The member I mentioned last week was not the only local member running for office.
Just as he lost his race for the Oregon senate, there was another member running for the Oregon house, as a sort of a sequel to his failed run for the Hillsboro school board.
I am thinking about that more because of seeing the complaints of yet another church member regarding the schools, and how bad they are and how we needed his leadership.
There were some missing points that I feel need to be addressed.
The member had a long litany of grievances when pressed. They included the lack of deadlines on assignments or penalties for turning work in late, the ability to retake tests, the use of sentence frames, and a lack of constructive feedback. In addition, she was upset about the lack of gifted programs in middle school, complained that answers were given during the lessons, and while it was not brought up in her original complaint, when someone else mentioned the lack of family values, she heartily agreed.
Let me just start by saying that some of the complaints don't make a lot of sense. For example, on the one about the teacher giving the answers during class, meaning instruction? The complaints relating to tests and homework would indicate that something has to be done with the instruction later. Is the concern that there should be more mystery? More things that need to be solved via lengthy homework? Because they are finding that is not beneficial for students.
https://news.stanford.edu/2014/03/10/too-much-homework-031014/
Clearly there is a concern that the work is too easy, with the sentence frames being a part of that, but sentence frames are prompts, often used to guide longer writing. If there are truly students that are weak on grammar and sentence structure, those prompts might help them without damaging the students who are stronger. I am not sure that is a real problem.
There was definitely a concern that the work is too easy, and this will result in students who don't know how to work, but I can guarantee this is not true for at least two of the complaints. If you get all of the assignments turned in by the end of the year, having procrastinated or been distracted by personal issues or only recently becoming engaged by the teacher, I assure you that getting that all caught up will not be easy. It will take a lot of effort and it shows motivation.
In addition, if after having done badly on a test you understand where you went wrong and want to try again, that is not a bad thing. It is more work, not less work.
It is not even unprofessional. I had just read a post from a college instructor on making all deadlines flexible. It worked great, and commenters likened it to their office experiences:
https://twitter.com/margosteines/status/1590074378443948033?
All in all, these things seem downright humane, giving students who struggle a change to overcome those struggles.
Of course, this parent has a child who is brilliant, and being held back by not getting specific feedback on her good work and not being able to participate in gifted programs.
As a participant in gifted programs, I don't remember them doing much. I do know that they are really effective at hoarding resources to the students who are already better off.
https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-what-research-tells-us-about-gifted-education/
https://nypost.com/2021/10/28/schools-debate-gifted-and-talented-programs-racist/
The racism correlations are interesting, in that they are more popular in the South, and that is not where the highest overall test scores are.
So, let's talk about those family values.
I posted a LOT about those school board elections (11 posts, first one at https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2021/05/2021-school-board-elections-quick.html). I remember their values clearly:
No teaching of critical race theory (which really means any acknowledgment of the presence of racism or judgment against it)
No affirmation of differences in gender and sexuality (which would also tend to support that historic prompt to academic greatness: bullying!)
Sure, they might have said that those other values were taking away from real teaching time, but the only strategy for greater academic rigor was leaving poor kids behind. To be fair, that could have easily incorporated gifted programs.
I think about ways to facilitate learning all the time, just as a matter of personal passion; I really care about this.
But if you mainly want school to be about affirming that your child is special, you should be supporting a tax level that allows for a lower student-to-teacher ratio. If you think your child is that much more special than all of the others, that may be appropriate in a parent but cannot be for the teachers.
One other things... I have not given any names here. I assume the failed (thankfully) political candidates are easy to identify and am fine with that, and have some concerns that the complaining private citizen might be identifiable. And yet, they end up being so much on script, I can't help but suspect there are other church members and parents saying the exact same things.
It's like the 40% of Beaverton school district students identifying as non-binary when the national average is only 10%. Neither of those numbers are right, and I don't think the person repeating them is deliberately lying, but someone was, and their communication methods appear to be effective.
Are sentence frames the new pronouns? Not yet, but that is even better! Because some of those twisted liberals who won't give in to the outright bigotry might still fall for academic concerns that just happen to be misguided.
It shouldn't even be surprising, then, that the misguided complaints happen to correspond with racism and capitalism. That was practically inevitable.
No comments:
Post a Comment