The Other Side of Teaching

By Evelyn Uddin-Khan

The substandard education most American students receive isnt the fault of teachers. As longtime educator Evelyn A. Uddin-Khan points out, few parents and politicians know what actually goes on behind the closed doors of public schools. Most teachers operate under exploitative conditions, overseen by school administrators corrupt with power. Unlike past eras where students once brought apples to their teachers, most teachers can count on students to be bored and irresponsible and to make spurious claims to their rights when their asocial behavior is challenged in a classroom setting. She shows how education standards have eroded amidst an atmosphere where grades are inflated, curricula are diluted, and ignorance is mass produced. She shows how the once-powerful teachers unions have become little more than voting machines, how segregation is alive in NYC, and how a death threat is taken in stride. Many of the incidents and anecdotes are real-life stories where the names of the participants have been changed in order to protect their identities. Her informative, challenging book is an attempt to set the record straight on the reputation of public school teachers who she feels have been unfairly maligned in the press and in current political debates.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Mar 13, 2015
• ISBN: 9781499077933

Evelyn Uddin-Khan

Evelyn A. Uddin-Khan has nearly a quarter-century of experience as an educator at all levels and in several different countries. She earned a doctorate in comparative and international education from Columbia University. She has conducted teacher training in China, worked in Egypt, researched gender issues in public schools, and taught English as Second Language and English in NYC and at college. She has volunteered with Literacy Volunteers of America and delivered lectures on religion and gender issues. She has published poems and essays, but The Other Side of Teaching is her first book. She currently teaches at Suffolk College and lives in Long Island, New York.

Book preview

THE OTHER

SIDE OF

TEACHING

EVELYN UDDIN-KHAN

Copyright © 2015 by Evelyn Uddin-Khan.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2014919390

   ISBN:   Hardcover     978-1-4990-7792-6

                Softcover      978-1-4990-7794-0

                eBook           978-1-4990-7793-3

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This book is part memoir, and part fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, events, locations or institutions is entirely coincidental.

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.

Rev. date: 03/11/2015

Xlibris

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgement

List Of Abbreviations

Introduction: The Demise Of A Teacher

Part One:my School

The Newest Member Of The Atr Pool

Life On The Periphery

Teachers And Grades

Grade Inflation

The Grade Fixers

Rush

An Easy Sixty-Five

Teaching And Testing

My Ap Called Me A Liar

Letter Of Inquiry: Ap Macaroni

Teacher Evaluation: Ask The Kids

The Best Teacher

Cheating

Electronics In The Classroom

Raging Hormones And Sex In The Classroom

Gangs

Senior Year

Super Seniors

The Cost Of Graduation

Children’s Thoughts And Words

Teacher Abuse

The Faces Of Abuse

The Student With A Terrible Temper

The Student Who Did Not Like My Face

The Student Is A Well Brought Up Daughter

The Well Brought Up Piglet

Before The Trial: Brave Words

At The Trial: Few Words

After The Trial: Silent Words

Ap Destroy

When A Teacher Is Absent

Special Assignment: Covering The Martians

Subbing: Bits And Pieces Of Daily Life

Parents: Discipline Your Children, Please

Instructional Support Services (Iss)

The Purpose Of Special Education

The Renaissance Kids - Part One

The Renaissance Kids - Part Two

Four Program Changes In Seven Months

Exceptions To The Rules: C-6 And The Sixth Class

The Internal Politics: The Rocks And The Hard Places

Teach In My Shoes

The Noble Among Us

Part Two:the Otherschool

Departure

The Other School Welcomes An Atr

A Sad Day

Venting

New School – New Grading Policy

Is This Segregation?

This Is America

A New Kind Of Teaching

Meetings: Grades And Anecdotes

No Hope

The Fake Test

Our Fates Are Sealed

The End Of A Chapter

Teaching In The Ghetto

Break The Teacher

Lavish Praise

New Development

Short Conversation

Made In The Usa

Haiku

Math And Common Sense

Test Time: Final Exam For Fall Semester

The Riot Of 2010

Case Studies

The Quality Review

Murder

The Days After

The Next Phase

Insufficient Evidence

Profile Of The Girls

End Of The First Week

Support

The Disconnect

Point Of View

The Young Pervert

The Witch Hunt

Gasbag And Grades Again

Terrorism

I Hate No One

The State Of The Art

Full Circle

Part Three:policy And The Demise Of Our Public Schools

The Blame Game

Education: Definition And Purpose

Who Is In Charge Of Public Education?

