There is again political outcry to make teachers responsible. But how can teachers be held accountable when parents, taxpayers, and administrators aren’t?
We lived in a middle class white neighborhood in Sacramento County when I volunteered to help in a third grade classroom. There were 32 children in the class, a third of which were hyperactive. The first day, I watched as the teacher tried to get the kids to work in small groups. Several boys, including one that lived across from us, were constantly up, moving around, and talking to others. It was an impossible situation. (The boy’s mother told me her son said the teacher was mean.)
The teacher had me take five of the better-behaved kids outside to work at a picnic table, but we could hear the mayhem going on inside. The principal told me at least a third of the kids were from dysfunctional families. Many kids had to fix meals and do housework besides going to school, while their divorced mothers were drunk, on dope, or clinically depressed.
Not until taxpayers are willing to support small-size classes, parents are involved in their children’s education, and administrators support teachers instead of coming up with more inane reports can we begin to expect teachers to be responsible for how kids do in their class.
This article appears in Jan 14-21, 2010.