Bricks Without Straw

Friends at a recent luncheon complained about the mounting piles of mandated paperwork for classroom teachers. Just listening to the requirements made me tired. Indulge me in a bit of a rant.

Every year the average classroom teacher is told they must gather more and more data about their students. Every year the individuality of each learner is, (to a great degree) ignored. There is not enough time to understand the way that individual students learn when the teacher is swamped with tracking breakfast distribution and taking attendance. Teachers are interrupted by practice state tests, real state tests, running reading records, discipline referrals, report cards, benchmarks, attendance letters, medical alerts, sentry calls, assaults and arguments, lunch, specials, individual student therapy and counseling, the PA system, professional development meetings and managing the bus loop. If it sounds confusing, it is. If it sounds like chaotic assembly line education, it is.

Teachers are required to complete academic intervention plans for each student if he or she needs extra help. In a class with 25 students, it is possible to have 10 deemed "at risk". The teacher creates a separate learning plan AND implements it for each of these students. How anyone teaches 15 students (as a group) and 10 (individually) is a puzzle. Whether or not a teacher can do it well, is also questionable.

Paperwork for special education referrals, committees on school climate, referrals for child protective services, and school based planning committee meetings all add to the noise in a teacher's head. Don't forget the following: speech pull outs, English as a Second Language pull outs, the alternative to suspension room, field trips, case workers, student observers, student teachers, lunch money, ADHD, austism and children who are not taking their meds. The sentry gets called a lot. There are English Language Arts exams and Terra Nova exams and testing to see who can exit English as a Second Language the following year. There are those students who can test in a group and those who have to be tested individually and those who won't be tested at all because they will leave the district or change addresses.

Teachers wear out, and they keep hearing that inner voice which reminds them that none of all this extra stress has anything to do with the child's education. The teacher is asked to be the Mom, nanny, nurse, food giver, pencil supplier, coat buyer, social worker, counselor and therapist, testing specialist, and encourager. The district is required to test and gather numbers for the state. It seems in many ways, that the teacher and the district are asked to raise the child. But only in a paperwork sort of way.

How did we get here? We have adopted an uncritical acceptance of whatever "educational experts" or politicians throw our way. Each generation suffers from its own illusion. One of our illusions has been that data gathering and test taking is enough to produce well adjusted and educated children. In actuality, all this educational bureaucracy means that we do nothing thoroughly or well in our schools. Everything is half-baked or a mile wide and an inch deep. As our district is looking at a graduation rate this June of somewhere in the 40% range...I would humbly suggest that perhaps we are off track. We have assumptions which are so deeply ingrained that no one dares to attack them. Many think that testing, data gathering, and number crunching (all subject to funding, interestingly) produce a good education. I challenge that assumption. Most teachers I know would challenge that assumption. Let us not be afraid to call something bad when it is.