Education Policyand Compulsory Education

Heredity And The Environment: The Unmentionables Inpublic Education

Alternative Education

Singh: A Straight Talker

Aft: What Are You Thinking?

Boe: Teacher Survey

Import Teachers

Education: It’s About The Kids, Folks

Richest Country, Poorest Kids

Police Presence On The Premises

The Four Ps

Assistant Principals: Are They Superfluous?

Chancellor Kleener

Part Four:the Other Sideof Teaching

The Best Of Professions

Colleagues And Lifelong Friends

The Words Of My Students

End Note

Epilogue

With a doctoral degree in comparative and international education from Columbia University, and twenty years of experience in the classroom as an ESL and English teacher, Evelyn Uddin-Khan has many stories to share – and most are disturbing. From the written death threat she received from a group of students, to being cursed at and spit upon repeatedly by students, Uddin-Khan’s memoir of more than a hundred essays recounts the unpleasant events that unfold during her last three years of teaching, before she finally found a reprieve in retirement.

At a time when educators, parents, and policymakers are engaged in an ongoing nationwide discussion about the decline of education in the United States, Uddin-Khan’s insights from working in urban districts are relevant. She discusses the effects of lower academic standards overall, the prevalence of inflated grades, and the impact of No Child Left Behind.

In part three of the four-part book … the author discusses education policy. Uddin-Khan defines the systematic problems in American education and offers suggestions for improving the failing system.

To all the ATRs and Subs who were displaced through no fault of their own, may your suffering end soon.

To all the teachers who teach five classes per day, not two, not four, not six, but five. Your dedication and expertise are the cornerstones of education, and you are the people who build the foundation upon which students build their lives and future.

Remember: It is not what your elected officials can do for you and your students, but what you can do for the next generations who will occupy our world and fulfill their dreams.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Much of the credit for this book goes to the students, teachers, and administrators I have worked with over the past twenty-five years. They provided the material and experiences, and I did the note taking and the writing. The events are real, but the people and places are imaginary so that everyone can remain anonymous.

Some of the people who inspired me along the way are dead and gone, but their words begin every chapter. Their words and ethical stand on key issues helped me to put the events and abuses I experienced in perspective. Some of these quotes are from John Ruskin on reform and prisons, President Carter on the racism meted out to black kids, G. K. Chesterton on democracy and education, and George Santayana on the education of a child.

One must also acknowledge that if the system, the employer, had not dished out cruel and inhuman punishment, this story would not have been possible.

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

INTRODUCTION:

THE DEMISE OF A TEACHER

To be a teacher in the right sense is to be a learner.

I am not a teacher, only a fellow student.

~

SOREN KIERKEGAARD

Life plays little tricks on us sometimes. To be a senior teacher these days in New York City is like living in a bubbling volcano. It could spit you out at any moment. Well, the Board of Education (BOE) spit me out in one of its bubbling moments, that is, they excessed me even though I was a teacher in what they had classified as a shortage area.

To be a well-respected, efficient, and dedicated teacher, and then to be excessed after eighteen years of satisfactory service, is a painful experience. One day a person is a respected professional and the next day she is a substitute teacher, fondly referred to as an innocuous and inept sub by administrators, colleagues, and students. To be called a sub to your face is embarrassing and humiliating and invalidates your being.

This was life’s little trick on me. However, I did not take it lying down. I had no lesson plans to prepare, no papers to grade, no meetings to attend, and no work to take home. Suddenly, I had so much free time at school, and even more at home. Armed with pen, paper, and a keen sense of observation, I began my sub years asking questions, taking notes, listening to colleagues, and most enlightening, listening to the kids, not as their teacher, but as a sub. When one is a sub in a classroom, students feel free to talk, and they reveal the truth because they have no respect for the sub, and are not suspicious of having their stories repeated or they think the sub might not have any interest in what they are saying.

