I regularly subsituted in secondary schools in suburban Connecticut from 1985-99, and taught intro courses in U S History at community colleges and private universities from 1997-2004. In my experience even the brighter students showed little ot no evidence of secondary school level training in English grammar, composition, or elementary standards for evidence or analysis. Lest anyone regard my experience as especially unusual, any colleague or tenured person in or outside my department would laugh and shrug as if I had discovered a dirty little secret.

I was torn, as we all were, between not wanting to blame students for previous failure to hold them accountable and not wanting to perpetuate the farce. I can recillect more than one student who made a formal complaint to the department head that I was too tough on sincere effort, the “effort” in question wasn’t worthy of a 7th grader.

I might close, in honor of Zappa’s line “you thought we were talkin about some one else.” by noting I sometimes see confusion of “here/ hear, their/ there, ” etc. and my favorite “its/ it’s” in some of my favorite blogs

But if the new idea of what school is supposed to be about is preparing competent workers for the future, then we have to change the system to accomplish that goal in the best way possible for parents, students, and teachers. I like the summer program experiences my children have had very much, and I think my county provides a good mix of programs, but my kids need downtime (or wild time as discussed above), too, and it’s extremely difficult for a working parent to give that kind of time (unless said working parent is a teacher) when we generally only get 10 vacation days a year - it’s just a bad fit. Plus, I don’t see how much down time teachers get with the current system, when they are expected to use the summers for working on their master’s degrees for their permanent certificates, taking continuing education classes, going to training seminars, or staffing the summer programs anyway.

I should have said, I don’t know day-to-day classroom experience. Actually doing the job is a big part of the whole picture (which is part of the reason why classroom teachers get so frustrated with the egghead dream schemes from Admin.), but I am the only one in my family who is not a teacher because I have discovered during my intermittent classroom experience that I’m not good at it. I do know what it takes, and that it is an art, and I just don’t have the gift. I was mainly responding to Kathleen’s sorta brush-offy babysitting comment, which I have heard all too often as an argument against year-round schools. Yes, you need breaks from your students. Teaching is very intense, especially when you have needy children in the room. Nothing except money says teachers can’t have sabbaticals. Nothing except money says schools can’t have rotating marking periods off for teachers. And as far as I can tell, money is the number one reason why we have inadequate facilities with inadequate climate control and hundreds of thousands of frustrated people (old and young) in our educational system. If we were really serious about keeping the sky from falling, we would put our money where our mouths are and insist that the politicians pay attention. Million Teacher March, anyone?

Although I think it might have been preferable to the cool, shady, tree-laced dig site in NH . . .next to a sluggish, nearly stagnant river from which much of the world’s mosquito population appeared to emerge (yes, I know folks from further north will laugh at me). It was bad enough trying to painstakingly brush dirt away from a piece of centuries-old pottery in the face of that maddening, blo0d-crazed whine and constant biting - worse, somehow, I always ended up smacking myself in the head with a trowel . . .

“I mentioned similar work/school hours and year-round school because there seems to be far less resistance to either of those helpful changes than to say, funding schools equitably”

That is a good, practical point. It’s just in some circumstances, at least, year-round schooling in the absense of decent funding would magnify already existing problems - and it would require a decent chunk of funding itself . . .
I’m tired of all the decent ideas that get ruined byunderfunding, lack of resources . . .

The scheduling thing is somewhat of a problem.

“I would be down with the . . . type of summers you speak of if I had any hope of actually seeing this in my lifetime. Hell, if we can’t get school districts to pony up for physical improvements to school buildings . . .”

Yep. The only possibility would be pressure from upper-middle parents pushing for ever more developed and enriched children - but you’re right. Not in these circumstances.

“I’m frustrated by the fact that we fund our schools as if they were a beat-to-hell used car. . . . the property tax system which leaves suburban schools with scads of resources and urban and rural schools with little to none”
Agreed. Oh, agreed! Here in Philly a bit back there was an amusing moment when it was pointed out that the the state gov’t’s repeated refrain - look, all these nearby wealthy suburban districts don’t have nearly as much money as yours, and they do fine, stop whining! - didn’t take into account how many more kids Philly serves.. Not just things like relative advantages - they didn’t break it down per-(student)-capita. A-frickin’-mazing. (Well, no). That’s why I say, above, that we as a nation need to start taking education seriously, because we are just out in la-la land (which, granted, is abolutely consistant in its tilt tpwards those with most advantages.
And rural schools - people tend to forget that, thanks for pointing that out.

