I've a daughter who teaches "middle school" children (grades 7 and 8). All of her students live in a very poor areas and homes where only a foreign language is spoken. In most of my daughter's cases these happen to be non-English speaking homes. For a large number of these young people there is no parental guidance that encourages learning. No help, no encouragement, and no direction. More than 50% of these students live in a one parent home, and usually there is no family history of academic accomplishment.
The local School Board District considers none of these factors. They measure the competence of teachers by their students universal test results. This approach is muddleheaded at best. They have applied the same tests to children of wealthy, or at least modestly wealthy, family rooted, citizens living in areas that contain few if any non-English speakers. Application of the same tests in both areas is a dis-service to both.
When I finally realized what is really happening at the local "middle schools" I began to look further and discovered this kind of thinking has prevailed in local School Board Districts for years and years. The general public is to blame. We have allowed some of the most self centered, politically ambitious, educationally stupid pinheads to be elected and appointed to School District responsibility. Not him or them. We.
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