On the other hand, I was able to observe various assistant principals (APES) on a daily basis, seeing who had the cushy jobs, who were messengers for the deities, and who were making lots of extra, illegal money for shuffling pieces of blank papers on their clean desks in their quiet offices. I started to see how a school really works or perhaps how corruption works. I started to see people in context, the power structure, the power struggle, the powerless, the ass kissers, the boot lickers, and cronyism at its best.

The magnitude of incompetence that floats around a school building unchecked because the people at the top are unqualified and incapable of solving the problems is mind-boggling.

I saw the union for what it was: a political voting machine that endorses politicians, collects union dues, and then leaves its members to burn.

The people who are really concerned about education and the future of this country will take what I have to say very seriously. The time for action is now. We have no time to lose. People pay lip service to children and their education. Well, we can no longer sacrifice our children, and it is time we stop blaming our teachers.

These pages contain my thoughts and opinions on academic life, but what I have written is grounded in the facts that shaped that life. I would like the people beyond the school walls to know and understand the details that help and hinder the teaching and learning that goes on in our classrooms. I would like the parents and guardians of our kids to become aware of the dangers that both kids and teachers face daily in order to get through one day in school.

This book grew out of my daily experiences and observations. It covers six topics:

•  Politics, education policy, and exploitation in education

•  Teaching conditions, tenure and oppression in education

•  Administrative power, corruption, and lack of accountability among school officials

•  Students’ needs, rights, behavior, boredom and lack of responsibility

•  Unions, their loss of power, and setting teachers adrift

•  The sub-standards in education and the mass production of ignorance

The point of this tome is to seek changes in our education system, and if it touches only a few lives and changes only a single condition, it will have served its purpose. There is a big difference between the laws and the actual practices in education, just as there is between perception and reality. Our children are the future of the world; and we owe them and our world every bit of our knowledge. We are denying them what is their birthright, which is an education that will benefit them and prepare them for a worthwhile and rewarding future.

Our education system is not fulfilling its goal because it is set up to teach failure, and if there is one lesson to be learned, it is this:

Politics and Education do not mix.

—

DR. UK

PART ONE:

MY SCHOOL

Do what you love.

~

HENRY DAVID THOREAU

The first part of this tale is about life at My School. The school has a name, but because I loved the place and felt at home in those classrooms, I always thought of it as My School. I taught English as a Second Language (ESL) to immigrant students, and working with those new Americans was a special privilege and a treasured experience.

Those ESL kids transformed that school into My School, just as they transformed what could have been an impersonal classroom into a personal space. They transformed teaching into the noble endeavor I attempted everyday. They were magic!

In the following pages, any reference to My School means the school in which I was at first happy, then sad and disillusioned. At My School, I was happy in ignorance. I became sad and disillusioned when I learned that corruption and the abuse of power, which lead to the oppression of a people, in this case teachers and children, were a dominant force in the building.

My School gave me many opportunities. Among them I had the opportunity to help shape the lives and minds of thousands of kids, and after the administration excessed me, I had the time and opportunity to witness corruption, the abuse of power, and to take notes.

My School is the name I decided to use to give anonymity to the school in which I worked. Therefore, when the name My School is mentioned, it is an imaginary school with fictional characters. On the other hand, even though I am writing about My School, yet I am not writing about a particular school, but about a particular school system, and about my own particular experience in that system. In other words, the dysfunction and corruption at My School is perhaps system wide.

Two schools are discussed in this book. Part One covers my first school, and despite the agony and the punishment they inflicted on me, I shall always remember the place fondly, and the kids with great affection.

THE NEWEST MEMBER OF THE ATR POOL

What makes the desert so beautiful is that somewhere it hides a well.