It’s a bit like the issue sacundum brings up in re: AAVE (practical little measures/trying to fix the overarching problem). On one hand, it makes sense to try to make the best of things with modest, practical, feasible programs and changes - the equivalent of clipping coupons, wearing sweaters to keep the heating bill low, and etc. On the other hand, there are the big problems that need fixing, sitting there like a big-arsed enormous rock that one has to roll uphill, at which point it will start slipping out of your grasp and hurtling right back down . . .

Of course, this isn’t an either/or choice - we do one, and keep fighting for the other . . .

Kathleen says: “I decided to live somewhere where my child could be a child. In the summer he does fun stuff, that he looks forward to as his reward..like we do for our vacations. He gets to socialize and learn in a loosely structured environment, at his comfort. We get to spend time together just BEING.”

La Luba: “I’m not worried about her curiosity and enjoyment of learning; she has that already in abundance. I’m worried about her nuts-and-bolts skills. Like I said, she is at greater risk, and she needs all the practice she can get.”

I’ve been reading Nabhan’s and Trimble’s The geography of childhood: Why children need wild places, and one thing that strikes me - both from this and other sources, -is how many naturalists (from PhD field biologists to nature writers to happy hikers) trace the seed of this particular occupation back to free time. It might have been spent in solitude or with a close companion, (either family or friend), after school , playing hooky, during the summer . . .
And so many writers (especially women, it seems, but I don’t know) who talk about time spent in their own imagination . . .

But of course this doesn’t exactly generalize. One of the reasons this sort of thing - year-round-school, say - ends up being like a puddle that you poke with a stick only to find no bottom is that there’s so many complicated issues underlying it - privilege, inequality, what it means to be educated, what kids need to suceed, middle class anxieties, class-based understandings of childrearing, individual differences . . .

Oy.

But the fact is, like most people, I do need to work. And school hours don’t coincide with working hours. And that is a problem for me and for other parents. Who gets off work at 3PM? There is one public school in my city that has a full-year schedule; and you oughta see the waiting list to get in there! I’d love for her to be able to attend, but priority goes toward siblings of kids already there before it gets to the general list (when they opened the school to the year-round schedule, placement was first offered to kids already attending, then by lottery). I’ve realistically got a snowball’s chance in hell of that happening.

I mentioned similar work/school hours and year-round school because there seems to be far less resistance to either of those helpful changes than to say, funding schools equitably (as opposed to the property tax system which leaves suburban schools with scads of resources and urban and rural schools with little to none). I’m frustrated by the fact that we fund our schools as if they were a beat-to-hell used car. I’m ready for what relief I can get, and year-round school would be a good start. The battle for that has already been won in the minds of parents and probably the lion’s share of elementary school teachers. I’m not worried about her curiosity and enjoyment of learning; she has that already in abundance. I’m worried about her nuts-and-bolts skills. Like I said, she is at greater risk, and she needs all the practice she can get. A summer spent doing the same routine she’s already accustomed to would be of great benefit to her. There are many other parents in this area who feel the same way about their children and year-round schools, it’s just that we don’t have the political clout to make it happen (yet). Children aren’t really valued in the political game. Just follow the money.

Dan, I live in Illinois, so I’m well acquainted with the necessity of climate control. Then again, adding air conditioning to schools means….more work for electricians! No, seriously—see the above statement about “beat-to-hell-used car”. I attended some of those dilapidated old school buildings with no air circulation, and it was miserable even just for the limited time of hot/humid weather we were in them. I would be down with the “academic camp/outward bound/apprenticeshippy” type of summers you speak of if I had any hope of actually seeing this in my lifetime. Hell, if we can’t get school districts to pony up for physical improvements to school buildings, what are the chances of publically funding summer programs for children? At least the general public still thinks of school as a necessity; summer educational-type programs are still thought of as “fluff”. And by the same people who bitch, piss and moan about kids running the streets all day, and not testing up to grade level during the school year—go figure.

There are a number of good points in favor, true - no big chunk of time for kids to stop learning/regress, more instructional time (depending on the details), and yes, for those kids for which school is a refuge from a chaotic/harmful/neglectful home life, more of that.

