New Bedford Guide Your Guide to New Bedford and South Coast, MA
By Catherine McLaughlin
Let me get this straight: New Bedford High School (NBHS) has been assessed as an under-performing school. And the state’s and Superintendent Pia Durkin’s chosen “solution” is to fire 50% of the faculty.
Have I fallen through the rabbit hole? Do I see Cheshire cat-like grins in the shadows? It takes my breath away. I have news for the assessors and Dr. Durkin: they may as well fire 100%, as the best and the brightest of teachers cannot turn NBHS around. Why? Because that is not where the problem lies.
There are complex issues underlying the problems of underperforming schools. One fundamental issue is the deep pocket of poverty in the community. There is a direct correlation between poverty and low test scores. If we continue to ignore the endemic problems caused by poverty, we cannot expect these schools to perform on a par with, say, Newton or Wellesley. This is not a level playing field.
Check out, for example, the enormous rates of absenteeism among poor students, on the order of 50% or greater. You cannot teach students who aren’t there. And while you’re at it, check out the problems many of these children have to deal with, from absent parents to parents who are abusive, drunk, high, or simply do not care. Check out the good parents who care deeply but are so overwhelmed by the struggle to survive that they cannot provide academic support for their children. And check out students with behavioral problems who are completely disruptive in class, who ridicule all authority, who hold their teachers in contempt. For this is where all these problems show their face: in the classroom, where teachers struggle to deal with them. But teachers are limited in what they can do. Still, they do try, against all odds, to make a difference in their students’ lives. Such things are not measured by the assessors.
A second issue is that students from all levels of the economy are being failed by a system set up to cater to an ideal, where teachers are forced to teach to a myth rather than a reality. NBHS’s self-proclaimed mission is “to prepare 100% of students for college.” What is wrong with this? Here is the naked, perhaps uncomfortable, truth: if a student’s skill set does not include academics, he or she is unlikely to go to college. If you are not skilled at basketball and you are 5’4”, you are not going to play in the NBA, no matter how much you practice or how wonderful your coach is. This is the elephant in the room that no one wants to talk about. Students are all across the academic spectrum. There are brilliant students—but there are also students who are average and below average. At NBHS, the“solution” has been to place all of these students into honors or college courses, in the mistaken belief that if they have brilliant teachers and extra help and an extended school day, they willrise to the challenge. This is far from true, and many students are set up for failure at the outset, despite the best efforts of hard-working, dedicated teachers. We need to accept the reality that not all students are capable of high academic achievement, and nor are some even interested in going to college.
College is not for everyone. We need to focus on and develop and promote students’ individual talents, which may lie elsewhere; to teach to their strengths, bolstering their confidence and teaching to their full capacity.
In math, for example, students currently have the “option” of taking Honors Geometry or College Geometry. There should be a third level where they can learn the geometry they will need to survive in the real world, and where textbooks are geared to their abilities and needs. This is not “dumbing down.” This course should be as rigorous as the other two options. But the students will learn differently, and for a different purpose. The real shame is to pretend these students don’t exist, to leave them no option but discouragement and failure.
Until the problems of poverty are addressed in a meaningful way, and until we develop programs aimed more precisely and realistically at the needs of all students, nothing is likely to turn around. Certainly firing the very adults who have dedicated their lives to teaching these children is a specious decision at best. At worst, it will destroy morale and cause chaos. I would suggest instead of firing 50% of teachers, that 50% of the curriculum be re-vamped.
If a dialogue between Dr. Durkin and faculty cannot happen, then the union should take an anonymous survey of the faculty where they can respond without fear of reprisals to such questions as, “What are the most serious problems you face on the job?” We need to hear those answers. Then, and only then, can plans for the future of NBHS be formulated. Faculty and administrators must work against polarization. They must act as reasonable adults with a common cause: to educate our children and mold them into compassionate and productive members of society. The stakes could not be higher.
…and so there are no issues with any of the educators and the union?????? The success rate of implimentation of this strategy across the State counts for nothing????
Any time one looks to advance and improve a society etc, one must first know how to accept responsibility and recognize it within itself! The issues you mention are worth addressing and are certain contributors to the failures…and so to are some of the educators…the good educators will be re-hired.
One of the biggest problems I’ve seen, which the public has no access to, is the strange phenomena of school department administrators on every level hiring each other in a kind of philosophical nepotism, that is, they interview administrative candidates for jobs looking for the same qualities and attitudes they themselves share. These qualities and attitudes may be farmed from the superintendent’s doctorate dissertation or perhaps a consultancy Think Tank. Wherever these lofty, but often not very pragmatic philosophies and attitudes come from, I have assessed them as being primarily anti-teacher and really, at the end of the day, rather destructive to everyone involved in education. What you end up with is a kind of administrative “incest” where there is no diversity of thought and a calcification of philosophy. Many of these philosophically incestuous administrators have an “I have to save the students from the teachers” mentality and, being a Massachusetts educator myself, I find that construct to be absolutely soul-crushing under which to work. Hey! I have an idea…let’s stop trying to save the poor students from the evil teachers and let’s start saving the poor teachers from the delusional administrators…with teachers re-energized and empowered, you’ll find a teaching force ready to roll up their sleeves and go those extra miles, which, by the way, we have all been doing since before Education Reform morphed along its merry way destroying as many of the teachers (and their unions) in its path as it could muster.
Seriously, let’s continue to be honest New Bedford high is a dumping ground for three middle schools in a city. Why is it that there are plenty of elementary schools, three middle schools, and one high school? Yes, New Bedford voc does accept New Bedford students but they also take from fairhaven and Dartmouth so how many New Bedford kids are really taken in? That is part of this school problem! Too many students not enough support in every aspect. Admisteration is to concerned about a number than apply and enforcing discipline. Or even backing teachers up!
The New Bedford school systems needs to see that teaching to the test is useless and teaching to life is more important. After all what is more important? Functioning citizens of society or a test score?
I agree with Catherine whole heartedly!
Teachers have become the whipping boy of our time. I’ve been in the classroom. I know the challenges. People have no idea how hard teaching always was–nor how much harder it has become.
Go ahead: Blame teachers, blame unions, blame government–blame everything that will allow you to live guilt-free in your houses on the hill. If you think your teachers are second-rate, look at what you have been paying them. If you think your schools are second-rate, look at what you have spent on them. If you think your students are second rate, look at the pittance you invest in them.
I saw a bumper sticker some years ago that read; If you think education is expensive, try ignorance. As a nation–and especially as a region–we seem determined to explore the cost of ignorance.
Are there bad teachers? Of course there are. There are substandard workers in every line of work. Are they the reason for poor schools? No. Poor teachers do not, generally, survive for long. The job is too hard for most people like that. They can make more money for less work in several other lines of business.
Are there great teachers? Of course there are. But they are not essential to having great schools. A dedicated cadre of average-to-good teachers properly supported is capable of producing greatness. But they need the tools and the societal support to do so. Teachers do not work in a vacuum. A child who comes to school hungry is in no condition to fully benefit from even great teaching.
Next time you are looking for someone to blame for the failures of public education, start by looking in the mirror. If we judge a society by how well it takes care of its children, we are all to blame.
–Harry Proudfoot