We're Doing It Wrong

25 Ideas in Education That Just Don't Work—And How to Fix Them

David Michael Slater

• Publisher: Skyhorse
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781510725621
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education Teaching Methods

An unapologetic critique of major flaws in the American education system. David Michael Slater's We're Doing It Wrong is a thought-provoking dissection of the issues plaguing American public schools. Each chapter identifies a major problem in the education system, exploring its roots and repercussions. A teacher himself, Slater opens up and gives readers an insider's perspective on topics that have been at the center of ongoing debates as well as recent hot button issues, such as:

• Standardized testing
• Teacher evaluation practices
• Helicopter parents
• Class size
• Poverty's effect on performance
• Anti-bullying programs
• Writing proficiency
• Curriculum goals

Slater explains why our current approaches simply aren't working—for students, for teachers, for the colleges that these students may eventually attend, and for society at-large. Unafraid to ruffle a few feathers, We're Doing It Wrong highlights defects in policy and theory, calls out administration, and questions long-held beliefs. Every chapter concludes with a suggestion for improvement, offering light at the end of the tunnel. Administrators, teachers, and concerned parents will come away with a better understanding of the current state of education and ideas for moving toward progress—for themselves and for the students they support.

Introduction

Idea #1

Perhaps the most obvious and disturbing reason that ideas in education turn out to be duds (or much worse) is that they are so often conceived by people who have no training in education. Is there any other profession so powerfully influenced by people with no background in it? Is there any other field of endeavor that pretty much everyone thinks they are qualified to weigh in on authoritatively? Consult the résumés of your local school board—it’s very likely that not a single member has a degree, let alone any practical experience, in education. It defies reason that actual educators are so seldom represented when education policies are set.

Idea #1: When people with no training in education set education policy, bad ideas will find their way into classrooms.

Idea #2

Politics contribute to bad ideas reaching our classrooms in another way. Because the truth is often politically inexpedient, lawmakers frequently set education policy that flies in the face of reality. And thus educators find themselves forced to pretend things are true that simply aren’t. (And there we may already have the explanation for why teachers are so rarely involved in education policymaking.)

For example, teachers these days must affirm that all students in their classrooms can be educated to the highest standards (say to college readiness) no matter what challenges their students face.

Which is just not true.

Admitting this does not equal giving up on anyone. No one requires doctors to declare themselves capable of bringing everyone in their care up to a minimum (high) standard of health—that they will “leave no patient behind.” Rather, medical professionals take an oath to try their best and to do no harm. And no one accuses them of not caring about the sickest people they treat, even if they literally die. Acknowledging the limitations of public schools would change nothing but our orientation to reality.

Similarly, educators must pretend they are capable of providing equally effective service to sometimes forty or more students in a single class—forget who’s hungry, abused, homeless, or taking drugs—with skill levels ranging from nearly illiterate to several years beyond grade level.

Which just can’t be done.

But guess what—politicians know all of this perfectly well.

So why do they regularly set standards they know cannot and will not be met? Because they may not be reelected if they appear not to believe everyone can reach the top. Because in America we believe everyone can reach the top, no matter what. In fact, it’s un-American to suggest otherwise. We need only to hold the right people accountable to make it happen.

The inevitable result? Failure. And more blame for teachers. After which the standards are changed (or more likely renamed), and we do the dance all over again.

The only constant is blaming teachers.

Idea #1 + #2: When people with no training in education set education policy and politics force teachers to ignore reality, bad ideas will find their way into classrooms.

Idea #3

Teaching is a science. In fact, all good teachers are scientists. They assess educational needs, experiment with pedagogy, test the results, and then adjust accordingly. But far more than it is a science, teaching is an art. Our blindness to this truth is the third reason so many bad ideas trickle down into our classrooms.

The ramifications of viewing teaching strictly as a science cannot be overstated. First, it’s partly responsible for our general cultural disrespect of teachers, who are essentially viewed as replaceable factory workers who need only to follow precise instructions to produce the desired results. Second, because we think teaching is primarily a science, we foolishly imagine that when an idea is proven effective in one circumstance, it must therefore work . . . everywhere. Third, this notion is the reason we are standardized testing our students to death. And finally, because we have no regard for the art of teaching, brilliant, creative, artistic teachers are leaving the profession in droves.

Idea #1 + #2 + #3: When people with no training in education set education policy, when politics force teachers to ignore reality, and when teaching is viewed as more of a science than an art, bad ideas will find their way into classrooms.

Idea #4

One more thought before we dive in: sometimes perfectly good ideas make their way toward classrooms—only to go bad when they get there. This happens for a couple of reasons. Most great education ideas are complex, despite the catchy, oversimplified packaging they usually get (recently: growth mindset). Teachers often don’t have enough time to learn more than a superficial version of these ideas, and so they implement them poorly. Or, just as likely, they are instructed by their administration to add this new and actually great idea to their already overfilled plates, and the best they can do is a cursory version that does little justice to or, worse, defeats its very purpose.