But - and this is going back to my point about the different models of public school in this country:
Both my wife and I teach in the Philly school district. Year-round school? First off, there wouldn’t be adequate climate control. Maybe after a few years . . at which point it would start breaking. Pay increases would be minimal. But those at just minor points. The big problem is that teachers would start cracking. Not everyone, of course - there are great teachers who would simply continue working magic month in and month out, mediocrities (and worse) who would continue to plod along, even everyone in between. But I am convinced the attrition rate would start climbing, as people were simply worn down at a faster rate. Fixing this would require major changes. In other circumstances, I think it might be a really exciting idea (although those tend to be places where “but they’re going to work the rest of their lives, let them have summers to play now” has a more convincing ring to it, since familial privilege virtually ensures year-round education (ie, houses o’ books, educational toys, etc,) some level of sucess baring complete screwing-up, and a safer environment to play in). If you could get it so we don’t have people being hospitalized for stress-based ailments with a regular school year (or for places where things work a bit differently), my suggestion would be to use that extra time to provide a sort of academic camp/outward bound/apprenticeshippy chunk of progressive happiness, full of exciting hands-on character-developing confidence-building real-world-applicable project-based creative stuff

I do not think this will happen here.
Instead, we are getting a sort of longer school year, anyway, as more and more students are sent to mandated summer school in order to be promoted to the next grade, spending several hours a day for several weeks in (generally not air-conditioned) rooms being presented with scripted curricula. Not horrible ones, granted . . .

” I can assure you that just about the only aspect of teaching I am uninformed about is about what it would be like for ME to stand in front of a class of children and get them to do what I want them to do.”
That is about 97% of it, though. (No offense meant, of course - and you obviously have a lot of knowledge about teaching . .. )

It’s an amazing aspect, though. It’s where all the ed. theories and content knowledge and ideas and everything soars, or stalls (or worse case, comes crashing to the ground). I really wish someone would make - I don’t know what exactly - a long running documentary/mini-series - about teaching and learning at several schools around the country. It would be an eye-opener for many people; I think such a thing could even have a real (if small and temporary) impact on talk about public ed. Which gets us to what Elena said:

“This echoes what another homeschooler I know thinks. I think homeschooling is a huge decision with huge implications for a kid- among other things you’re rejecting the community your kid lives in- but she based her decision on her belief that public schools won’t let kids wear crosses around thier necks. ”

[smacks forehead with hand] - Oy vey! I’m a cautious supporter of homeschooling, in certain circumstances - eg, parents with lots of time and resources, including extensive education or at least overall competence and the ability, etc., etc. - but like you say, huge decision and . . . ach. I’m speechless. (Although to be fair, her vaguely-Dr. Laura-inspired belief probably were standing in for a whole host of anxieties, ideas, etc.)

People have a lot of odd ideas about schools and teaching. Why, now that is a very interesting topic . . .

1. A really good essay on the origins of the American public school system was published some time ago in Harper’s. It is on the web here. As far as I can tell, it reproduces the original article faithfully. The thesis, that public schooling was originally conceived of as a means of social control and not as a means of improving the lot of the people the system was meant to educate, is a very sobering one and worth taking into account in a discussion like this. Even if the thesis is only partially accurate–and I have not done the historical research to verifyu the author’s claims–it makes the point that any attempt to improve public education in this country should take into account the degree to which the ideological underpinnings of the system’s structure–which has not changed much since its inception–are at odds with, and antithetical to, the goals of most public school reform.

2. The issues with which AAVE and ESL students confront a school system–public, private, higher ed, whatever–cannot be grouped into the same category except in one way: There are similarities–though there are also many differences–in the kinds of language-teaching approaches that work with each population. In part this has to do with the socio-economic, cultural and political differences between the groups; in part this has to do with the ways in which learning another dialect is at one and the same time more difficult and more simple than learning a whole new language. I would also point out that the question of how to deal with AAVE students, from the point of view of a teacher, is not so different from the question of how to deal with students who come from places where they speak an English creole, or from places like Nigeria, where students are often taught in English, know standard English grammar quite well, but nonetheless produce in their writing grammatical forms, idioms and so on that resemble the kinds of errors made by second-dialect speakers rather than second-language speakers.

3. The question of the quality of student writing is one that has vexed me for a long time. It is true that teaching even native English speakers to write clearly and competently often has about it aspects of teaching another language. Certainly we use a different level of diction when we write for a formal audience; we use a vocabulary and syntactical structure that bears little or no resemblance to what we use when we speak; we are bound, or, rather, we have to teach students the need to observe organizational and referential parameters that we don’t need to pay much if any attention to when we speak. And there is more that could be said along those lines.

