to 2nd grade.

His 2nd grade teacher was an absolute Godsend. She challenged him, she engaged him, and she made learning fun and creative. Most importantly, she saw beneath his stubborn and single minded exterior to the bright, funny, interesting kid he really is.

Diminutive One not only recovered the ground he had lost, he made tons of progress. By the time the year was over, he was reading at a 4.9 level (fourth grade, ninth month) he had learned all of his basic math facts and had grasped carrying and borrowing with no problems whatsoever. He was excited about moving onto multiplication in third grade.

Unfortunately, third grade has been a complete disaster.

In November, Diminutive One began seeing a psychologist in an effort to understand why a super bright kid is doing so poorly in school, as well as to get to the bottom of his behavioral issues.

In the interim, I have been trying to work with his teacher to help Diminutive One. She has been completely uncooperative, or rather...just monumentally uninterested. She isn't a mean person. I can't say that she has been unkind to him. But she is not at all concerned with helping him realize his potential. It's simply not her problem. And I don't think she has any concept of what is realistic in terms of expectations from 8 year olds.

Here is an example:

Each child must fill out their agenda every day with homework in it. It is to be signed by the parent each night. Forget my own issues with this, (one of those unrealistic expectations I was talking about) it just wasn't working for Diminutive One. He would forget to write it down, or only write it down partially. On the rare occasions that he did remember to write it down, he would neglect to bring home the materials he needed.

The end of the day in a third grade classroom is a study in chaos. The kids have to remember jackets, backpacks, lunchboxes, homework folders and textbooks. Some of these kids have a forty mintue bus ride, so they must plan a pit stop or risk an accident on the bus, which, they must take care not to delay. It's a lot for any third grader but for Diminutive One, it was just too much.

I contacted the teacher to discuss this, and request that she just glance at his agenda each day to make sure his homework is written down. She replied that she didn't have time to check everybody's agenda. I then asked if she could perhaps send home a sheet with the week's homework on it. Diminutive One's second grade teacher did this and it was enormously helpful. I always knew what he was supposed to be doing. Again, this was apparently more time and effort than she could or would expend. I suggested a blog. Like the weekly sheet, other teachers do this with great results. I even offered to do the blog for her. She flatly refused.

And so, more days than not, Diminutive One comes home with his agenda blank, or no book. He can't do his homework at all, or can only do a portion of it. As a result, of course, he is unprepared for classwork. When he asks for help, she tells him he should have done his homework. Then she sends me a tersely worded note informing me that *I* need to teach him X concept by such and such date or he will fail the weekly test.

You know what? I *know* that teachers are dealing with a really shitty set of circumstances right now, due to specifications set forth by the No Child Left Behind Act. I know they are trying to cram too much learning into too little school day. I know they have too many kids, they have too little resources. I know they have to meet certain requirements to keep their job, their bonuses, their tenure. I know they are slaves to test results.

And that really fucking sucks.

Because there are some really excellent teachers out there who can't teach the way they want to. They are not free to teach the way they know will get results.

But does that mean a teacher can't take three minutes, less maybe, to do a very, very simple thing for a pupil who needs it? Three minutes to help my child. Three minutes that would have made a huge difference to a smart but struggling kid?

This is one big, fat, consequence of all this bureacratic micro-managing. Kids ARE being left behind.

Now we come the issue of high stakes testing.

I have received a letter from the school stating that Diminutive One will not pass the CRCT. If he does not pass, he will not go on to 4th grade. Accompanying this letter was an enrollment form for summer school.

To say that I saw red would be a monumental understatement.

The teachers are all making a point to let the kids know that this test is a very big deal. The kids are painfully aware that if they don't pass, they could get held back. This, of course, is a kid's worst nightmare and you cannot imagine the anxiety this is causing my child.

I consider it wholly and completely the fault of the school system if my child is in fact, ill-prepared for this test. But who will face the consequences in the form of summer school? He will. And how DARE they tell me he will fail before he's even been given a chance to succeed? How DARE they tell me he will fail when every year he has passed with scores in the 90th percentile?

Well you see, he only has to pass the reading portion of the test (which sort of the begs the question WHY they have to spend a week testing every other skillset). and he has consistently failed to meet his AR goals.

This is not because he doesn't read well.

It's because I am no fan of the Accelerated Reader program, and I have not encouraged his participation at all. Why? Because I don't think it encourages a love of reading, or motivates a child to challenge themselves. Diminutive One can read War and fucking Peace as far as I'm concerned, if that's what he wants to read. But he is continually discouraged from reading material that is not at his level.

I read Ivanhoe when I was 11. I probably didn't understand half of what I read. But you know what? I looked up words I didn't know. I asked my parents about passages I didn't understand and grammar that was foreign to me. I learned how to extrapolate meaning from context and content. The point is, it certainly didn't HARM me to read it, and I probably learned a great deal more than I could have from Judy Blume, whom I also read a great deal of when I was 11 and who was almost certainly a more appropriate "level" for an 11 year old.

So he reads what he wants. And he doesn't make his AR goals and for this reason they feel he in danger of not passing the reading portion of the test.

He will not be going to summer school. If he doesn't pass the test, I will homeschool him. This year has been pure torture for the kid and I'm not putting him through another two months of that. Period.

But he can pass. Both his doctor and I agree on that point. However, he was recently diagnosed with ADHD and an anxiety disorder and she thinks that it would be in his best interest to take the test in a quiet room by himself.

I contacted the school to make the arrangements only to be informed that they would not accomodate that need because "We have to adhere to state mandated testing protocol." Now, I've done my research, and nowhere does it stipulate that the test must be administered in a group or classroom setting.

I went higher.

I was told again, that they could not accomodate my request, because "You don't have a 504 in place." A 504 is a document that stipulates children with special needs and/or learning disabilities will have a mutually agreed upon set of criteria met, without fail. I don't have a 504 in place because WE JUST GOT THE DIAGNOSIS, which I reiterated to no avail.

So what do I do now? Well. I think he will be sick next week. Terribly, terribly ill. In fact, it might take him an entire week to recover.

Parents...we have to do better for our kids. We have to make learning an odyssey of adventure and creativity. We have to stop cutting enrichment programs. We have to stop drilling facts into their heads and let them be discovered. We have to make our kids a participant in their own learning, instead of the spectators they have come to be. Children don't learn by watching, they learn by doing. They need to get in there and get their minds dirty.

It's not working, and the consequences are going to come to bear when we have to hand over the reins to the next generation.

I don't know how to make it better for everybody. I wish I did. For my part, I am thinking, once again about homeschooling my son. I'm not entirely sure that I have the discipline or the patience. I think, we might just kill each other if left alone together six hours of every day. Which is why I haven't done so before now. I'm nothing if not realistic about my ability to deal with my Spirited Child, and my need for some time away from him.

But I can't not try. I can't let my beautiful, creative and intelligent child flounder until his self-esteem is gone and his hope for the future all but destroyed. I know I can challenge him. I know I can make him love learning again. I know I can satisfy his insatiable curiosity about everything in the universe and beyond. There is no end to what he can achieve if he's just given the opportunity.

Perhaps we will both end up dead or seriously maimed. But maybe....he will go on to be a happy, confident, successful adult. Maybe a great thinker, philosopher, writer or artist.

It's worth the gamble. I didn't need my sanity anway.