Public education, particularly Dallas ISD, has been a constant topic in our house since the start of the school year. This week, the conversation has been focused on "leveling."
For those who aren't going through this tedious process, I'll explain it briefly.
Leveling refers to a reduction in the number of teachers and personnel to correspond to the number of students. The process seems to be a bit more complex this year in DISD due to the consolidation of elementary schools (e.g. the closing of some campuses and the redistribution of the anticipated students to other campuses).
Where TheKiddo™ goes to school, they had anticipated 420 students, and only 360 enrolled. So for the first six weeks, we've known that some teacher would be leaving us. We just didn't know which ones, or when.
News is finally trickling out, and we should have confirmation tomorrow.
The upside of what we're hearing is that TheKiddo's teacher isn't one of the ones leaving. The downside is, we don't know if she'll be moved to another grade or not. So TheKiddo will have a bigger classroom because one of the teachers is being reassigned. We just don't yet know if she'll have a new teacher too. Regardless of the outcome, lots of students who should be well on their way to establishing routines, will have to start at the beginning.
It's terrible that we're days away from the end of the first marking period and we don't know. It proves to me that DISD isn't focused on the well being of the children. They're focused on the items that generate revenue: attendance, and test scores (particularly TAKS or STAAR, or whatever it has become).
The focus on these items is understandable. If that's where the money is, and that's what's being measured, then they're an obvious place to look. Yet it's the wrong outcome. Because these items don't necessarily have any causality for future success, preparation for college, or a students knowledge and ability to be a contributor to society.
By focusing on attendance and test scores, students are transformed from recipients into producers. They are no longer the end result, they are part of the machinery that is responsible for creating the end result: higher test scores.
If the students are constantly pushed to create better and higher test scores, they are not learning how to communicate clearly, think critically, and synthesize all the information being presented to them. They are merely focused on narrow analysis of specific pieces so that they can perform well when tested.
And if those producers don't create an end product that is of sufficient quality, they aren't fired and replaced as in a traditional workforce scenario. The result is far worse for them, for you, for us, for society as a whole. They are relegated to the dustbin of the unteachable. And that is an unconscionable outcome.
We must move from our industrial-age, analysis-over-synthesis view of the classroom and its result.
The synthesis is crucial. It's what helps students understand that geometry is important, beyond the boundaries of geometry class, for example. We need to rethink the priority, and begin treating the teachers and students as humans rather than resources.
I don't have the solutions. I do know we need to start looking in different places for them.
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