Despite the truth of all that, though, and the ways in which what I have just delineated makes it hard not only to learn to write effectively (whatever that means), but also to teach that kind of writing, I think there is another question we need to ask. When we talk about the quality of student writing, what standard are we using and, even more importantly, what expectations do we have. Specifically, if I expect my students to write like me when they enter my class, I am being delusional; and the same is true if I expect them to write like me by the time they leave. More to the point, if the basis on which I judge the overall quality of student writing comes from the students that get A’s in my classes, then of course I am going to think that the overwhelming majority of my students are poor writers; but that is not a fair basis for judgment. The goal of teaching writing, it seems to me, is not that everyone in the class should become an A writer, but rather that people should learn to write competently. For some, their competence will be at the level that earns them an A; for others, it will be a C, and we need to remember that a C is a passing grade.

What I am trying to get at is that the question of the quality of student writing is in part a question of the instructor’s perception. More importantly, though, it is also part of the system of questions that plagues all forms of educational assessment:

a. Are you teaching what you think you’re measuring? b. Are you in fact measuring what you say you are teaching? c. Is your measure valid and reliable?

4. There is no one solution to the problem of education and the questions raised and solutions proposed in this discussion will arise in any system of education, though with varying degrees of emphasis and areas of concern, because teaching and learning are messy and problematic processes that involve whole human beings, even though we like to think that teachers and students somehow leave their non-teacher and non-student selves outside the classroom door.

Okay, I am starting to ramble and lose track of my thinking, so I guess I will stop for now.

Kathleen, I also come from a multigenerational family of teachers. My husband’s family has many teachers in it, too. One of my sisters-in-law is even a middle-school ESL teacher. I am the ONLY one in my family who is NOT a teacher, so maybe you will dismiss my opinions as uninformed. As a parent of children who are in school and as the sister, daughter, niece, granddaughter, and great-granddaughter of teachers, I can assure you that just about the only aspect of teaching I am uninformed about is about what it would be like for ME to stand in front of a class of children and get them to do what I want them to do. I will not go into the many hours I have spent listening to shop talk, comparisons of school districts, principals, school boards, SOLs, TAG programs, AFT vs. NEA, contract negotiations, tenure, reading recovery, immersion programs, and so on. I think I have a pretty good clue from both sides of the fence, thank you.

I will say that the teachers in my family and many of the teachers I know as friends and neighbors are behind the idea of year-round school, as long as they are paid for the extra time this would entail, and as long as the schools had adequate climate control for the summer weather conditions. The elementary school teachers in particular are very vocal about this, because of the ground the children lose over the summer, plus it’s easier on the kids if there are no big breaks in the routine. (Not to mention the fact that the kids who need the most surrogate parenting would benefit the most from this scheme - sad, but true.) If the school year were divided into 6 parts with 2-week vacations in between each part, and if each teacher were allowed professional time to go to seminars and so on, my friends and relatives would be in heaven! Plus, as La Labu said above, we would finally be in sync with the rest of the world. Maybe we’d actually be able to give our kids the time to spend learning more art and music, and they could have recess, and maybe even spend half an hour eating their lunches!

I agree with you that in general, teachers are now more educated and prepared than ever before. The requirements for permanent certification are now more stringent than before, more continuing education credits are needed than ever before, and so on. Overall, teachers frequently get screwed in terms of pay, working conditions, and job expectations, and it’s amazing what they are able to accomplish in spite of all of the obstacles placed in their paths. But there is a contingent in the education community (and I’m sure you know a few of its members) who like the status quo just fine and feel threatened by change, or who would rather trust the devil they know because they can only see the downside to any proposal. Maybe you’re too young to remember this, but there were teachers who resisted going to a biweekly paycheck system (you know, where the pay you get for 9 months of work is spread evenly throughout a calendar year). They were afraid that it would be more difficult to negotiate pay raises because it would look as if they were getting paid for summer vacation. Maybe this looks kinda silly now, but back then it was a real issue. So maybe 30 years from now, your argument that year-round school would be a disaster because teachers would be doing even more babysitting than they do now would look equally absurd. Just food for thought.

Talk to some of the “Oriental” parents whose kids have dropped out of school and are in gangs. I doubt they will tell you that they blew off their kids’ education or that they, unlike other “Oriental” parents, placed no value on school and achievement.