~

ANTOINE DE SAINT-EXUPERY

The doctor is now an ATR. I was just excessed and told that I am an ATR. However, until a minute ago, I had never heard of the term ATR. It sounds derogatory, so I must find out what it actually means. I have a doctoral degree from Columbia University. I am working in a shortage area, and until June, I gave my heart and soul to the immigrant students with whom I worked. Suddenly I am excessed, and I have become persona non grata. Just think, I am presently working (or not working) as a substitute teacher, granted with full salary and full benefits, but being treated like a leper and being called a sub to my ugly face by the same people who last week knew who I was and treated me with perhaps false respect.

This is what happens when you put nincompoops in charge of something they have no knowledge about. What does the mayor (a businessman) or the chancellor (a lawyer) know about teaching and learning? Neither of them would last a day in my former classrooms, and if they cannot teach, then they are not qualified to run an educational institution.

When I asked why I was excessed, I was told that they wanted to get rid of another teacher, but because she had more seniority than I had, they could not push her out and keep me. Apparently, there was some bad blood between this teacher and the administration. She knew of the time card scam that they were participating in and were protecting some people from the law. Many people knew about it, but she was the only one brave enough (or stupid enough) to let them know that she was aware of what was going on. Well, it was no secret that she was on the chopping block, but I had to accompany her there because she had nineteen years in the system and I had eighteen. The administration wanted to reduce the number of ESL students, and my erstwhile colleague gave them the reason to excess two teachers in one shot.

The absolute worst thing that could have happened was for them to make me an ATR. Okay, here I am, an ATR - a highly paid substitute teacher, no respect, no dignity, kicked around from one class room to another five times per day with APES barking at me - not good, not bad, but perhaps I shall have time to write the books and poems that I have dreamed of writing. Perhaps a whole new career will open up for me! Thank heavens for my salary and benefits!

How did I find myself in this mess? I came to teach in the New York City public school system by accident. I was at Columbia University doing a doctoral degree. My research project took me into the high schools. It was supposed to take one year, and that was all the time I planned to give to that faceless, nameless system called the BOE. I started in January, my finances improved and my research project was moving along nicely. I was offered a full time position at one of the schools where I was doing my research. I refused that offer three times between June and September, and finally, in October of that year, I buckled and accepted, and the greatest challenge of my life commenced - doing a dissertation and teaching full time.

It was also the biggest, most foolish mistake I ever made!

Three and a half years later, I should have left, but I had pursued several colleges and universities in search of my dream job and nothing had happened. Time ran out on me and I was nailed to the system. I spent another four years trying to find a university job and by then I had seven years in the public school system, which meant I had attained the coveted tenure and a decent salary, so I was stuck. In the meantime, I fell in love with the immigrant students I was teaching and helping to assimilate into this new culture. I felt that I was doing something worthwhile and had learned not to regret the decision forced on me.

Recently I read in the newspaper that there are about 3,000 teachers in the ATR category. Although I am not sure why other teachers fall into this category, I do know that in my case, I was dumped there because My School did not want a large ESL population and the consequence was that if the ESL department was shrinking, obviously fewer teachers would be needed.

I know that for eighteen years, I was an effective and dedicated teacher with a Satisfactory rating, and no one can point a finger at me and say otherwise. It is widely believed that teachers in the ATR pool are undesirable and cannot teach and that is why they are excessed. Well, this is not true. This cheap shot came from the chancellor’s lips. In any field, there are good and bad employees. Mayors and chancellors destroy education and use their offices as stepping-stones; senators are charged with crimes; doctors are guilty of too many needles; lawyers swindle legally; CEOs steal bonuses; generals kill babies and old women; and police officers use fifty bullets to kill one man. No one notices these people’s crimes against humanity. But show them one bad teacher and they are all ready to clean up the system. Well, yes, clean up the system, but the teachers are not the system. They are the scapegoats. We can start to clean up in the chancellor’s office, or any number of other places including the principal’s office in My School.

Well, here I am, excessed. I have an excellent education, a good rapport with colleagues, a satisfying and rewarding experience with my students, tons of academic experience in teaching and nurturing students in a shortage area, and eighteen years of service in the system. What a lovely bunch of politicians for whom I work.

LIFE ON THE PERIPHERY

Only the mind cannot be sent into exile.