Idea #1 + #2 + #3 + #4: When people with no training in education set education policy, when politics force teachers to ignore reality, and when teaching is viewed as more of a science than an art, bad ideas will find their way into classrooms. Good ideas that reach classrooms will go bad if teachers aren’t given time to implement them properly.

1

Old School

Age-Based Education

Problem

There’s a flaw so fundamentally embedded in the system that it virtually is the system: age-grouping. And it cannot be defended on pedagogical grounds. We do it simply because it’s far easier to organize and budget a factory-model operation than one in constant flux. Be that as it may, the age-based model is the source of many of our most persistent problems when it comes to delivering quality instruction.

First, there is the issue of social promotion, which is the practice of promoting students to the next grade regardless of whether they pass their classes—or, more to the point, learn anything. This presents a catch-22 because, perhaps unsurprisingly, students held back with younger peers often feel shamed and thus tend to fail again (also because they often receive no other interventions). But passing a pupil who failed up the ladder seems almost criminal. In fact, according to researchers, “Neither grade retention nor social promotion is an effective remedy for addressing the needs of students who are experiencing academic, behavioral, or social and emotional difficulties.”¹

It’s a time-honored but lamentable tradition for teachers to blame colleagues in the lower grades for sending them students without the prerequisite skills for learning in their class. Then, after failing to fix the problem, they send the same students on to the teachers in the next grade up, who will then, in turn, blame them. I did this just about every year I taught regular ed 7th grade because I had neither the training nor the time, for example, to teach a middle schooler how to read beyond 3rd-grade level—or the power to make a student who refused to work in the face of all interventions . . . work.

If students were never grouped by age to begin with, there would be far less of a stigma were it decided that retention is needed. And if they could take whatever class they were ready for, it wouldn’t be grade retention at all. It would be course retention, which wouldn’t be remotely as damaging to a student’s social standing.

How about the absurd range of skills teachers are forced to pretend they can address through “Differentiation”?² I often had classes of thirty-five students: five or six identified as SPED (special education) for entirely different reasons; another five or six not in SPED, but who were nonetheless years behind in their skills; three or four gifted learners; four ELLs (English-language learners); two or three with severe behavior issues; and so on. If you think that sounds like an exaggeration, please visit any random public middle school classroom. Courses not grouped by age would still have some spread of skill levels, but you’d never see students who can barely read sitting in the same room with peers who can understand college-level material.

How about the very valid complaint that teachers essentially teach to the “average” student (or neglect the highfliers because “accountability” measures force them to focus almost exclusively on low achievers)? It’s extremely common, and my experience bears this out, that when schools set improvement goals for a given year, they tend to focus on moving students whose scores fall just below whatever cutoff the state punishes them for failing to reach to just above that score. This is logical behavior, of course, because moving those “bubble” students over the line (which often doesn’t require dramatic improvement) has, by far, the most impact on a school’s rating.

If students were grouped by readiness rather than age, “bubble” students would be with other bubble students and their teachers could focus on exactly what they need. And the same could be said about all the other students at whatever levels they operate.

And imagine the radically different social atmosphere in schools where it’s entirely normal to know and spend time with people outside of one’s age-group.

Solution

As recently reported in Duke Today, researchers at the Duke University Talent Identification Program and Northwestern University conducted an exhaustive review of educational research. They found that “after looking carefully at 100 years of research, it became clear that acceleration and most forms of ability grouping can be powerfully effective interventions . . . They help increase academic achievement for both lower- and higher-achieving students.”³

Critics claim that ability or readiness grouping is “tracking,” and evidence from the past shows, indeed, an untenable number of students, once placed on their “track,” never left it. And because many of those on lower tracks were poor and/or minorities, tracking was deemed a tool of oppression and/or structural racism. (In 2014, the Department of Education found, for example, that a New Jersey school district’s tracking policies were denying black students equal access to advanced- and higher-learning opportunities.)⁴ But tools can be used for good or ill. Readiness groups must be fluid and flexible, and students should move up to more challenging levels when they demonstrate . . . readiness. If that is not happening, we’re doing it wrong.

Critics also claim that students placed in lower-level classes have their self-esteem irreparably damaged. Though, I’ve never understood how putting students into classes for which they are not prepared—or worse, misleading them about what skills they do or do not have—could promote self-esteem (at least the healthy kind that benefits one in life).

My dream system works something like old-school swim lessons. Back in the day, when I was forced to take them, my instructor stood by with a list of strokes and checked off each one when I mastered it. When...