Education Malpractice: A Year in a Dropout Factory

By Nelson Reidar

The book describes the author's experiences as an instructional coach at an underperforming high school, with a graduation rate of 30 %. The book discusses the reasons why students are failing at this high school, and offers suggestions for improving the school. It includes "hard to believe but true" anecdotes of events he witnessed during his year at the school. This book challenges the status quo of US education systems, and calls for a re-tooling of curriculum and instructional practices.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Aug 22, 2011
• ISBN: 9781463436032

Nelson Reidar

Nelson R. Reidar’s career in education has spanned 41 years, from teaching at the elementary and high school levels, serving as a middle school assistant principal, an elementary principal, a director of curriculum and instruction, and an assistant superintendent. He has taught classes at the university level in supervision / evaluation of instruction and effective teaching methodologies. He has taught principles of United States education to groups of educators from China, South Korea, and Brazil. He has conducted numerous Program Quality Reviews and Distinguished School Reviews. He is certified as a School Assistance Intervention Team (SAIT) provider by the California Department of Education. He has two great sons and three grandchildren. He has a passion for education that will continue in his new role as an education consultant.

Book preview

AuthorHouse™

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.authorhouse.com

Phone: [phone]

© 2011 by Nelson Reidar. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

First published by AuthorHouse 08/16/2011

ISBN: 978-1-4634-3607-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4634-3604-9 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4634-3603-2 (ebk)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2011914577

Printed in the United States of America

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Table of Contents

• Introduction—Dropout Factory

30103.jpg     It is not acceptable in the United States of America that a high school is failing almost two thirds of its students.

• Reasons for the Book

30105.jpg     "Without serious, substantial change; . . . without a willingness to set standards for teachers and administrators; . . . without a willingness to reform the way our schools are governed, . . . our slide toward educational mediocrity will continue. We must be able to talk about the problems in order to fix them."

• The High School—Red Bird City

30107.jpg     90 % of the students are socio-economically disadvantaged. 60 % of our parents did not graduate from high school.

• My Role at Red Bird City

30109.jpg     . . . to teach effective instructional strategies, . . . to some who don’t want to learn them.

• The Students at Red Bird City

30111.jpg     Poverty stifles hope for many of the students at this high school.

• The Programs and Tiered Interventions

30114.jpg     The school motto is The Very Best. Time after time I kept seeing examples of the importance of looking the best, but I saw few examples of actually being the best. Students were placed in programs just to get them out of the general education classrooms.

• Leadership

30117.jpg     Systemic change requires leadership vision. Leadership vision is lacking at this high school.

• Why Students are Failing

30119.jpg     Students have very low reading and math skills. Many teachers do not have the ability or willingness to differentiate the instruction. Systems are archaic.

• Why It Is So Hard to Reform a Bad School

30121.jpg     The status quo is far stronger than is the will to make substantial changes.

• Suggestions

30123.jpg     Systems, structures, and beliefs must be revised through honest analysis of data, and must involve all key constituents.

Dedication

This book is dedicated to the excellent teachers and administrators everywhere who show respect and love for students every day. These educators are worth far more to our society than we can pay them. They are the salvation for many of the students who will not be successful without their support and inspiration.

Dropout Factory

image002.jpg

Illustrated by Adriana Ortega

Throughout my 41 years as an educator, I had heard about so called dropout factories, but I had never actually worked in one until the 2010-2011 school year. I had seen movies like Dangerous Minds, Stand and Deliver, and The Principal that portrayed failing urban high schools, but I always thought—that’s just Hollywood. Schools couldn’t be that bad. Students couldn’t really be as disruptive, unmotivated, and insolent as they are shown in those movies. I was wrong. My 41st year in education was spent in a school far worse than I could have imagined. It is a dropout factory because it is failing to meet the educational and emotional needs of a huge percentage of its students. It is not acceptable in the United States of America that a high school is failing almost two thirds of its students.

On the advice of the publisher of this book, I have chosen to use pseudonyms for the name of the school and for the names of the staff members. Nevertheless, all of the information is in this book is factual and all of the accounts are true. This book is about one school, but regretfully, it is a story could be told about many schools.

My school is located in a mid-sized city in Southern California. According to the California Department of Education Educational Demographics Unit, the class of 2011 had an enrollment of 1,280 9th grade students in 2007-08. There were 666 10th grade students in 2008-09 and 620 11th grade students in 2009-10. The class of 2011enrollment dwindled to 495 students at the beginning of the 2010-11 school year, and 378 students graduated in June 2011. Only 30 % of the original class of 2011 graduated.

The Class of 2011

image003.jpg

Reported graduation rates are calculated by comparing the number of enrolled seniors with the number of graduates. The reported graduation rate for 2009 was 67 %. The reported rate for the 2011 data would show a graduation rate of 76 %. The real graduation rate is closer to 33 %.

These numbers are not even the whole story. The enrollments for 8th grade and 9th grade students in this high school’s attendance area indicate that large numbers of students don’t even start high school. They leave after 8th grade. It is difficult to track this data because there is no uniform nation-wide student information system that tracks a student from district to district or across state lines or national boundaries. Also, we don’t know how many students return to Mexico or to other countries.

The High School has incredible societal disadvantages: high poverty, crime, gangs, low parental education levels, high numbers of limited English learners, dilapidated buildings, etc. But there are schools like mine that overcome these challenges to provide a place where students are connected and have a willingness to learn. These other schools have leadership vision, high expectations for students and staff, professional collaboration, and commitment that is lacking at my school.

I do want to acknowledge that there also are some dedicated, highly competent people at this school, who probably would not want to work anywhere else. There are people who are fulfilling a higher calling to work with the students at this school. These staff members show genuine love and caring for the students.

Sadly, the voices of these people often are stifled by the negativity of the majority, . . . who blame the students, the community, the administration, the district, the Board of Education, the Governor, the President, MTV, rap music, and especially the parents, . . . but accept no