A Nation at Risk

This chapter reminds me of Jonathan Kozol’s Book Fire in the Ashes that we read last semester for Margaret’s class.  There are grave inequities that exist in our country’s education and even in schools that are in the same district or close proximity to other schools. 

The state of our economy in the 1980’s was a driving force which blamed the schools and in response “A Nation at Risk” was published.  This started the high stakes testing, opened the door for charter schools and competition for public schools.  Education took on the corporate model of success where people who were not educators were put in charge of school reform.  Success in an educational world is and should be founded on a higher set of values and cannot be measured in the same ways as in the corporate model.  

 I don’t know what percentage of students qualify for special education, but I do know that in Lapwai we have a higher number of students qualify than should according to the state or federal government.  This means we are put under scrutiny for qualifying “too many” students and the process to refer students must follow very specific protocols and be backed up by data, best practice interventions and clear documentation proving that our students are not making gains even with this additional support.  Ironically, there is no financial support to implement these interventions, the classroom teacher is expected to administer 30 minutes of intervention 3 times per week for 6 weeks.  I serve an at-risk student population in a high poverty school.  Every year it seems that we are facing budget cuts and losing support staff that we depend upon.  Our class sizes are increasing and it seems that an increasing number of students have behavioral, social, emotional or academic issues that interfere with their learning.  We are in school improvement and are expected to do more with less money.  I don’t think our school has been given any money even though we have a turnaround plan.  We do have a capacity builder that I believe is funded by the state.  

I wonder how education could be made equal.  Small districts with the same funding could not offer the same courses as larger districts.  My husband was just talking today to a friend of ours who is a principal in a small rural school and her biggest challenge is finding qualified applicants.  The applicants she got for teaching positions for this year were so bad she would rather go without teachers for them.  Teachers new to her school start out at a low wage and she can’t hire qualified applicants, so money for staff would definitely help her.  She feels like the ability to hire quality staff is the best investment the government could make in the quality of education for her students.  I feel like we have high quality staff in Lapwai, but could really use more support staff to help our students, especially a counselor or social worker.  I feel we are offering our children a high quality education, but have students whose basic needs are not met.  This directly affects their ability to benefit from their education.  Until students have their basic needs met of what value is their education?  I am hopeful it can help them rise above the poverty, neglect or abuse they grow up in.  Children are resilient, but they deserve high quality teachers and to have safe, adequate facilities to learn in.