As I get ready to return to school this week and welcome about 600 wide eyed smiling children next week, I am reminded of the daily successes and struggles our school faces.
I've been spending a lot of time with a particular 6-year-old, who constantly amazes me by her academic skills. Her number sense is unheard of. Her higher level thinking skills are off the charts. She can inference and draw conclusions better than most 6-year-olds I know.
What makes me sad is that her number sense and critical thinking skills are better than the seven 5th graders I taught in summer school. She reads with expression and her ability to pull information from text is better than some 5th graders in my school.
Her background*: Her mother and father are both educated, highly intelligent and musically creative people. She has learned to love learning from them. They open her up to several different experiences giving her vast background knowledge that helps with her logical and higher level thinking skills. They are involved in her school and support her studies at home in any way they can.
*Please note, nothing in her background says anything about having "highly qualified" teachers or high test scores on a DIBELS test because... IT ALL STARTS AT HOME!
Nothing frustrates me more than having some of the best teachers I've ever worked with feel like they aren't doing their jobs well enough because of the latest test scores. There is only so much a school can do and believe me, the teachers at my school go WELL beyond the call of duty! We don't have control over what happens at home. We have the kids for 7 hrs a day and do the best we can.
Yet...
Teachers and administrators in low performing school districts get negative media coverage and are accused of not doing their jobs... what about the parents?
IT ALL STARTS AT HOME!
Schools lose funding over poor test scores... what do the parents lose if their child scores poorly?
IT ALL STARTS AT HOME!
Schools lose funding over attendance rates... whose responsibility is it to get a 6-year-old to school?
IT ALL STARTS AT HOME!
How is it that ALL children are expected to learn at the same rate and become proficient when your dealing with extremely different backgrounds?
Student A: my 6-year-old buddy has had every opportunity available to her from birth, surrounded by books and learning and positive role models.
Student B: a 6-year-old that has never had a story read to them and is learning the alphabet and what numbers are for the first time in kindergarten.
I don't claim to have the knowledge that will someday ultimately fix this situation but what I do know is that the government's idea of No Child Left Behind in theory is commendable but in reality unfairly punishes teachers and students in Student B's world.
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I didn't really know much about the disparities in education until I read some Jonathon Kozol in my grad class...it was such an eye opener.
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