The book describes Mr. Reidar'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.
EDUCATION MALPRACTICE
A Year in a Dropout FactoryBy NELSON REIDARAuthorHouse
Copyright © 2011 Nelson Reidar
All right reserved.ISBN: 978-1-4634-3607-0Contents
Chapter One
Reasons for this Book My purpose in writing this expose is not to condemn the school, my profession, the district, the parents, the teachers, or the students. However, I saw so many incredibly dysfunctional things during my year in the dropout factory that I was compelled to describe what I saw. My goal is not to revel in all of the problems, but the problems need to be revealed in order to be addressed.
As an early baby boomer, I come from a generation that saw education as the stepping stone to a better life. My parents were immigrants from Norway. They couldn't help me in school, but they told me to go to school and they told me to do my best. I had teachers who encouraged me. In fact, I still have a hand-written letter (no computers in those days) from my 8th grade English teacher telling me that I had the ability to go on to college. She inspired me to become a teacher. I have a great respect for teachers and gratitude for the public education I received.
I do not believe that all public schools are bad, because I have seen many that are excellent. I do not believe our education system is bankrupt in a philosophical sense, but I do believe we have serious issues to overcome. Many of the issues are societal issues, for today's generation of parents do not seem to share the same admiration for schools as mine did, and they seem to have far less influence over their children to respect the opportunity that schools afford.
On October 17, 2010, I saw Waiting for Superman, the scathing documentary about public schools, produced and directed by Davis Guggenheim. As I watched, I kept visualizing my own school, except that the families in the movie knew their neighborhood schools were bad, and they took the initiative to find schools that would care about their children. Most of the families at my school seem to be unaware or indifferent to the poor education their children are receiving. When the movie showed a map of the United States, with flags marking high schools that were failing to graduate its students, I realized that my school surely was one of the dropout factories on the map.
Waiting for Superman takes aim at teacher associations as a roadblock to meaningful reform. The film shows teachers who are ineffective instructors, who are unresponsive to parents, who read newspapers in class, and who flaunt the fact that tenure laws will keep them in their jobs for life. The movie chronicles the failed attempt by the superintendent of the Washington, D.C. schools to modify tenure by offering substantial financial incentives to teachers who demonstrate quality teaching ability and who produce results for students. The thought of differentiating the pay for teachers according to performance, as the movie showed, was too traumatic for the teachers in D.C. I'm sure it would be too traumatic in my district also.
I have tried to describe the circumstances at my school accurately, objectively, and factually. Although many of the descriptions are unflattering for the school, they are told without rancor. I have never seen a school as ineffective as mine, but my intuition tells me there are lots of others. I hope some good comes out of my account of the problematic issues.
This brings me to the point of my introduction. 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.
All bad schools are not in bad neighborhoods, but bad schools create bad neighborhoods. The cost of bad schools is staggering to a community. High unemployment; loss of income tax, property tax, and sales tax revenue; the increased costs of social services; the increased costs of police services; the costs of crime and incarceration directly impact the way of life in communities with bad schools.
It is not a coincidence, for example, that in San Jose, California, the median family income is $ 100,000 and the percentage of college graduates is 43%, whereas the median family income in the Inland Empire (San Bernardino and Riverside Counties) is $ 52,000 and the percentage of college graduates is 19%. Schooling matters.
Bad schools cost money. When schools fail to graduate its students, unemployment rises, foreclosures increase, crime increases, tax revenues decrease, public services suffer, businesses close. People who can afford to "get out" leave. Those who cannot "get out" move to survival mode, and the slide goes on, affecting generation after generation. So, if we want to change this cycle in a community, we MUST improve the schools. We must prepare the students for a job and teach them how to be productive in society.
This premise seems so simple to me. As the child of immigrants, it was clear to me that education was my way to a better life. The United States' historic commitment to public education has set our nation apart and has made our country prosperous. But the system is not working in my school's community. We have the knowledge to change that. It seems to me we should have the will to change what is not working. That is my hope.
Chapter Two
The High School—Red Bird City
This high school is the oldest high school in the county. It celebrated its 125th anniversary in 2010. It is known as Red Bird City because the school site actually has a charter of incorporation with the state of California.
The high school is located within the boundaries of Project Phoenix, a special project implemented by the city to address housing code violations and to reduce crime and gang violence. The unemployment rate is over 20%. "Pride of home ownership" is not evident in the Red Bird City attendance area. I know it is not a polite word, but this school is in a ghetto. Martha Stewart does not live here.
Demographics
2,300 students attend the high school; 72% are Hispanic; 17% are African American; 8% are white.
The education level of the parents is very low; more that 60% of the parents did not graduate from high school. 90% of the students are socio-economically disadvantaged; i.e., they receive free breakfast and free lunch.
Attendance
The attendance rate is under 90%, the lowest in the district. Actually, it is hard for me to imagine that the attendance rate really is 89% or so, because there are huge numbers of students who arrive late, leave early, and cut class.
In California, attendance is supposed to be calculated by counting actual students in seats throughout the day. I don't have any definitive evidence that the school "fudges" on attendance reporting, but I can say definitively that some teachers are not always aware of which students are in their classroom at any given time, so it may be possible that some absences are overlooked.
Suspensions
The suspension rate is astronomical. In 2010-2011, the number of suspension days exceeded the number of enrolled students. The enrollment in May was 2,297 students. 699 of them (30%) had been suspended for at least one day, for a total of 2,480 days of suspension (108%). In California, schools lose Average Daily Attendance funding for days of suspension. Therefore, suspensions at the school cost the school district over $110,000 in...
