Education over the last several decades has gone through several paroxysms of change, all of them bringing education to the state it is in today. Essentially, non-congruence between increasing graduation rates and increasing grade point averages matched against lower proficiency, lower literacy and higher dropout rates from remedial education programs.
Also, the publicly acknowledged causes of teacher stress and attrition such as classroom and campus violence, classroom disruption and growing physical and emotional burnout.
As state and district administrations profess that they are addressing these concerns, the evidence appears to be contrary to the claim. No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top were educational initiatives that most teachers in general were not in agreement with.
Policies were changed, new regulations were adopted, “innovative” curriculum was introduced and the foundational concepts of student learning styles and teacher teaching styles were flushed down the toilet. Coupled with an emerging population of “techno” youth raised on functional reliance on the Internet, education has arrived at a point where the problems override the solutions.
This is one teacher’s experience over 40 years of working in the field, with international and national experience working with both American and third-world classrooms. In part criticism, in part an effort to draw attention to school failure and in the final part to develop a viable and proactive educational setting for my grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
Changes to the curriculum as new legislatures and policy makers emerge have placed parents in a position of not knowing how to assist their students with their homework. New math, Venn diagrams, the need for computer skills and no physical resources such as textbooks have placed parents at a disadvantage. Yet, parental apathy is voiced as one of the major reasons students are either a problem or aren’t learning in school.
The change from textbooks to Chromebooks and iPhones in the classroom denies many classroom staff the role of “teachers” and pivots to self-learning approaches by students.
Teachers are relegated to competing with Google in the classroom. Students rely on the veracity of Google information over teacher guidance. Teachers assume the role of policing students for correct tech use instead of maintaining control over the content.
It is this denigration of teachers that is one of the foremost reasons for classroom disruption, disrespect and lack of student investment in their learning.
Many of the proposed solutions to school failure are ineffectual and literally impractical. Higher salaries for teachers will not mitigate violence against the teachers, classroom disruption, low academic performance or campus violence.
Even as districts claim to have competitive pay and teacher unions call for more pay and more benefits, they are missing the point. The problems are social and civic in nature, not in the infrastructure. School violence, bullying, student abuse by teachers, teacher abuse of students and administrative apathy are not new problems. They are historical problems previously hidden under the guise of a limited information platform.
The Internet has served to expose these issues, bringing them into the light to be viewed by all, including the students at all grade levels. Yet, schools only pretend to address these issues in a modern way.
It is now 2025, and schools have lost control of today’s Glass Generation. Most of today’s adults are culturally incompetent relative to today’s youth.
Attempting to appear as problem solvers, legislative and social policies are changing. In districts where academic proficiency is low, boards elect not to handle that responsibility because they don’t know how, and they can’t admit it at the cost of their political careers.
School administrators move to change policies and claim efforts at staff support, despite the reality of their failures. They change policies because they have no clue how to successfully implement existing policies.
Legislation is erratic. Currently, there are new bills calling for the end of remedial education in community colleges. Instead of admitting that dropout rates from remedial education programs support a process of grade inflation in high schools, the blame is transferred to the students.
If high schools were successful, there would be no need for 13th grade—remedial education. Another bill wants to lower the standards for becoming a teacher, signed by the Governor. This supposed new recruitment strategy does not address the fact that new teachers will be entering the current toxic environment faced by current teachers.
Only the possibility of furthering low academic proficiency rates will increase.
Currently, Spanish-speaking LES/LEP (limited English speaking/limited English proficiency) students are enrolled in ESL (English as a second language) classes for an average of 2.5 years. Schools do not understand that language learning is a skill, not an academic endeavor. Yet, a local Assembly member authored a bill addressing categorization of LEP/LES students for placement, without addressing why they are retained for such long periods in ESL classrooms. The ESL programs are not working.
There is a solution. It does not involve districts throwing spears at teachers or their union, or the union shooting darts at district administrators and boards. Accept that in the year 2025, they are still unsure how to address denying our children a quality education.
Egotistical, self-driven, career-minded, arbitrary solutions will not work. If this does not change, in 10 years we will only be 10 years older. The solutions posed today will become obsolete under the hands of new policy makers and legislators.
Some community members have proposed solutions to the Fresno County Board of Supervisors (who claimed that education is not their responsibility), a local Assembly member (who has failed to respond despite calls, e-mails and a meeting), local school board trustees (who have simply disregarded our calls), a teachers union (which was gracious enough to allow us an audience), a district administration (which was condescending and patronizing from their high pedestals), local community organizations and the Democrats for Educational Reform (who simply buried their heads in the sand).
All of these entities work for the community. They are our employees. They should recognize that. They need the community, with parents who are smarter, more caring and more efficient than those in power. We are needed.