Nope, that’s your baggage, your assumption. I am a parent who reads to my daughter (we have a houseful of books….the kind of house where visitors say “holy shit! you have a lot of books!”), we do “homework” from educational workbooks even when there isn’t any official homework from school. There are puzzles, Lincoln Logs, blocks, dolls, art supplies, tangrams, memory games, counting games—all kinds of learning tools here. We go on nature walks, to museums, to concerts, art shows, the library, and all kinds of special events in the community. We study karate together too. Literally every minute of every day that I’m not at work is spent with my daughter—except for my union meeting (grandma and grandpa babysit). And I love it. I’m much happier with life as a parent than life before I was a parent.

But what I’m not particularly happy about is the assumption that I must be a fuckup, disinterested parent if I make the slightest criticism of how the artificial construct of the school day and the school year does not reflect the reality of our lives today. Yes, our lives.

The summers-off school program is an archaic schedule that was instituted back in the days when children were expected to go home and help out on the farm. I’ve never lived on a farm. My parents never lived on a farm. My grandparents never lived on a farm. Why the hell do we have a school schedule designed to meet the needs of an agrarian society? Most of the industrialized world has gotten with the program and has year-round schooling for children. Why should the United States be different?

And yes, school hours should reflect working hours. Parents and kids can then have the same schedule and get home at the same time. Again, this doesn’t seem to be a problem for the rest of the world.

But it’s ok, Kathleen. Next time I post a criticism about schools, I’ll be sure and do it under a “masculine” name, so that maybe, just maybe, you’ll actually pay attention to what I was saying, rather than shoot your mouth off with antifeminist stereotypes like “chasing your career” and how I’m supposedly not teaching my daughter any “VALUES”, because I’m not “emotionally invested” with her.

While you’re sitting there at the keyboard, take a good look at your knuckle. Yeah, your knuckle. That’s the size my daughter’s hand was when she was born prematurely, at 25 weeks. I sincerely doubt you can conceive of the kind of emotional investment I’ve proven over the years—from the first six months in the NICU, to the three years of physical, occupational, speech and developmental therapy, to the next two of Early Start, and now on to kindergarten. My girl is now indistinguishable from any other kindergartener (’cept perhaps with a little more savvy; she’s pretty slick), as long as her belly (and its telltale extensive surgical scars) isn’t showing. And yes, it is very much on my mind that my girl continue to make progress and not fall behind. She is at more risk of doing so than the average child. I’m doing my damnedest here, with very little in the way of resources.

Yet, there’s one “resource” I’ll never be without—the judgement of people like you.

Black people, if they grow up in an AAVE environment, need to learn General American English (or British English, or whatever the mainstream dialect of the region is) in order to make themselves understood to those who don’t speak the dialect, just as much as immigrants do.

That’s the opinion most people who understand this offer, and I’ve held it in the past myself, but the more I think about it, the less I like it.

One needs to understand the full consequences of this position: it officializes the linguistic disadvantage of African Americans in the USA. That is, if we officially acknowledge proficiency in standard English as a reasonable requirement both for middle-class children who speak it at home and their communities, and for children who speak AAVE, we are thereby requiring more of the African-American children to have access to the same benefits that the standard speakers get with less effort and education. Or to put it bluntly, it’s a racist policy.

Notice also that you’ve equated African-Americans with immigrants. This is an equivalence that the African-American community very strongly resents, because they perceive it casts them as second-class citizens. I can’t say I disagree with that.

Not, “Virtually all of them do need to.” but “Virtually all of them actually do.”

If you hadn’t brought up last nights “Wife Swap” I would have. I was transfixed by this man who thought God knows what about his local public school, and how completely he changed his mind after a tour. He even agreed that he’s discuss educating his kids there with his wife.

This echoes what another homeschooler I know thinks. I think homeschooling is a huge decision with huge implications for a kid- among other things you’re rejecting the community your kid lives in- but she based her decision on her belief that public schools won’t let kids wear crosses around thier necks. When I asked her where she heard such a thing, she said “dr. Laura.” She lived ina great district, and her daughter would have done very well there, I’m convinced.

Yet her misperception is not unlike other, less wingutty people’s, who haven’t been inside a school in decades. Liberal public school bashers tend to think that schools quash creativy or some such thing. I meet parents all the time who shop for schools, using some mysterious criteria I can’t discern. This is how I picked my daughter’s school: I moved to a safe neighborhood and I sent her to the nearest school. I know that every public school reflects the community it’s a part of, and I love my community. I have nothing but respect and admiration for her teachers, whom I regard as competent profesionals.