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The numbers are not looking good. According to Richard
Ferguson, the chief executive of ACT, which is one of the nation’s leading testing
barometers for success on the college level, only half of last year’s high
school graduates had the reading skills necessary to pass college muster.
Even fewer had the educational wherewithal to succeed in math (41%) or
science (26%) on the college level. Only one in four graduates reached the
required college benchmarks in all four tested subjects: reading
comprehension, English, math and science.
Ferguson notes that the bugaboo lying behind these
dismal numbers is the fact that students are not taking the requisite number
of high school core curriculum courses, which include four years of English,
three years of social studies, three years of science and three years of math
at the level of algebra or higher. As a result of a surfeit of curricular and
extra-curricular offerings and activities, we have lost sight of the
desperate need for our students to become immersed in the courses that really
count if they are to succeed on the college level. Given this, we might well
ask why a student in the Williamsburg-James City school system is able to
substitute a course in health for one in English. Why are some papers ballyhooing fantastic academic
achievement when fewer than half of the state’s school divisions reached the
testing levels requisite for meeting the AYP (annual yearly progress)
benchmarks set by the No Child Left Behind Act? Both the WJC and New Kent school systems failed to meet AYP
requirements because some groups missed the mark on English exams. Only the
Gazette seemed to capture the gravity of the situation with its headline:
“WJC flunks progress report.” What is it about Virginia schools that makes it
necessary for the state Department of Education to ask the federal government
for 14 waivers from No Child Left Behind? While I have no truck with the SOL approach to
education, this is the ship that we’ve chosen to sail, and the fact is that
it’s taking on entirely too much bilge water. Despite the fact that it has been proven time and time
again in New York and elsewhere that smaller schools lead to more positive
and enhanced educational results, we in Williamsburg-James City are rushing
headlong to construct a mega-monster high school replete with multiple gyms,
electronic bric-a-brac, and all the other technological doodads that,
according to the latest figures, could cost us $53 million or more. And this
because inflation rates for building schools have risen from 12% in 2004 to
23% now. This is tantamount to committing fiscal and educational
suicide. Just as the Planning Commission and the Board of Supervisors abhor
long range planning and thus have produced an architecturally eclectic
mishmash of growth and development, so the School Board has thumbed its nose
at the future and come to the conclusion that, despite all evidence to the
contrary, bigger is better. Rather than schools capable of servicing 1200 students,
we should be constructing schools of modest means that will accommodate
300-400 students. And rather than worrying about whether laptops might
supercede textbooks, we should be concentrating on an educational atmosphere
that will allow students and teachers to interact in ratios that foster
meaningful results. Furthermore, in order to conserve funds and place our
educational emphasis where it ought to be, we should curtail considerably
courses whose contents are best taught at home by parents or guardians.
Should the public school system, for instance, really be in the business of
teaching kids how to drive? Or is it
really in the purview of public education to teach fourth graders how to swim?
Do we really need a multiplicity of athletic facilities at each school? The emphasis in our public schools on physical
activities has reached the point of embarrassment. While the basic elements
of physical education should be taught, we have yielded to the political
clout of athletic directors, coaches and assistant coaches to the point of
satiety. How much better it would be if “team spirit” referred not to the
necessity to win football or basketball games, but rather to the benefits of
educational achievement and the fact that a school’s excellence is best
measured by the intellectual acuity of its students and teachers. There is ample opportunity for recreational sports in
the county. We have enough ball fields and basketball courts around here to
serve all of Hampton Roads. Let us sever the untenable connection between
athletics and educational institutions and get on with the curriculum our
students need to prosper after they graduate. We might also add a few bucks to teachers’ salaries,
since the athletic program at Lafayette High, for instance, weighs in at
$100,000 a year, $58,000 of which is budgeted. The rest comes from gate
receipts and donations. If Ferguson is right, what we need are smaller schools
teaching small classes in basic courses. We must get our students off the
non-academic trail and onto the path of English, math, science, social
studies, foreign languages, music and art. Everything else is as ancillary to the educational cause
as spending billions of dollars each year on back-to-school fluff and
flummery. |
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lewleadbeater.com Copyright 2002 All Rights Reserved
email: LWL@lewleadbeater.com |
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