~

OVID

Queens has one of (or possibly) the largest immigrant, multi-cultural, multi-lingual populations in this country. They hop off the plane and tumble into Queens from all over the world. They find homes, jobs, and schools for their children, ethnic spices, and houses of worship. They find a completely new life. With this kind of population, one would think that the schools would be bursting at the seams with foreign students, as the universities are. In fact, many, many schools are bursting at the seams with foreign kids except, of course, My School, which is in the heart of Queens.

When I started working there ten years ago, the ESL population was about nine hundred and growing, with about fifteen or sixteen teachers. It was a thriving, bustling department. Now, we are down to under three hundred ESL students and four teachers. The principal told us one day at a meeting that the ESL population was bringing the school down and thus he was phasing out the ESL program.

In September, 20— when I returned to My School after the summer holiday, the first thing the AP said to me (before good morning or welcome back) was that they did not have a program for me then, and certainly would not have one for me in September of the following year. She said they did me a favor and managed to scrape up five classes for me. She was doing me a favor by keeping me. So for that year I was still a teacher with a full program.

In the months to follow, she would throw this in my face as often as she found occasion, which was once every week. At the same time, she would remind me how lucky I was to be there for that year. I never thanked her for my good fortune and neither did I thank her for her nastiness, sarcasm, and constant reminders of my unfortunate position. Her barbs became poison to my soul. I was a hard working teacher. She got her AP position by sitting on someone’s lap.

On May 7 of the following year, without warning I received my letter of excess. They gave me formal notice that at the end of June my services would be redundant. I must now find an opening in another school that had an ESL department. The ESL department in My School would be absorbed by another department.

And that is the irony of my situation. Within a city that has one of the largest immigrant population in the country, My School does not have enough immigrant students to maintain five teachers.

It was two years ago when the principal announced that the ESL students were bringing down the good name of My School. What he meant was that the immigrant students were not passing the English Regents in record numbers and with high grades. The fact that some of these kids had been in the country for a year, two at most, did not bother him. First, he asked us at a meeting to inflate their grades. He knew from our responses that we would not do that, so he promised to reduce the number of ESL students or perhaps eliminate the program altogether rather than find ways to help the students. The fact that immigrant students have the best grades in math and science was never mentioned.

In defense of immigrant students, most of them come to the U.S. with well-rounded, high levels of education, and they are very disciplined workers, with very good manners. They are interested in education and come to school prepared to learn. Most of the Asian, European, and African students I met had strong backgrounds in history, geography, math and science, as well as the highest grades in these classes. Speaking and writing English correctly is usually their problem, but they do learn English with time. By eliminating the ESL department, they are being penalized for the grade of the school and the principal’s bonus.

Another ploy the principal and the AP used to downsize the program was to have the English teachers teach the ESL classes and then excess the ESL teachers. But to blame the ESL students for failing and blaming the ESL teachers for not doing a good job is unthinkable.

This is a case where numbers matter. It does not matter whether the kids, American or immigrant, are learning or not (and they are not) as long as the grades are high and they are all passing in record numbers. The school gains the label of being a Blue Ribbon school, the chief cook gets a bonus, they drain the till, the Chancellor is pleased, and the Mayor’s reform is a success. And I am excessed.

And so began years of being kicked around by the system. I did not know then that in the years to come they would wipe the floor with me. Being excessed was a new and frightening experience for me. Up to that point in my life I had given the immigrant students the best I had to offer. Immigrant students are not like American students. They need academic, social, and cultural support to establish their lives in a new society. I managed to give them that support. But life plays little tricks on us, and this one was painful.

TEACHERS AND GRADES

To me, the sole hope of human salvation lies in teaching.

GEORGE BERNARD SHAW

Education in America is at the point where our graduating students are illiterate, teachers are the scapegoats, and the system seems incapable of providing solutions for the many problems we face. One of the issues in education that should not be a problem is learning and earning grades. Students should be given the grades they earn based on the schoolwork they produce, but this does not happen, and that is one reason why education is in crisis today. In fact, grade inflation has been going on for a long time.

When I began teaching twenty-one years ago in New York City, one of the first ethical dilemmas I encountered was when the baseball coach approached me and said, Look, Johnny is a very good baseball player and I want him to stay on the team. In response I asked, What do I have to do with that? To which the coach replied, He needs a 65 to stay on the team.

