>This is not necessarily a response to anything here, but I just had to get myself heard.
I teach in a public school, in a Bergen County district not to be named. I consider myself extremely fair, and a particularly good blend of engaging and approachable/likeable and traditional with high expectations of the kids with respect to both academics and behavior.
Here’s what’s wrong with public education and it’s NOT teachers. In my opinion, it’s the administrators. Each one that comes down the pike has his/her own idea of what is right. They want to put “their mark” on the district and do things their own way. This means that as the administrators get younger and younger, they come to the schools with ideas that they think are new and progressive and they are just not well-founded at all.
Have you ever heard of a bell curve? Having a background in science, it’s the way that I expect to see my class grades play out. The majority of the grades being in the B/C range, with out-lyers in A+ and D (with the very rare F at times). Statistically, this is how it’s been forever. C means average, right? Not anymore. Now, the powers that be tell me that I have too many students in the C range. I know need to make home contact, despite the fact that I have been in frequent contact with many of these parents in the way of progress reports, emails and the like. And you know what? Most (not all) of these students have C’s because of homework, which they choose not to do or to do when they feel like it. Very few of them have a C due to both test/quiz grades AND homework average, although some do. The vast majority has a great deal of power over their achievement by choosing to do or not to do homework, which in my subject, provides a much needed extension of what is taught and practiced in class. They don’t do the homework, they don’t get the reinforcement, they don’t have strong performances on quizzes and tests. It’s a relationship that I try to stress from Back To School Night until the last week in June.
So now, somehow, I have done something wrong? That’s how I feel. Now, instead of planning great lessons, grading papers, providing feedback on assignments, I have to contact parents whose children don’t seem to care as much as I do about how well they do and how much they learn.
What do some teachers end up doing? Do you think some inflate grades? You bet. This certainly could get administration off their backs and make parents happy. I can’t do this. It goes against everything I believe.
Someone on this blog told me this summer to hold onto my high expectations, and that parents would be “knocking down my door” to get their kids into my class. Maybe so. But that’s if I don’t get fired first for grading kids according to what they’ve achieved and what they’ve earned.
Thanks for listening to a frustrated teacher.
