America voted "Most Likely to Give a 17th Place Trophy"

Statistics, and we all know that statistics mean reality, indicate that the United States is in 17th place for reading and 26th place for math worldwide.  The news conglomerates are all at arms and asking questions about how we, the greatest and richest country in the world, are not in 1st place.  I find this to be hilarious, since we are the country voted "Most Likely to Give a 17th Place Trophy", but if our nation is really still confused let me break it down for them.

1) Our kids are spoiled.

There is a sense of entitlement in this country that defies imagination.  Our children seem to have taken that concept and really created something special out of it.  Only a fellow teacher can understand the frustration of a 10 year old looking at you like you are some kind of servant they have to put up with before they can go home and do what they really want to do.  If we ever want our children to be number one this would have to be the first thing to go.

2) School has to be fun.

Because life is fun right? And all of us have fun jobs that we go to every day?  Surely we should make sure that every second of school is both entertaining and fulfilling for our children.  This attitude, combined with entitlement, leaves teachers at a loss.  Guess what? Sometimes you just have to learn your grammar by writing a million sentences.  Sometimes you have to learn your addition facts by looking at flash cards.  This isn't rocket science.  Learning CAN be fun, but it doesn't always have to be.  It sets a dangerous precedent for our children that life should also always be fun.  If you look at young adults in the workplace now you can see the fruits of this technique in technicolor.  I am pretty sure that in China and the other top nations school is not always fun.

3) Your schools are partly run by textbook companies.

Every year your school district pays tens of thousands of dollars for needless new books.  The textbooks are not better, actually they are usually worse than the last batch, but there are new "standards" every year that need to be assessed (I will address those in a minute.)  So the textbook companies, working with the government, are able to create this great demand cycle where they must create new books and materials to accommodate the ever more inane standards. Ad nauseum.

4) Common Core and other standards systems are a joke.

Every. Single. Study. says that the main problem that our children face as a country is poverty, needless poverty.  Until poverty is addressed we can not have the scores we want no matter how many assessment systems we develop.  Common Core was created by politicians and educators who are also politicians.  If you were to ask actual teachers how to improve classrooms they would tell you what they have always told you: smaller class sizes, hands on activities, interdisciplinary critical thinking projects.  Guess what?  You can't write a textbook for that, so as long as we look to these assessment systems and textbook companies we will have mediocre results.  We have been tricked into thinking that we NEED assessments, technology, and supplemental materials because someone wants us to BUY them.  Look at the countries ahead of us on the list and tell me how many of them have the kind of technology we have in the classroom.

5) We are content to remain uninvolved.

Yes, parents, I am talking to all of us.  I am not talking about the booster club or raising money for the PTA.  These things are easy.  As parents we have to realize that this system is a joke and care enough to do something about it.  There are some educators that believe that No Child Left Behind was designed to create such a disaster in our public school system that the running of education would have to become privatized.  I believe that even if this isn't true, it is the direction our country is heading in.  I am not saying that children should be left behind, and that is the beauty of this argument.  No one can come out against it without looking like they don't believe in special education.  I do believe that no child that TRIES/WORKS/PUTS IN EFFORT should be left behind.  But sometimes Johnny figures out that he doesn't have to actually do ANYTHING and teachers and administrators will bend over backwards because they have some illusive number they have to meet to get funding that year.  At least Johnny is working on his critical thinking skills…

6) We don't let teachers teach.

Teaching is a profession.  I did not wake up one morning and decide I wanted to be a teacher and walk into a classroom.  It takes a certain set of skills and not everyone has them.  Some teachers are great, some teachers are not, just like with any other profession.  The solution to our education problem so far has been to limit teacher involvement in the actual planning and designing of curriculum and materials.  As a teacher I have never met a textbook that I liked.  As an English teacher I would create all of my own materials: vocabulary tests, unit tests, chapter activities.  It was exhausting because the school required a certain number of assignments, homework, and assessments.  As an English teacher I had to have as many assessments as a math teacher.  Does that make sense? No.  

Right now my son is in Georgia where they have Common Core. He has an excellent first year teacher who is managing having 26 2nd graders beautifully.  She is given every assignment and project ahead of time.  She is told how to teach each subject.  While every teacher is different she is not given reign to use the skills she learned and that is a shame.

So here is my recommendation for improving American schools:  Tell little Johnny that school is his job and that it is work to get what you want out of life.  Don't let politicians and textbook companies determine how teachers teach because they fundamentally don't understand how education works.  And… finally… let teachers do their jobs and work on solving more important issues like how we can still have poverty in a country where it is completely unnecessary.  Let the government work on THAT.

I could write about this for hours… but I won't bore you.  If you still can't understand why we are in 17th place, you might need to bone up on your critical thinking skills… wait… we don't teach those anymore.