The implication was that I was responsible for his grade and, by extension, the success or failure of the baseball team. I was dumbfounded! The kid hardly showed up in class, and when he did, he produced very little acceptable work worthy of a grade. In fact, how can an absent student keep up with class work at all, or produce acceptable academic work?

Well, I refused to give Johnny the 65 he did not work for. When I consulted with experienced colleagues, they assured me that fixing the grades of team players was done quite often. I decided there and then that I would not be a participant in the grade fixing game. I later learned that the principal has the power to change students’ grades and that Johnny’s grade was changed from 55 to 65 and that he was playing baseball for the school’s team.

Before that incident, I thought I had some power over the grades my students worked for, but that opened my eyes to what really went on, although it is much worse today. Then I was running on idealism and ethics; today I am running on realism and survival.

The people who hide behind the system are responsible for this mess. Twenty-one years ago grades were changed, but not on the massive scale that we see now. Today, teachers inflate grades across the curriculum year after year. Why is everyone so surprised that our graduates are illiterate and American education is ranked #25 in the world? I have seen many other aspects of education decline in that time, mainly at the behest of policymakers. Teachers assume that the people who write the policies and solutions know what they are doing, but the results prove otherwise. After fifty years of decline, perhaps we need to change the policymakers.

GRADE INFLATION

We teachers can only help the work going on, as servants wait upon a master.

~ MARIA MONTESSORI

In the past few years, a lot has been said and written about grade inflation. Parents, politicians, the media, and the Board of Education (BOE) are all expressing shock and horror at this practice, but why is anyone surprised? This practice has been around for as long as I have been a teacher. Perhaps decades ago it was not as prevalent and open as it is today, but it was still being done.

How else do parents, politicians, and especially the BOE think required freshman remedial English and math courses at colleges and universities came about? We high school teachers are forced to raise students’ low grades and threatened with serious consequences if we do not comply, as if we are responsible for the dysfunction of the entire education system.

Politicians are hollering about teachers not teaching, the problem of failing students and failing schools, but they have not yet realized that the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) law means passing all the failing students, who in turn end up in colleges and universities taking remedial classes and eventually dropping out after a semester or two. The teachers get the blame.

One day, and soon, all these people on the outside, parents, politicians, mayors, and chancellors, are going to have to enter the teachers’ domain, and actually immerse themselves in those English and math classrooms, and take a good look at the miniscule quantity and mediocre quality of education we are forced to deliver for the ultimate grade. Perhaps then they will realize and understand why China and India are whipping our superpower butt. In today’s classroom, as long as the kids show up, we pass them. Ask the administrators. This is a fact. Of course, it is easier to blame the teachers, but no one ever stops to consider that teachers do not have the power to make these illogical rules.

We do a lot of grade inflation at My School. At certain times of the year I have been told by my AP that too many of my students are failing or have low grades, and you must work harder to raise the grade levels of your students. It always amazes me to hear that I must work harder, not my lazy students. This really translates into, Lower your standards, use an erasable pen, inflate the grades, and pass the kids. Is it the students’ fault that they are passed along? Is it the teachers’ fault that they are forced to pass them along? The recurring argument at My School was that this is a blue ribbon school, it makes our department look bad; the other departments are doing much better, and yes, bonuses are at stake.

The practice of grade inflation is unfair to the teachers and the students. This practice has had a negative impact on teaching. Teachers would teach their hearts out and in the end, they must pass all students. The students know they will receive a passing grade, so where is the motivation to try harder? Some teachers (perhaps 2 percent) have the right attitude. They save themselves a lot of grief and give the one-day performance required to get a Satisfactory rating, and at the end of the school year they pass all the little darlings, which means giving the failures and no shows a passing grade of 65, and everyone is happy. The students and APES, the principal and parents, the chancellor and mayor, everyone celebrates the improvement since standards are up. A well-known politician attends the graduating ceremony, praises the school and its inhabitants, and the ethical teachers with integrity are left with the empty feeling that they cheated those kids because they know the unspoken truth.

