REFORMING OUR PUBLIC EDUCATION SYSTEM

Central Falls, a city of just one square mile, has more children living in poverty than anywhere else in Rhode Island. Central Falls High School is consistently one of the worst-performing public schools in Rhode Island. Just 7 percent of 11th graders tested in the fall were proficient in math. Only 33 percent were proficient in writing, and just 55 percent were proficient in reading. In 2008, just 52 percent of students graduated within four years and 30 percent dropped out.

So how did the Central Falls school superintendent deal with the poor performance of the high school students? She fired the principal and all 74 teachers because the teachers union refused to go along with her plan that included a longer school day and tutoring before and after school without any increase in pay.

While I do not sympathize with the union and incompetent teachers, I do feel sorry for the good teachers who find themselves teaching under intolerable conditions. Schools all over the country have been struggling with educating children who live in poverty.

Here are two major problems as I see it:

There are way too many incompetent teachers in our public school systems. The jobs of those incompetents are protected by the teachers unions. Some teachers may be good in certain subjects but are not competent to teach other subjects that may be assigned to them. Other incompetent teachers are the beneficiaries of affirmative action, having graduated from minority colleges with courses taught at a lower level than comparable courses in predominantly white colleges and universities. I have had students with B.S. Degrees from Prairie View A&M and Southern University in my criminal justice classes who were functionally illiterate.

There are too many disruptive students in our public schools. For the most part these are students who live in poverty stricken neighborhoods. They receive no educational support from their families and are attending school only because of our compulsory education laws. This is not to say that all poverty stricken kids are disruptive, but those that are make learning difficult for other students and interfere with a teacher’s ability to manage the classroom and to teach the students who want to learn.

So how do you solve the problems of incompetent teachers and unruly students? There is only one way and that is to undertake a drastic reform our public education system.

To begin with we need to eliminate most of the Education Courses in our colleges and universities that are required in order to obtain a teaching certificate. Most of these courses are taught by an entrenched faculty of education professors who have spent little if any time actually teaching in a public school classroom. Most of these courses are a waste of the prospective teacher’s time. I cannot think of a single education course that I took that actually helped me in my role as a high school teacher. In place of these worthless courses, students should be required to take a concentration of courses that they intend to teach.

So, to start out with, we need to do away with the Education Degrees and with the Schools of Education. Prospective teachers do NOT need more than two or three education courses and these can be taught in a division like social sciences. That will allow students to take more courses in the field(s) in which they want to teach. More math courses, more science courses, more English courses, etc.

In all instances, public school teachers should be hired only to teach specific courses. That requires licensing them as math teachers, science teachers, English teachers, etc. And that means teachers must pass a proficiency exam before they can be licensed in any specific teaching field. Specific course licensing will, to a large extent, eliminate the hiring of incompetent teachers. That will eliminate the need for teachers unions to protect the jobs of incompetent teachers. If that goes contrary to affirmative action, that’s just too bad. Competence should always trump affirmative action when it comes to the education of our children!

We need to revise if not eliminate our compulsory education laws. We should not require students that are not interested in getting an education to attend school past the fifth or sixth grade. Get rid of the disruptive little bastards so that our good teachers can teach and those students who want to learn can learn.

The goal of our public schools should be to provide the knowledge and ability for students to compete in the job market, not to prepare everyone for going to a college or university. What about the dropouts? Will they enter into a life of crime? Quite possibly. However, I doubt if that would lead to a significant increase in the crime rate because most of these kids would turn to a life of crime even if you forced them to remain in school until they reached the age of 16.

In order to compete in the job market, disadvantaged youths need to be able to read, comprehend what they read, and write coherently. They need to master a certain level of math, they must be able to use a computer, and they need to acquire some technical skills. That means establishing more technical-vocational schools. Such schools would entice some kids to remain in school who would otherwise want to drop out.

I remember that when I was a kid in New York, the city school system had a bunch of technical schools. There were automotive schools, a needle-trade school to prepare kids for jobs in the garment industry, machinist schools, a culinary school, etc. There was even a merchant marine school that was conducted on a ship docked in the harbor. Those have gone by the wayside because the educational mantra of the liberals is ‘a college education for all.’

Regardless of how we approach the problem of incompetent teachers and unruly students, we need a drastic overhaul of our public education system. Until we do that, there will be many more school failures like that of Central Falls High.