I normally enjoy Steve Lopez articles in my beloved Times (sorry Tami A. – I’m STILL olde school) – but his attempts to come-to-some-understanding of the dilemma that is the Los Angeles Unified School District – are woefully naïve. I was pleased at a recent Steve L. proffering, however – of how therapeutic surfing is for war vets – this makes perfect sense to me.
But with regards to solving the travails of the LAUSD – Steve is going to have to do some REAL field work: he would literally have to study a high school from the beginning of the school day till the end –for ONE FULL SEMESTER. And from this 4-month observation in a troubled high school – I’m sure that Steve will develop empathy for those-of-us who have made our career in the teaching profession. But that would only provide a partial explanation of what is going on: I mean, why do teachers have to be surrogate parents to most of their students? All this crap about test scores saying anything about anything has got to stop! Good test taking only predicts THAT! (That the test taker is a good test taker.) And please don’t forget that standardized tests are still written from a White Male, middle-class perspective – dooming most students who haven’t grown up in White middle class suburbia from looking intelligent.
And this new focus on bad teachers has to stop as well! Let’s say that 33% of contemporary teachers are terrible. Well alrighty then. But 33% of the lawyers, doctors, police, psychologists, pilots – hell, ANY profession – are for shit as well. Why don’t we have witch hunts for these folks, Stevie? But even more seriously – what percentage of people bringing life into this world are qualified to be good parents? How many of LAUSD’s children receive consistently solid parenting from two, responsible adults, which, any well-read person should know — is the key to any child’s success. Remember Stevie: Behind every fucked up kid is not one, but, two, fucked up parents.
So why ALL-THE-FUSS about “bad” teachers? Probably because they are easy targets. Human beings have always loved the concept of the scapegoat. So the failings of a 600,000 plus student body can be placed on a few terrible teachers and the union that is supposed to protect them. (Trust me – if a bad teacher costs a district or a union too much money – they’ll be jettisoned rather quickly.)
But if we want to talk about where all the money in education goes – we need look no further than the astounding costs of maintaining a useless program like special education. I love sitting in on those IEPs (Individualized Education Programs) where more gobbledygook is spouted than just about anywhere else on the planet. The student doesn’t know what’s going on; the parent(s) definitely don’t know what’s going on; the resource teacher would like to think that s/he knows what’s going on; and, the classroom teacher — trying to teach from 25-to-40 other students – sure won’t be able to implement the gobbledygook, or, follow up on it. And we certainly don’t want to talk about English as a second language, transiency, gangs, poverty and children with ever diminishing attention spans – thanks to our video-centric world.
You wanna fix the problem, Stevie L.? Make sure they can ALL read! That’s it! That’s all we need – well that, and a 9-hour school day that supports 2 shifts of teachers. But you finish your field study and get back to me, Steve – then we’ll compare notes…