Of course, the kids are the real losers. When the students know, and they do know the politics of education, that a way will be found to pass them in June, they come into the classroom arrogant and with an insufferable attitude, not really caring to work; in fact, they are unmotivated and quite prepared to give the teachers a hard time about doing any schoolwork at all. The teachers suffer and yet the students are the losers. They receive a grade of 90 in math or 95 in English, and they still end up having to take remedial math and English courses in university. Does this make sense? We fix up their paper image – we have a large staff called the College Office (CO) to do this dirty piece of work, and they arrive at some university where reality sets in when they are placed in remedial classes. Somewhere down the road that percentage of students usually drops out of college because they can not handle that level of academic work.

On the other hand, some kids come into the classroom so eager to learn that they are like sponges, they absorb every drop of knowledge the teacher can give them and they are thirsty for more. These are the kids every teacher dreams of having in her class, and yet these kids are the biggest losers because they are not getting the education they deserve. They are deprived of what should truly be their gift from teachers. They are deprived of their birthright, which is to learn in a truly educational environment, and their teachers are denied the opportunity to do that for them, and help them to produce their best work.

Grade inflation invalidates teachers. Students know they can work or not work, be respectful or disrespectful, obey the rules or break the rules; they will never be expelled unless they actually break the law, and they can stay in school until they are twenty-one if it comes to that. So where is the motivation?

Administrators have the power to change students’ grades, and they use that power often. If a student is dissatisfied with his grade, his mom can always come to the school and get it reversed. No one in the chain of command is really concerned that grade inflation invalidates teachers and leaves them vulnerable and with no recourse but to tow the line or self-destruct.

I refused to tow the line and I did self-destruct. I refused to pass on students who could not read or write English, and I was labeled as someone who did not work hard enough to produce the desired number of passing students. One principal told me I was too rigid. However, my view from the doghouse at that time was quite acceptable. I did not practice NCLB, I did not bow to administrative power and fix my grades, and I know in my heart that I did not deny my students an education. Finally, I learned that ethics and integrity have a price. I paid the price but I did not compromise my ethics and integrity until twenty years later!

THE GRADE FIXERS

We cannot always build the future for our youth, but we can build our youth for the future.

~ FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT

Excerpt from the minutes of the meeting between the School Chapter of the United Federation of Teachers (UFT) and the school administrators held on March 20, 0000.

Heading: Disparity between class averages and SAT scores.

Comment: Senior/College counselors are concerned about the disparity between class grades and SAT scores. SAT scores have decreased while class averages have increased. Mr. Bootlick (principal) stated that he understands their concern, but he does not believe in teaching for a test. He believes it is more important to look at the correlation between averages and Regents grades.

Question: Who grades the Regents? Who grades the SATs.

Most people in the real world assume that teachers teach and then enter grades for their students based on the quantity and quality of the work those students produce. Well, that assumption is false. Perhaps that was true back in the days when education meant that boys and girls came to school with pens and books prepared to seek knowledge and participate in an academic life. Then, what was more important was whether the students grasped the concepts and whether each child learned the lesson he was supposed to learn. Today’s reality is quite different. Students’ grades come from outside the classroom, not from the work they do within the classroom.

Let us take a quick look at the typical high school classroom. A profile of today’s students would show that first, there are no boys and girls in high school, but rather, there are young men and women, and second, for the majority of them, education is of secondary importance. Society has conditioned them to think this way. Fifty percent of the students who show up at school arrive without pens and books, but with all the electronic gadgets their parents can supply. They are either half-dressed or dressed for a fashion show, a wild sex party, or the beach, more concerned with their muscles and their make-up than filling their empty heads with knowledge. They do very little work with very high expectations, but if their report cards do not show 95, they are upset, and their parents will call the APES.

We need dress codes and discipline codes that are clearly written and strictly enforced. We need guidelines on attendance and the quality and quantity of work required for graduation. I am aware that we presumably have these in place, but having them written and paying lip service to them is not helping the students. In plain English, some of our students are arrogant, conceited, have an attitude and a behavior problem, and set their own goals, which are to defy school rules. However, this is