The New York Times highlighted a typical problem in the education establishment. Here’s some of the pertinent stuff:

• A student needed a required course to graduate, did not pass the course and, thus, did not graduate.
• She came back for a 5th year took the same course and failed again.
• For the spring semester she enrolled in the course again with the same teacher and she failed a 3rd time.
• The school’s administrators overuled the teacher, gave her a passing grade and she graduated. The teacher had meticulous records of the student’s failing efforts or, rather, non-efforts. The student had shown little interest and had even missed the final exam.
• The teacher has quit and moved.

What can we learn from this? First, an inflexible school system did little to help this young lady master what she needed to learn. From Bror’s Blog:

Surely there’s a better way to diagnose why she was not able to master this subject? Most likely, and unfortunately, her failure was years in the making – she missed understanding some earlier scaffolds to build on, and hence could not reach the next rung. Standing in the same place, without the scaffold, and trying again and again to reach up doesn’t seem the right way forward – but is, unfortunately, what the system often offers. There are ways to go through content at a student’s own pace and schedule, with resources available as needed, to be challenged sufficiently to reach mastery - but not here.

This student had lost the love of learning that all children have. Consistent failure gave her little incentive to put forth effort.

No Child Left Behind requires that schools show Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP). One of the metrics of AYP is graduation rate. It appears that the administrators were motivated by this rather than a student’s actual education. Chalk this young lady up as a graduate regardless of whether she fulfilled the requirements. This is a downside to NCLB, administrators who are improperly motivated and dishonest.

Homeschoolers don’t face this type of situation. It’s part of homeschooling to adjust the learning and teaching to the child. In that way we are only limited by our creativity. How can we be an influence for individualized, flexible learning for kids in traditional brick and mortar schools?

HT: Bror’s Blog

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